[Don Jelinek was a SNCC organizer and LCDC attorney in Mississippi
and Alabama from 1965-1968.]
Bruce Hartford: So how did a nice guy like you get involved in civil rights? How did you get involved in the Movement?
Don Jelinek: I was then 31, I came down to Mississippi for my three-week summer vacation and stayed three years. I was then working on Wall Street . . .
Bruce: As a lawyer —
Don: As a lawyer. A lawyer friend from another firm had gone South in '64. And when he came back . . .
Bruce: When you say "gone South in '64," you mean for Freedom Summer?
Don: That's right, and when he came back from his three-week summer vacation work, he told me and other people what had gone on. I felt embarrassed because as between the two of us, I was supposed to be the "political" one. So, he connected me with ACLU; I called up and made arrangements to go the next summer: 1965.
Bruce: Summer of 65?
Don: Summer of 65. Once I decided to go, I told a number of my co-workers and the next thing I know, one of the Wall Street partners calls me into his office to tell me how well I am doing, that I was approaching partnership track, but that going South wouldn't sit well with a number of their clients. Not him personally, God forbid! — but the ACLU communist thing, he said, made things "not comfortable." He said, coincidently, that in that same time period that I would be away, they are going to have a partnership meeting, concerning new partners, and I might want to be available. He was coming on very forcefully. I said that as tempting as all that is, I couldn't possibly not go South after having committed myself to going. I made up stories about how ACLU had rejected other people to accept me; Yes, I would like to not go but I cannot back out at this late date.
Bruce: This is a year in advance?
Don: Well, I had set it up with ACLU nine months in advance and then, on the eve of the summer, called to confirm it; I started talking about it a few months in advance. Wall Street was not alone in wishing I would not go. My parents were unhappy that I was jeopardizing my lawyer position to "work for the colored who don't like Jews anyhow." My law school friends all thought I was crazy, and accused me of turning radical.
And so the day finally came and I sat in an airport, awaiting a plane that flew to Jackson, Mississippi. En route to Mississippi, where the prevailing civic and cultural activity seemed to be the lynching of blacks — and sympathetic outsiders like myself — I felt a twinge of madness. At New York's John F. Kennedy airport, on August 15, 1965, waiting for a flight South to serve a three-week stint as a volunteer civil rights lawyer, I was proud . . . but mostly I was frightened. Frightened because the bodies of three civil rights workers had been unearthed the previous summer, because three others had already been slain this year, because a civil rights lawyer had been shot at only a few months ago, but mostly because, to me, Mississippi was Nazi Germany with a Southern accent and I was a Jew voluntarily flying to the crematorium.
Frightened but proud. I was joining the beautiful struggle . . . and beautiful was the word of the day. The Civil Rights Movement was beautiful: young civil rights workers clad in workshirts and blue jeans courageously defending the black sharecropper, an ageless yet aged farmer; the saintly leader Martin Luther King, Jr., leading his people to the refrain of the civil rights anthem, "Black and White Together, We Shall Overcome!" America the Beautiful was united in combat against the evil of racism.
But the black rural South I was about to enter was not as I envisioned it that day safely seated in a New York airport. Three years later when I looked back upon it I could still say it was beautiful, even up close, even after the stereotypes and cliches were stripped away. Yet it was not beautiful in any way easily understood by a citified Northerner. During those three years, I was to discover and rediscover an alien world, no, two alien worlds: one, that of the black sharecropper, the other that of the civil rights worker — each in its own way fighting to overcome a caste system, conceived in slavery, reinforced by law and official acquiescence, and maintained by custom and violence.
The world of the black sharecropper, invisible to voter registrars and census takers, materialized for me in the form of families with as many as 18 children, living in wooden, dirt-floored shacks, the walls with gaping holes covered by newspapers and pictures of Jesus Christ, John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Freezing winters were relieved, if at all, by a pot-belly stove, the only source of heat as well as the sole implement for cooking. Sweltering summers were not relived at all. Medical care was virtually non-existent from birth to death, from no prenatal care to unattended demise. And medical care was desperately needed for nutritionally-starved adults and lethargic, malnourished children, the product of a diet of greens, cornbread, occasional pork parts drowned in thick gravy, Kool-Aid and coffee. From dawn to dusk the sharecroppers farmed, but at the end of the year, they were still in debt, with even less money for a decent home, decent food and minimal medical care the next year.
But despite (or because of?) the privation, the sharecroppers were wholesome, religious, caring people: caring, in fact, for large extended families including the babies of their children working in the North, and old folks who were never shuttled off to old-age homes. Serious crime and adultery were almost unknown, children were respectful of their elders, marriages didn't seem to break up, few farmers even cursed. Down to their last morsel (literally, their last), a sharecropper family would share their meal with another black family or a civil rights worker.
And the social rituals were striking. When I drove up to a sharecropper's home, introduced myself and offered a document for the farmer to sign, he would simply ignore my breach of basic friendliness and tell someone to run inside and "get this man some Kool-Aid." Then all the children would swarm around me as their elders asked questions: Where are you from? Do you have a family (meaning a wife and children)? What do you think of the South? Hot 'nuf for you? Have you seen so-and-so? Is this one out of jail? Has that one recovered from the beating? Isn't it horrible that another one was shot to death? Then neighbors would arrive and ask the same questions all over again. I would be expected to stay for dinner, play with the children (who intermittently searched for black skin under my whiteness) and probably stay overnight — why not? — since by then it was too late to see anyone else.
Representing the black farmer was a shock for a Wall Street lawyer accustomed to impersonal, professional relationships timed to the quarter hour. If Paul Revere had tried to warn black Mississippi, I thought to myself, he would have ridden up, shouted "The British are coming" and would still be at the first house talking about his silverware when the King's Men arrived.
Communication at first was nearly impossible. The black sharecropper would speak v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, forcing the visitor to grit his teeth to avoid interrupting and finishing the sentence; the words of the Northerner would be in the rhythm of a railroad train, roaring ahead, seemingly out of control — the speeded-up abbreviated speech patterns overwhelming to the rural listener. Adding to the confusion each speaker would add regional accents, drawls, colloquialisms and style — the latter a very serious matter since the white Northerner spoke with ironic humor, exaggeration and sarcasm, while the black Southerner, holding a very straightforward view of life, considered hyperbole a lie. A further complication was the tendency of some blacks, dating back to days of slavery, to tell the white man what it was thought he wanted to hear. To achieve even the semblance of communication, veteran civil rights workers were, at times, pressed into service as interpreters.
Even time and directions had their own language. Since few black sharecroppers used clocks or calendars, time was told by the sun (a few hours before sunrise, stop at midsun) or events (the day the candyman came, cotton choppin' week, the Sunday the Preacher came to town); directions depended upon nature (turn left at the big oak, then down a piece to the three cows — and there would be three cows!); and appointments were made by the week (Will you be in your office next week? Good, I'll be by).
Culture-shocked while adjusting to the sharecropper, the Northern newcomer simultaneously encountered the world of the civil rights worker, a separate society with its own culture and rules for every moment of the day. Emulating the sharecropper, the civil rights workers dressed in overalls, workshirts and boots, and spoke a bastardized Negro language, saying things like, "The Peoples have a right to reddish to vote." Every black was referred to by the honorific "Mr." or "Mrs.", while civil rights workers, no matter what age, were called by their first names; the Southern white tradition of humiliating a black by calling him "boy" or by his first name (which had the same connotation), led civil rights workers to reverse the tradition in the extreme. And there was always the dilemma of how to refer to the former slaves: to the local whites the term was "Nigger," or, if they were progressive, "Nigra"; to the subjects themselves it was "Colored"; and to civil rights workers it was "Negro," with "Black" yet to come.
And how was one to deal with the exasperatingly endless acronyms of civil rights organizations: COFO, CORE, MFDP, NAACP, SNCC? Many a prosecutor regretted asking my clients, merely attempting to establish the outsider as a civil rights worker: "Aren't you with the N double A CP?" A wrinkle would creep up the brow of the witness as he began to explain that he had come down with COFO, joined SNCC, is at times attached to MFDP, but mostly just "works for the Peoples."
Distinguishing the civil rights workers from any other group of Americans was the need for rules to stay alive. Because civil rights was warfare, a breach could mean death for the rule-breaker, death for those nearby, and a whipping up of the bloodlust of racist whites. Even the savage Klan, the Movement believed, found it difficult to kill in cold blood. They needed — craved! — provocation; the Movement's avoidance of that provocation was credited with the relatively few civil rights deaths in a society where whites could kill with virtual impunity. To avoid provocation, there were the rules of nonviolence (If cursed, do not curse back; if pushed, do not push back; if struck, do not strike back) and the rules of behavior and dress (Avoid bizarre or controversial behavior. No face hair. Be neat). To remain alive in communities where the mere presence of the civil rights worker was a provocation, one had to follow the rules of survival:
--and many more rules.
Bruce: You know, to this day I still disable the dome light on every car I drive so it doesn't light up when I open the door.
Don: The death toll was kept low by following these rules. When a civil rights worker was killed, injured or placed in danger, it was often because he or she had broken a rule.
I learned most of the rules from one civil rights worker — including the rule that saved my life:
BE CAPABLE OF DRIVING AT 50 TO 60 MPH ON WINDING DIRT ROADS WHILE JIGGLING THE WHEEL TO CREATE A DUST CURTAIN BEHIND
Shelby, 25, a black native of Mississippi and a veteran civil rights worker, taught me how to drive Movement-style. Each morning at 5 am, he would conduct classes.
"Remember," he would instruct, "these are dirt roads which the Man rarely uses. He don't know them. You will. There is more traction on them, and you can make sharper turns than you or he would imagine." Then he would execute a screeching turn as I alternately cursed and prayed.
"Now you do it!" he would say. "DON'T GRIP THE WHEEL, no, faster! turn on two wheels, turn, TURN! O.K. Enough for today."
I would be shaking. Shaking but pleased that I could execute a turn at 45 mph, and excited that Shelby thought I would ever need this dubious skill.
When I broke one of the rules
and took a shortcut to save time, driving Movement-style saved my life. Within moments of driving my vehicle through the off-limits community, I was spotted by three whites who immediately jumped into a pickup truck, with rifles in racks across the rear window. The chase began . . . Bruce, I'll discuss this later, in context.
The worlds of the black sharecropper and the civil rights worker would fuse in the year-long drives for voter registration, school integration and other civil rights goals. Organizing would be done in the open, sometimes in the Plantation Owner's cotton fields, other times at public church meetings, often on public roads — and, in small rural communities, everyone knew everything that occurred. The sharecropper who listened, who gave a civil rights worker a bed to sleep in and/or food to eat, would be known to the merchant, the police chief and the Klan. The price was high and those who crossed that line could never return. Never have I known such courage.
Finally boarding a Delta flight to the capital city of Jackson, I remember my image that I would step off the plane into swamp. Also, in those days I was suffering from back problems and I wore a back girdle. I strapped it extra tight. You know, protection when they hit me. Then the plane landed.
A civil rights worker spotted me at the airport and said, "Are you Jelinek?" I said, "Who are y'all?" Trying to protect myself. He laughed, thinking I was just kidding. He drove me to North Farish Street and took me up to the ACLU office. And by this time, I was really glad I came. Really enjoying it.
I loved Steven's Kitchen across the street, where civil rights workers ate, related their experiences and relaxed together. At this point, I am not sure I had ever heard of SNCC, or knew that it was a separate organization: I thought there was Dr. King and that was it. Then I met the SNCC people and really liked them. So while the lawyers would hang out together, I would hang out with SNCC and attracted negative notice among the lawyers, who started telling me that "You really don't want to spend too much time with them. They are impossible, just lawbreakers, and they thrive on it. No discipline, all us lawyers forever wasting time getting them out of trouble, when we have bigger things, integration things, to be doing." I didn't stop "hangin" with SNCC but I was more discreet about it.
And then a case came my way: a young civil rights woman with a community group picketing "Piggly Wiggly" — a grocery chain. While some white guys were hassling them, one pushed her and she lost her balance and brushed against him with a sign. So they arrested her for assault. That was my case.
Bruce: And this is in Jackson.
Don: Right, this is a baby case, a case only worthy for somebody as new as I am.
Bruce: Right, a short timer.
Don: We had the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which took mostly matters that had momentous consequences. Then there was the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, known as the "President's Committee?" Formed by President Kennedy because of embarrassment about Southern racism, seen by the emerging African nations. A high prestige group, they — primarily — represent civil rights leaders, Ministers, and other higher ups. Then there is us, the Lawyer Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC) of the ACLU. ACLU's role was to take care of the "little people," such as this community organization, so they give me the case. The difference between me and most of the others in ACLU was that I was coming from a high-powered law firm in New York. The others had been mostly operating small offices, like I have now.
Bruce: I thought LCDC was independent. I thought ACLU was different.
Don: No, no, LCDC was ACLU's civil rights wing.
Bruce: So LCDC was a subset of ACLU.
Don: Yes. Its formal name was the Lawyer's Constitutional Defense Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Bruce: And the LCRC, the Lawyer's Constitutional Right's Committee, was the one Kennedy set up.
Don: Lawyer's Committee for Civil Right's Under Law.
Bruce: Okay, alright. You know back in the day, you needed a f****** program for the acronyms.
Don: You sure did. So, back to the case. There were 20 demonstrators on the line.
Bruce: On the picket line?
Don: On the picket line. So I bring all 20 to the office. I am getting straightened out who was standing where, who saw what — doing this whole Wall Street-type exhaustive preparation. But the ACLU lawyers are really annoyed, in part because ACLU doesn't have that much space in their offices, plus the noise, but mostly it was what they called "the silliness of it, since you can't win anyhow." They are really heckling me though I keep on doing the interviews but they are annoying me so much that I stop working out of the office. SNCC has a place and we work there and get it down nice and pat, until we are ready. Comes the day of trial, I started going up . . . You've seen the courthouse?
Bruce: No, I was never at the Jackson Courthouse. I never spent much time in Jackson.
Don: Well, it is a really massive, beautiful, beautiful, courthouse. Many, many, steps. So there I am with my young group. I am 31; they are all late teens, or early twenties.
Bruce: They were probably from the North Jackson NAACP youth group. Is that who they were?
Don: I don't think I ever knew. We start walking up the steps of the courthouse and we see police with rifles running up the steps ahead of us and one state trooper, his rifle held with military precision across his chest, standing directly in our path. My client frantically whispered to me that this had never before happened on the way to court. Mustering my deepest voice to mask my fear, the state trooper now a mere five paces ahead of me, I demanded to know why he was blocking a lawyer entering a courthouse in the United States of America.
Bruce: They had rifles, not clubs?
Don: The people who do courts use rifles. I'm trying to do my New York macho thing. But it appeared the trooper in front of us was frightened also; he is very young, very nervous. He says, "You can go, sir, but we don't want these demonstrators . . . " "They are not demonstrators," I said. "They are my witnesses." He says, "Really?" I said, "Really." Remembering this great respect for lawyers, I say, "I guarantee it. Everyone of them is going to testify. They are witnesses." The Troopers have a conference and decide it's okay.
Well, I made a big hit with my group, having gotten past this first obstacle. And so we go into the courtroom and see the judge already on the bench, seated between flags of the State of Mississippi and the Confederacy. If there was a United States flag, I didn't see it. They call our case and the "victim-thug" testifies about how he was struck by her. And then she testifies that he pushed her, and so on. Next I start calling the first of the 19 witnesses. The judge looks at the size of the group and he says, "Are they all going to testify to the same thing this girl did?" I say, "Yes, your honor." The Judge grunts, "Very well, Not Guilty. Pick up your bail money at the clerk's office. Next case."
In hindsight, I believe he did it because the case was going to take so long — or perhaps to reward the naive lawyer who took his court seriously enough to bring 20 witnesses to a Southern civil rights trial. The client and witnesses are awed. You don't win cases here.
Bruce: Not in Jackson in '65.
Don: I don't think I won one for a year after that. So my witnesses leave and do the civil rights troubadour thing, telling everyone what happened. As they go to trumpet the result, while the client goes with me to the ACLU office.
The lawyers start to heckle me immediately, which is really getting on my nerves. And they say, "Well, congratulations, nice to see she is not in jail." I get really annoyed and I say, "Oh, yes, she's free," as I pull out the bail money in $10's and $20's, thumbing through them like a Las Vegas teller and ask innocently, "What do I do with the bail money?"
"What do mean 'What do you do with the bail money?'" someone says. The client says, "I was dismissed." I say, "No, the case was dismissed, you were acquitted." And they say, "Acquitted? That never happens."
Then they start a discussion about the significance of the acquittal — ignoring my role — and what it might mean about new Southern attitudes. So I leave and go outside. From this case, I develop some minor stature and, you know, SNCC is an organization which is really an "us" and "them." And "them" are the ones who aren't staying long in the South. But I kind of got a little closer because of the victory. And so now I am invited to parties, and I'm spending even more time with SNCC; at the same time they are saying nice things about me, which is spreading up to the Boss of Mississippi ACLU
Bruce: Uh oh.
Don: The Boss is really not feeling good about me and I even overheard him asking somebody how much longer I was going to be there. He calls for me and says. "I got a case for you in Holly Springs," which is about as far from Jackson as you can get . . .
Bruce: . . . without leaving Mississippi.
Don: That's right. And that will take care of the week I have left. So, I say goodbye to the SNCC people, figuring I won't be seeing them again. Somebody says we got somebody going up in that area. He's a divinity student. "Could you give him a lift?" I said, "Sure."
A guy named Peter came by the next morning and we drove up, having a grand time talking. Finally he says, "Alright, turn off here." That day I learned "Colored Geography." When the pavement ends, the colored man's dirt road and world begin. As my car hit the soil for the first time, the red dust splattered over everything from shoes to nostrils. Even closed car windows couldn't keep it out.
I asked, "Exactly where are we going?" He says, "I know where it is but I always get the name wrong: 'Okahola' or 'Okalona,' one of those Indian names." The names sounded familiar. Is one of them off limits? Where nobody goes anymore. Probably the other one.
We drive in and he introduces me to the workers. Now these are not SNCC workers, this is a Christian something or other, made up of very dedicated people. And they are all excited to see me because I am a lawyer. And they say, we never get lawyers up here, because — and they name my Boss — and then they stop in the middle of the sentence. Yes, this is probably the county he talked about. But what's the difference. I'm just dropping Peter off.
Then one of the Christians tells me, "We have a case coming up in a few days involving the black sharecropper leader." I said "It doesn't matter, because I got this case in the Holly Springs, very important. I haven't got the time." And mostly I want to get out of there. They say, "Well, at least you should meet him [the leader]." A trick I now know but didn't know then. The thing never to do.
Bruce: Yeah, definitely.
Don: So I go to his place and he is the first sharecropper I've met. This is first cotton I have seen. I hadn't been out of Jackson.
Bruce: You're in the Delta now.
Don: I am overwhelmed by the poverty I had not seen in the capital city of Jackson. I view a shack with no running water (just a pump), not even an outhouse (discreet bushes 50 yards away), no electricity, holes in cardboard-thin walls, a pot-belly stove for heat and cooking, and a large porcelain basin to squat in for bathing.
Then I see the children and hold back tears: open scabs and sores, flies sucking at the wounds, the children too listless to interfere, with distended stomachs I had only seen in newsreels of the starving youth of underdeveloped nations.
I shake hands with the local leader, he invites me in and feeds me. He never says a word about his case. Not a word. Just talking about me, life in New York, and what not. And then I say, "I'll represent you." He never even asked. I said, "I'll come back on the way from Holly Springs." I found out when the case is and I say the Boss must never find out. Everybody agrees.
I double back to the highway, then head north, then west a short way. I am driving through Oxford, home of writer William Faulkner and the seat of the University of Mississippi, which a few years earlier had been integrated by a black student, James Meredith, with the assistance of the federalized National Guard and the U.S. Army. Resisting the temptation to sightsee, I continue due north to my destination: Holly Springs, a sleepy Southern community where blacks work the Man's place on shares, and maybe earn a bit off season in nearby Memphis, Tennessee. Holly Springs is also headquarters for the North Mississippi Civil Rights Movement.
Late because of Peter, I meet Aviva Futorian for the first time. She is sitting on the porch of the Freedom House; atop its second floor I see a huge poster of black and white hands united across signs proclaiming "SNCC" and "MFDP." She's angry at me. She coolly explains that one of the reasons punctuality rules existed was to spare those waiting the need to wonder if you were dead. I apologized. Aviva then relaxed, asked about my background, and, of course, how long I was staying.
Next I met Rita and Sid Walker, who are just wonderful and they invite me to stay in the Freedom House that night. Rita was a gracious, lovely person and made me feel very much at home. She and Sid made sure I was introduced to everybody. Treated me, just treated me real well. And, I liked Sid, I liked all of them.
The next morning I stoutly demand: "Give me a large breakfast so I'll have enough energy for my one line in court today." Everyone laughed. This was a famous case. The local Movement newspaper, the Benton County Freedom Train, had called the black principal an "Uncle Tom." And he sued for libel. Of course, the famous Times v. Sullivan case [no libel against a public figure without malice] was already in effect — but that didn't stop the jury which awarded a great deal of money against Aviva and 10 local black leaders. And a few of them, particularly leader Henry Reeves, had something to lose.
Bruce: As did Aviva's parents.
Don: The case would eventually be won. A talented Harvard professor had tried the case and laid the groundwork for a successful appeal. But under Mississippi law — and many other places — in order to appeal you have to first move for a new trial. And the reason you do that is so the judge could — theoretically — decide he was wrong. I was there to simply say "We move for a new trial!" The judge will say "denied" and then we win on appeal.
That morning in court, after graciously welcoming me, the Judge fired his first volley: "I fear, Mr. Jelinek, that I am not permitted to allow you to appear before me in this case no matter how much I would like to. You see, we allowed Mr. Bronstein and a distinguished gentleman from Harvard to defend this case without a license to practice law in our state, and we extend the same courtesy to you. But, only they are the lawyers in this case, and only they can participate unless you have their written authorization."
I had no written authorization, no one had thought of it, nor had such authorization ever been requested before. One civil rights lawyer replaced another all the time. Although the Judge was technically right, it was a technicality only applied to a civil rights advocate.
Bruce: Clever.
Don: "Could Mr. Bronstein authorize me by phone?" I asked, without hope. "No," said the Judge, mock apologetically. Fearing he wouldn't recognize Mr. Bronstein's voice, the Judge noted, (to the delight of the other lawyers) his problem distinguishing Northern voices. "You can have until the end of the court day" (three more hours and it was a four-hour drive from Jackson), the Judge offered, "to do something, or I fear I cannot hear or allow the Motion for a New Trial." With that disallowal would go the chance to appeal the verdict and save someone's tractor, someone else's cows, and the Benton County Movement. Panicking, I thanked the Judge for the three hours and stumbled out of the courtroom.
Some of the clients assumed the problem was my fault; a more experienced lawyer wouldn't have allowed this mess. I call the Boss and he seems to blame me also. He is really upset. This is terrible. He talks about chartering a plane, but the clock is ticking. And sitting outside on a bench, all the sharecroppers are facing me, looking at me. They don't totally understand what is happening but they know it's something bad. I am trying to calm myself down. I'm also very upset.
I start to think about lawyering in New York. The law, I had learned in the Big City, was a game in which you fudged a bit, sometimes stretched a point, or even cheated a little. The other side did the same and the smarter one triumphed. Today I was the smarter one. As I smiled to myself, I must have looked like a cartoon strip character with the light bulb going on over his head. Lunging for my briefcase and then walking quickly to where my clients huddled, I pulled out the legal papers with the title of the case (which named each client) and began calling roll. Each litigant answered "Here," none daring to defy the crazy lawyer who seemed to know what he was doing. "Ah hah! Everyone's here!" I exclaimed, and then laughed again; a few weakly laughed with me.
"Since you are all here," I now explain, "all you have to do is fire the other lawyers and switch me as your lawyer. Then I'll file the motion in my name." With a roar of approval from the clients, we storm into the courtroom.
As the judge saw me, he knew I had figured out a way to undo the problem. He could tell. I told him what we planned to do and he told me it wasn't necessary to fire the other lawyers; as a courtesy, he would allow me to appear and speak my magic words. I do and the day is saved. So now I tell Aviva to call my Boss and tell him the problem is over. She says, "Why aren't you calling him?" I say, "Well, I am stopping off somewhere along the way and I don't want to have to discuss it with him. So you call and say I just drove off."
"You sort of like this civil rights stuff, don't you?" she said. I nodded. "Not just the lawyer part," she added. And I say, "Yeah, I really do." "When you finish your time at ACLU," she says, "why don't you come back and stay a week? Work with us as a real civil rights worker."
Bruce: Wily woman, she.
Don: "Replace your suit with overalls," she says. "See what it is really like." And then she adds the clincher; I'm easy to read: "Of course, it's more dangerous then when you are a lawyer wearing a suit." She knew she had me and I said, "I'll think about it."
So I drive south to my next stop, still hearing the praise of Benton County in my mind. I get there after dark. The problem is they don't have any numbers on the doors. There are also no street lights, although I could have sworn there was a street light when I was last here. So I drive around to three or four potentials. It's very hot and I got the windows open. I pull into a makeshift driveway, tap the horn lightly and slide down into my seat to wait.
"DON'T MOVE!" a voice commands, as rifles are thrust through the side windows of my car. I don't move but whisper, "It's me, Jelinek?" my voice rises in a singsong, "the lawyer?"
A pause, then nervous laughter. "Sorry, Mr. Jerinekel, we didn't recognize you in the dark. You do have (snicker) very short hair (and a round Southern-type face, they gallantly left out) and we're expecting some trouble. C'mon in, we'll hide your car."
While they all laugh, my heart's pumping like crazy. And they say, "There's been a bit of a problem. They (the terrifying 'they') shot out the mercury light," the street light I was looking for. I ask, "Who is 'they' and why'd they shoot it out?" "It's the Klan and they shot it out because they found out that a civil rights lawyer is coming to court tomorrow."
I could guess some big mouth in this room showed off and alerted them. "They said they are coming back tonight. We tried to call you in Holly Springs to tell you not to come in till morning. But now you are safer here than leaving. We are going to put you in a back house. Sort of a wrecked house that nobody ever uses and they won't even know you are there . . . if they come; then if anything happens to us, you'll still be okay." I am thinking to myself, Yeah, right, you'll all be killed and I'll just drive in by myself tomorrow for the case. Yeah, right, great plan, but actually being hidden in the back house didn't make me feel so bad. So, I am in the back house, and I am remembering that I heard in Jackson from the lawyers that "civil rights workers are always buckling on their armor, always talking a good war, making most of it up."
Bruce: Wait, wait a minute, you said that to them?
Don Jelinek No, no. It was the lawyers in Jackson who said to me that you can't take them seriously; they are always bragging about danger.
Bruce: Right.
Don: And just about the moment I had that thought, a ritualistic gun duel begins. Shots ring out and I can tell the shots are coming at the house in the front and from the house. At least it sounded that way to me. (Later I learned both sides were shooting high.)
It goes on for seconds, or minutes, I don't know. But, I am terrified. And then the shooting stops. The Christians could all be dead and now the Klan is coming for me. They have seen the extra car. They are coming around. Then I am hearing things, freaking out. I look out the window and I see white sheets: it's either laundry or the Klan. There is a broomstick in the room, and I am holding it as my weapon. I lie down on the bed — springs, no mattress, as quietly as I can, about as frightened as I have ever been. I began what became my danger-mantra: If I survive tonight, I am going to drive right to the Memphis Airport — sorry guys, I got work to do in New York. This is crazy. Why am I doing this to myself? I think I then blacked out. You know, hyper-ventilating.
And the next thing I know it's the morning and one of the Christians is waking me up and . . . and I felt so good. Even though no one had shot at me, I felt heroic. I just felt wonderful — embarrassingly wonderful.
So I go inside with the Christians, have breakfast and we drive into town. I learn that the entire case involves my client purchasing something defective from a merchant. And my client wants to return it and get his money back. No black has ever challenged anyone before in this town. Even without a lawyer, he was going to do it himself, I mean, amazingly daring. And so we drive into town and I look for a courthouse. But what I see are a bunch of people on a porch.
I stop near the porch and somebody points out the judge. Of course, the judge is the town used-car salesman, because the circuit riding (real) judges only come every so often; in the interim, a non-lawyer, Justice of the Peace handles minor matters. The judge asks if I am ready. "Yes, I am, sir." And he says, "I hope you don't mind if we have the trial out of doors because it's very hot inside, not fancy like in your New York." (I used to wonder how they all knew I was from New York, but eventually I realized they just assumed everybody was from New York.) I respond, ingratiatingly, "New York is very stuffy, the courthouses are terrible there, it's much nicer here out in the air."
"Where will we hold the trial?" My question sets off some snickering among the deputies until one, with apoplectic laughter, manages to sputter: "We . . . usually use the space under that tree . . . over there . . . in case there be a hangin'." At this all the deputies explode with laughter. I inform the "judge" that the tree would be fine with me.
Although — to say the least — I'm apprehensive, I say, "Who is the merchant?" They point him out and I walk over to him and say, "This product (whatever it was) doesn't work, I'm sure you don't want to sell things that don't work." I am ignoring the civil rights aspect of all this. "Why don't you give him a new one or take 75 cents off?" or something like that. In no time at all he gives a discount. There is great surprise. The case is over and most depart.
The merchant, now the Southern gentleman, invites Peter and I to his store "for a cold bottle of pop to get the dust out of your throats." This was exactly the brotherhood that divinity student Peter was waiting for, so he accepts for us and I follow behind. As soon as we enter the store, which is directly opposite the "courthouse," the merchant's mood transforms into fierce belligerence. "Why didn't you stay and work in Watts and Harlem," he bellows. "How would you like your daughter to marry one? What about the Communists behind all of this?" His face is crimson as he challenges us.
Outside the window, I can see white toughs surrounding my car. In a day of folly, I had hit my peak. I turn to the merchant, not having answered any of his rhetorical questions, thank him for the pop and say I'd like to continue our conversation. Would he walk us to the car so we could exchange a few more words? He garbled something and walked out the door with us while I kept up a harmless Watts-Harlem discussion. As I hoped, the sea of toughs parted on the driver's side as he walked with us. Peter and I both enter the car. Promising to visit him again, we drive off.
Bruce: Now the divinity student is with you?
Don: Yes, and, in fact, he entered the car through the driver's side, because you don't want to walk around the other side where those guys are. We drive off to Jackson, where the Boss finds out and roars at me: "You've been nothing but a problem since you got here, just leave!" I tell him, "I am leaving Jackson, but to become a civil rights worker in Holly Springs." He says "No, you're not!" I respond, "I'm sorry, but I don't work for you any more. I can do what I want with my time." And he says, "That's not true," as he calms down a little bit. He adds, "Anything that happens to you, such as getting arrested, could jeopardize the fragile relationships between civil rights lawyers and the Southern Bar." I scoff at the prospect of being arrested. Then he offers a compromise: I can spend my week with Aviva if I wear a suit and tie the whole time. The Boss' intuition never ceased to amaze me. Realizing that I wanted to play civil rights worker, he knew that wearing my suit would keep me a lawyer and block my entry to the jean-clad army. I gave my word.
Later that day, as I telephone Aviva to say I'm coming, I imagine the Boss telephoning ACLU in New York, yelling: ". . . and don't ever send that schmuck to Mississippi again!" As I picture him in his animated monologue, I picture myself putting on coveralls and joining the Movement.
A SNCC guy who was going up to Holly Springs took me along, acting as both my guide and historian, as he told me about his years in the Movement. We found Aviva and she took me in her car, as I become a civil rights worker — at least for one week.
Bruce: Now this is in Benton County or Holly Springs?
Don: In Benton County. I'm not used to anybody knowing Benton County, so I always call it "Holly Springs," the famous city, part of Marshall County, and next door to little Benton County. Aviva got me a nice place to stay, where the people had better accommodations than most, though not running water. Then she started introducing me around. Now, she tells me that my main job is to get 20 signatures for the Voting Rights Act. And I thought that should be easy.
Bruce: What do you mean?
Don: Under the Voting Rights Act (passed that year), when a community has a high population of blacks with few allowed to register to vote, when they get 20 signatures asking that the voting rights registrar be sent to that community . . .
Bruce: Right, then the federal registrar is sent. So, by now, this has got to be August . . .
Don: September. And apparently Registrars hadn't been sent hardly anywhere yet, because the Act was so new.
Bruce: We never had it in Crenshaw County when I was there. We didn't even know about that 20 signatures thing.
Don: Well, Aviva knew her stuff. And so I start doing it. I'm amazed at how long it takes to get a signature, because everybody wants to talk. And so do I. I meet my first family, which is the Steward's. So there's the Steward's, their kids and the grandmother. We talked for a number of hours. That's the first day I was picking cotton. I'm wearing my suit, as I've just driven up . . .
Bruce: You were picking cotton in your suit?
Don: No, no, no, no, no. I'm meeting them in my suit. And one of the kids asks me to pick cotton with them. And the grandma says, "How can he pick cotton wearing a suit?" And I said, "I have my work clothes in my briefcase." They thought that was very funny. So I put on my work clothes and spend the rest of the morning picking cotton with them, although most of what I claimed to have picked was put in my sack by the children. But my back was hurting real bad and I thought I would pass out from the sun.
"Hot 'nuf for you?" I was constantly asked with sly grins. Periodically, the grandmother answered for me that this 110 degree torture "could singe the eyebrows offa yuh." I agreed. After two hours I was almost faint, but I kept working, now sitting on the ground, with limited access to the plant. When they stopped after three-and-a-half hours, my sack contained enough to earn me about $1.25.
Finally, we go in for lunch. I sit down in a rocking chair and the next thing I know it's dark. They're back from the field. I hadn't eaten. I just fell asleep in the chair, fortuitously, having missed the second round in the cotton fields. So by now it's getting late, Aviva hasn't shown up, so I stay over, and Aviva picks me up the next morning. She says at this rate, I'll never finish. "But, at least you got three signatures," she says. "Oops," I say, "I forgot to ask them to sign."
Well, later that week there is a church meeting, and Aviva asks me to speak. I paraphrase something from the Bible which is rather well received. And I am just loving everybody. And it's really getting under my skin now. I hadn't wanted to come South, now I don't want to leave. But I have to.
Bruce: Why do you have to leave?
Don: Because I'm a professional, I work on Wall Street, I have a career, money to earn, you know, a life.
And so, as the week comes to an end, Aviva says to me, "Are you really going to leave without having gotten the 20 signatures?" Of course — not being totally stupid — I'm starting to realize that Aviva could have gotten the 20 signatures in about an hour. I'd already sent one telegram to Wall Street about finishing up an important case, and now I send the second one that I'm still in this big case, but I'll definitely be back by the end of this week. The second week was a continuation of the first, except something really dramatic happens. The "Uncle Tom" libel case struck again.
I'm visiting Henry Reeves, which is something we all did very often because we really liked and admired him . . . and he had one of the only showers in the county. I'm in the shower when his son, Sonny, runs to me and says, "Come quick, quick, the sheriff is here." So I pull on my clothing and run outside. The Sheriff tells me that something wasn't done in the "Uncle Tom" case, that as a result, they have the right to enforce their judgment, and so they're literally taking away his cows and everything he has.
Mustering my New York lawyer bravado, I look him in the eye and say, with the wrath of the righteous: "Listen carefully to me, Sheriff. Remove the stuff then, but take good care of it because you'll be bringing it back by the end of the week." The sheriff smiled, loaded the cows into his van, attached the tractor to the rear and drove off as Mr. Reeves joined the poor of Benton County.
Aviva told me that was one of the best things that I did up there, just standing up to him with those words.
I quickly called Jackson, the Boss was appalled, but it was a small problem — an appeal bond due on a Saturday when the courts are closed, was filed on a Monday when the courts were open — an issue quickly resolved in our favor. In a couple days the cows are back, and most erroneously assume that it's because of me.
Finally I got my 20th signature and the federal man will one day be coming to register the blacks of Benton County. While I was searching for Aviva to tell her my good news, she was waiting for me, to tell me her bad news: Aviva, who had been in Mississippi for over two years, had decided to leave and return home.
Leaving the Deep South for veteran civil rights workers ranked with the death of a loved one as one of life's most grievous moments. Yet the time came for almost everyone in the Movement when the urge to return to normalcy rendered civil rights work unpalatable, and the impulse to leave, uncontrollable.
Such was the state of Aviva the day I received my last signature. "I must leave. I have friends and relatives to be with," said a teary Aviva. "And I want to go to graduate school, maybe get married. I need . . . I need to live a normal life."
My mind was racing. It was not empathy for Aviva but fear that with the departure of my mentor I too would have to leave, although ostensibly I was leaving in a few days anyhow.
"I feel terrible," said Aviva. "I love them all and I won't be here when the schools integrate, I won't be here when the federal registrar comes, but I have to go and . . ."
She paused and stared at me. Here it comes, I feared . . . "and you have to leave with me!" ". . . and I want you to replace me," she said, instead.
The momentary joy that I could stay vanished instantly, replaced by momentary terror. Stay alone? Though I inwardly balked at first, in the next instant I was cautiously euphoric.
"I accept, but," I emphasized the escape clause I was about to propound, "but only on a week-to-week basis. Meaning (the lawyer added a definition clause) I might quit after the first week."
Bruce: Now you're going to be alone?
Don: Yes. Real scary. So I asked about all the training that I haven't had. She says "I've discussed it with everyone, everyone's in agreement." I go to Henry Reeves — I told Aviva I've got to clear it with him because he is the ostensible leader of the county — and I tell him about my obvious shortcomings, this isn't lawyering and I don't know anything about being a civil rights worker. He says, "Think of it this way, Don. Do you see anybody else applying for the job?" I shake my head no. And then he, of course, adds, "I think you'll do just fine." So I sent my third telegram to Wall Street, and they fired me within a day, which was a relief.
When the local folks in the county found out, I believe they were convinced that Aviva would never have left if I hadn't been there to replace her, and so they blamed me for her leaving. For a time I became the wicked stepmother.
And so Aviva leaves, and now I'm the civil rights leader in charge of little Benton County. In this moment, Aviva has changed my life forever. I am no longer employed as a Wall Street lawyer, though I am still paying my rent on my rent-controlled apartment in New York, which I did for six months, since I was never going to stay more than a few weeks.
I started off thinking I knew better than everyone else what should be done; I created the equivalent of a human telephone tree, a verbal tree, where I would be the pivot of a pyramid communications structure.
Bruce: Yeah, we tried that too.
Don: No kidding. I thought this was my original idea. Everybody just looked at me, and tried to go through with it out of deference to me, but they hated it, and in no time I gave it up.
Bruce: It was totally unnecessary.
Don: They managed all these years without us.
Bruce: Yeah. We tried that in Selma, I forget whose idea it was.
Don: And so I started doing more of the basic work. I made sure the Movement newspaper came out. I had this little office where I did my work, a sort of shack.
Also, to protect myself and others, I got a rifle. (I'm a crack shot, I don't know if you knew that. My father was a National Guard champion rifleman; he received the President's Medal as one of the 100 best shots in the United States and took me shooting most weekends. Later on with SNCC, they weren't unfriendly but they were razzing this freshmen. And they say, "This is a rifle. The bullet comes out of here. This is the trigger," etc. And I said, "Maybe we could cut this a little short. You got a bullet in the rifle I assume? Throw a walnut up in the air." And I shot it in the air.) So that's why I feel good having a rifle. Also, my sense of drama sets in, like in all the movies I've seen.
I get an extra mattress and place it on the floor, so that I can roll right off the bed and come up with my rifle. I was very proud of this, although most thought I was crazy. One night, a week or two later, the Klan attempted to firebomb my little office, but they didn't get the wick in tight enough, so it burst into flames and just singed the building. Someone saw a deputy sheriff driving away from the scene.
A teenager was sent to tell me what's happened. Bruce, I assume you had similar rules, that you never run into someone's house without identifying yourself first. Nobody is supposed to just barge in. I'm sleeping and I hear footsteps running towards my room — and the sound is not stopping. I do my roll off to the mattress, get ready, and I decide I'm going to take them with me if they're coming to kill me. The boy bursts through the door, running in to tell me about the firebombing, and I have my rifle aimed at the door, ready to fire. I see him and yank the rifle up in the air before I fire. I was panic stricken; the boy saw the rifle and started crying. I realized how foolish this whole rifle episode had been. I said to the boy, "I'm sure you don't want to be embarrassed by people knowing you barged in, so why don't we just keep this to ourselves?" I got rid of the rifle after that; he didn't tell anybody and I didn't have to answer for myself.
I contacted the FBI for the first time, introduced myself and told them about the firebomb; they advised me to notify the local authorities.
Don: A lot happened after Aviva left. The voting rights registrar came down, one of the first in the South, along with the school integrating.
So here comes the federal registrar to Benton County, Mississippi. This was thrilling, although I understood it was because we were one of the smallest civil rights counties in the South, which meant that they could start small and work out the kinks.
On September 25, 1965, the Benton County Freedom Train issued a FLASH that the federal man was coming to town:
All you have to do to register is to come down and
sign your name or make your mark. Everyone should be prepared to come
down and register even if you have to leave your cotton-picking. This is
a big day for Benton County.We quickly learned that the county refused to make any building available for the Feds, so they used the Post Office building. The first day when I came by to meet the guy, a Southerner, he was shooting the breeze with the white power structure.
Bruce: The federal registrar?
Don: Yeah. And I was very angry at that. And I said that, "It seems to me that nobody should be in this room except people registering, and that includes me and everyone else," looking at the others, "because there's an intimidation factor and I think your credibility would be higher if you operated the office alone." He agreed to that, but he actually told me, "This is not the most enjoyable job that I could have asked for."
Bruce: Did he say why?
Don: No, but it seemed pretty clear; with the vote, blacks would take over part of the South. Now comes the organizing effort, and the Holly Springs SNCC workers join in to recruit the people and get them to be willing to do it.
Bruce: "Do it," being . . .?
Don: . . . come to town and register. A lot of people were understandingly afraid in the beginning. First, only the old ladies came, but little by little, people came out of the fields and it was really something. There was the usual price to pay: harassment, an occasional burning cross, threats of being thrown off their land, loss of credit — but this wasn't the worst county in the South and things weren't as bad as they were in other places. And one day . . .
Bruce: You're talking September 1965. Nine months later we were in Grenada, which is about an hour's drive south of there, sort of over towards the Delta. A team of federal registrars came. And they set up in the Post Office, which was downtown. And at the end of the week they had registered five people. The reason was everybody was afraid to go downtown because of the Klan mob and all of that. So we eventually got them to move the registrars into the black community and to a black cafe called the "Chat and Chew." Then, of course, they got thousands of people.
Don: I asked that also, but it wasn't terribly practical in Benton County because it was so tiny. But it didn't take more than three or four days before we started having a decent number of people. It got to a point where we were doing it on arrangement, each group had a certain day, and I would tell the Fed how many and what hours, so he didn't have to wait around all day. He did his job quite well.
One day we were going to have a big group, and one of the SNCC guys from Holly Springs is driving everybody in an old school bus. But as soon as he gets out of the vehicle, some policeman tells him, "You're under arrest for driving without a bus license," which was true. It's amazing how they knew everything about everybody.
I'm standing a couple hundred yards away on the Post Office property, and I say, "Run over here. This is federal territory and they can't make an arrest here." Sanctuary, like in the "Hunchback of Notre Dame." And so he runs over and stands behind me. I say to the police, "This is federal property." The cop just swats me across the chest, knocks me down and arrests the driver. Later I found out they were right. The building was rented, it wasn't federal land at all.
Bruce: Well, it wouldn't have made any difference to them if it was.
Don: Yes, but we would have had a better case, because we challenged all these things.
Don: By now voter registration is going very well, but in the middle of this, all of a sudden, the appeals of an NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawsuit finally finish, and school desegregation is ready to be implemented in Benton County. Well, it couldn't have come at a worse time; now both projects were happening at once. The NAACP never participated in the on-the-ground work. So it was again all on our shoulders, and I knew nothing about how to do this or what you should do, and neither did the guys in Holly Springs, so we had to work it out ourselves.
Bruce: You mean Benton County, not actually Holly Springs?
Don: The school integration was happening in Benton County with great aid from Holly Springs. There was to be just one boy and one girl, to do it slow. The whites got really riled up. The Klan — using the term "Klan" loosely. While there were some Klansmen, most of them were town hoodlums but you couldn't tell the difference. Two things happening at one time was just too much for the Klan; race mixing of their children was very serious to them, even though, in the long run, voting was more pivotal. The two students were nine, ten or eleven, like that. She was beautiful, I remember the little girl. And he was a great athlete.
And so the first day, the angry white parents and everybody else is following the integrated school bus, and we're following behind. I had arranged with the Justice Department to seal the exit after the bus went in, so nobody would be allowed in. And they did that, everyone was a good distance away, and the bus went in. And I remember feeling horror in the pit of my stomach. What's happening to them? We don't know.
Our kids come out later that day, and report back that he got pushed around a little bit, and got called "nigger"; she, all the white boys fell in love with. Then the boy complained, "We don't understand what they're teaching, we don't know these subjects at all." I hadn't even thought of that really. Obviously they were decent students, but being a decent student didn't mean much given what a bad education they had come from.
Gunnar Myrdal, in his classic work, "An American Dilemma," described white-dominated black education in the South in 1942:
The segregaged black schools were overcrowded, dilapidated shacks which,
in one room, contained "the whole range of elementary grades taught by a
single black teacher." The teacher, herself poorly educated, "poorly
trained and poorly paid," burdened by a "grave lack" of basic school
equipment (including books) performed janitorial duties in addition to
teaching the entire 8 grade curriculum. And she was intimidated by
"unusual outside [white] pressures" which defined the curriculum to be
"industrial" as opposed to "classical" (bookish) education. Because
Negroes, the whites insisted, were "servants, farm laborers, and
industrial workers, their education should be commensurate with humble
status, daily duties, and the building up of
character" — in other words, learning the relative
distance between two rows of cotton, not the distance between two
planets. Little had changed 23 years later. In the time of the Civil Rights Movement, it was generally agreed that only by sitting alongside white students could blacks obtain an equal education.
Bruce: Because school budgets and curricula were controlled by the all-white state government and all-white local school boards. Public education in the deep south was woefully underfunded for all schools, but schools with white children were given much larger budgets than Black-only schools, and most white schools did make an effort to teach academic subjects. So the only hope a Black child had of attending a school with minimally adequate facilities and an academic focus was through school integration.
As it turned out, many white parents refused to send their children to an integrated school. Private, white-only "academies" sprung up across the South to handle the flood of white students being pulled out of public education by their parents. As the number of white students in public school declined, funding for education was cut even further. Today, in many southern counties with significant Black populations, the "integrated" public-schools are now almost all Black with budgets that are far below even the minimum needed for adequate education.]
Don: So we called for help. Holly Springs had a professor and we called through the state to get people to come up for a day. I even made phone calls into the North and a good bunch came down, delighted to help. But we really needed grammar school teachers, and we finally got a couple who stuck around for a while. While we didn't teach our kids enough to really make a difference, we gave them confidence, and they felt a lot better. He told me that the white kids stopped bothering him; actually, as soon as they had physical activities, the other kids were impressed with what a good athlete he was, and he was on all the teams.
One day, I would always be there when they got out of school, along with everybody else . . .
Bruce: What do you mean, "Along with everybody else?"
Don: All the whites and all the blacks, I mean, everybody is standing at this gate to see the school bus go by and the like.
Bruce: Were the whites jeering or angry?
Don: The parents? Yes. The children were delightful. And one day, this day when they go to get on the bus, a white boy is holding the hand of the black boy. They're actually holding hands.
Bruce: Oh Lord.
Don: And his parents, they've just seething, they're screaming. The white boy dropped the black boy's hand as if it was burning hot. He was going to get hell at home. It was revealing though, how little it took for the children to adapt. It got very good after that, except for the school bureaucracy, which started internal segregation: trips to the bathroom by race, never enough school books for us, and we sat in the back of the school bus, you know. All those little things going on. I would call the NAACP, which would go back to court. It was like a hydra. As fast as we got rid of one, two popped up. But while that went on for a while, it wasn't serious . . . and soon came to an end.
Don: My presence was unique in that while I looked at myself as just another SNCC field secretary for a little county, other civil rights workers took note that a civil rights lawyer was close by; usually the nearest lawyer was four hours away in Jackson. So I got a lot of calls via Holly Springs.
Bruce: Why would they go through Holly Springs?
Don: Telephones, they had telephones.
Bruce: You didn't have a phone in Benton County?
Don: There was a phone or two in the county but there were very few phones, and not much electricity.
Bruce: You know, few people realize that in those rural counties, most of the homes we were in did not have electricity, plumbing and certainly not phones.
Don: And no light to read at night and no refrigerator.
Bruce: A lot of them had kerosene lamps.
Don: Not easy to read by, and not even outhouses in many of them. When I talk about those times, I see the shack in my mind but often I neglect to describe it. I grew so used to it that it doesn't jump out of me.
So we didn't have the phones. So somebody, Sid Walker, would drive over and tell me something's going on, and I'd drive over to Holly Springs, call back and ask what it is and get the timing of it. Then I'd arrange to go. And I'd get the lawyer suit out and I'd go to wherever I was needed, and handle the problems they had. And it wasn't that hard, usually a one shot case to work something out, to get the bail, get dismissals, probation. It was rather easy to do.
Bruce: Now would these be Movement-related cases, or would these be cases of just people caught up in the system?
Don: Well, it's a difficult line, because you can be arrested for, let's say, drunk and disorderly that others were doing, but our people would be arrested if not [ostensibly] for civil rights. The arrest was Movement-connected.
Bruce: The presumption was you weren't there to provide legal help unless they had some sort of Movement connection?
Don: That's right, usually, and these were the Movement activists, occasionally there were SNCC workers arrested but more often it was the local people. And then I'd arrange for Sid to keep an eye on Benton County — as if they needed me, to make me feel they needed me. Wherever I had travelled, I'd stay a couple days, stay over with some sharecroppers. I never stayed in the Freedom House except in Holly Springs, I always stayed with the people. And whatever SNCC was engaged in, I would join them, and then I'd come back.
Don: The only time I was shot at the entire time I was in the South occurred when I was staying over out of town. This was a double. I was staying in a place that had invited me, and from there I had gone to another place that needed a lawyer.
Bruce: Do you want to name these places?
Don: I'd be happy to but I can't. I traveled so much, I have no idea. I know it's Northern Mississippi, and I know it's all within an hour, an hour and a half, of Holly Springs, but I have no memory of the names. Or they'd blur, I can't remember one from the other. So I'm at this second place, and I'd done a relatively minor thing, but it took a long time. The drive was long, and so I'm coming back to the people at the first place. They had warned me that driving through town was real bad, but nobody ever told me quite not to do it; however, there was a long way around to avoid going through town, like an hour and a half, as opposed to like fifteen minutes straight through.
Bruce: You mean going through a particular town?
Don: That's right, it was their town, the white town nearest to where I was staying. I really took these things seriously, but this day I was very tired, very lonely, very hungry — I couldn't eat another Oreo cookie — and I was looking forward to a hot meal and companionship . . . so I cut through the town. I mean just the edge of town. But then I look in the rear view mirror and I see people jumping into a red pick-up. And there's one guy standing in the back, what do you call that, the bed of the truck? And there's another guy in the passenger seat, and they have shotguns, or rifles, I didn't know at that moment.
Somebody named Shelby had previously taught me how to drive on these dirt roads. I had felt he did it to be dramatic, kind of like James Bond, you know, to make these hair turns, and most of the jiggling and dust, and the whole time he told me this will save my life one day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought. I always felt he was showing off, but I did it.
Well, now this had become vital information. But I still don't really believe that this is anything more than them an attempt to scare me — which is succeeding. Then suddenly the back window of my car just blows out; I touch my head and I'm bleeding profusely. I assume I've been shot in the head and maybe I'm about to die. But I keep driving . . . And then there are shots, which don't hit, some hit the bottom rear of the car. Now I'm jiggling the wheels, which means they have to brake because they can't see the road.
Bruce: You were swerving to throw up dust?
Don: That's right. They're slowing down and I'm able to make faster turns. I'm getting reasonably ahead, but they're still shooting: shooting into the dust; they can't see me. Then I see a break in the brush to my right — I'm actually too frightened to keep driving much longer — and so I pull into the brush. My greatest fear is that there will be something, an obstruction, and I wouldn't get the car all the way in and it will stick out, but I went in all the way. And then they kept going straight ahead, shooting, continually shooting, into the dust.
While waiting, I realized the blood on my head was not from being shot but from glass that splattered over me. I stayed there for about four hours. I didn't want to go out, but I knew I wasn't very far from my destination. I waited until it got real dark and then I drove without headlights and made it there. Then I got out of a car that looks like something out of a bad movie, with bullet holes all throughout the rear of the car. No, it wasn't bullets, it was shotgun pellets . . . and, of course, the blown-out window. It hit the back window, went straight through.
At my destination, the lady I'm staying with, this wonderful big-boosomed lady, rushes over to me, pulls out a blanket, places it and me on the ground and then puts me into her arms against her bosom like a baby, and she sings to me, and rocks me, while the others are pulling out the glass and pouring peroxide and whatever else over me. That's the last thing I remember, I fell asleep in her arms and I woke up the next day in bed.
Bruce: This was after the Selma march? So '65, and you're in Benton County . . .
Don: I'm in Benton County for about three months and this happens somewhere between September and December.
Bruce: So Fall. It couldn't be too late in the Fall because you had dust on the roads rather than mud.
Don: It was very warm. Probably within a month of my getting there.
Bruce: I don't know if you read my interview, but we had a big car chase too.
Don: Yes, I did read it. Real scary. This was the only shooting at me, the only time I was ever shot at. So I'm back in Benton County. Then I'd be away doing legal work, and then I'd be away doing civil rights work. Back in Benton County it was the same: civil rights work there, legal work (and fun) in Holly Springs.
Don: A strange thing was happening. I became a local lawyer. The other civil rights lawyers never stayed in one community, they moved all over the state. But suddenly I'm the regular lawyer, I know everybody. I know Judge Sam ("call me Sam") Coopwood and I know the prosecutor. I know the bailiff, I know the Sheriff, the Chief of Police, and I know them well because I'm there so regularly. I'm only a few months out of New York, and that camaraderie of the bar thing is still instinctual to me. So, to some extent, on some level, I become part of the white power structure, which is good and bad, certainly bad if anybody sees it and is aware of it. I was careful about that.
Bruce: "Anybody" meaning?
Don: Anybody in the Movement or local. And I even told the local lawyers a couple times that I won't exchange any familiarities or shake hands or anything while the folks were there. And once they tried to embarrass me, called me "Don" loud, and I said "one more of these and I'm a stranger to you." After that they didn't do it. But, because I knew them, I got good dispositions.
Bruce: You got people out of jail?
Don: Got them out of jail at least, I even could work it out on the phone. The lawyering went real well. But I didn't stay to be a lawyer; I wanted to do civil rights work. So I now was handling one demonstration.
Bruce: What do you mean "handling?"
Don: You know, If there's going to be a sit-in or a desegregation, someone's going to be in charge of it and make all the...
Bruce: Oh, you mean, like picket tactics?
Don: That's right. There was only one movie theater, and so there was a regular integration that went on at least some of the weeks. And I figured that would be an easy one.
Bruce: People weren't getting arrested back then because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had passed?
Don: Yeah, but you got beer cans thrown at you, you got threatened. You got a lot of shit, but we were legal. So this one Friday night — I even remember the film, it was "Harem Scarem," this terrible Elvis Presley film, really terrible.
Bruce: Well, he was very popular in Northern Mississippi, he came from there.
Don: I'm about to tell you why I remember the film so well. I knew the theater owner because I had been there a couple of times when there were problems but, nevertheless, because I was the respectable one, I would chat with him afterwards. I was running very confusing dual relationships. He took it in his stride; he understood this goes with the territory.
And so this night, where I'm very visibly the leader, sort of showing off about it, we go in, and then the whites throw beer cans and what not at us. Then they all leave and get their money back. As I'm leaving, I see the theater owner, and he is red in the face. And he'd been through a couple of these, so I don't see why he's so upset. I walk over to him and say, "What's wrong?" He glares and yells at me: "You did this on purpose, because you know my biggest money maker is the opening night of an Elvis Presley film; you chose this night to hurt me financially." He's screaming at me. And I tell him I didn't even know what was playing, but he says, "You'll regret this."
Next night I'm in the Holly Springs Freedom House, we're out of whiskey and everyone's complaining. You know that Mississippi was then (theoretically) a dry state. And suddenly the Sheriff comes through the front door, not even pretending to have a warrant, and somebody comes in through the back door with a jug of whiskey that they'd just "found." They arrested Sid for illegal possession of alcohol, because it was his house. The next day we're in court.
Bruce: This incident took place...
Don: In Holly Springs, still in the Benton County period. I had finished my three weeks with ACLU and now I work for SNCC. So, I'm in the courthouse for Sid's hearing, and I brought all the witnesses there; we have a really legitimate defense: there was no whiskey in the whole place; I know because we wanted whiskey and searched for it. Not that it was going to do us any good, but at least we were righteous about our position. And suddenly the Chief of Police comes over, turns to one of the women and says, "I'd like your account of what happened last night." I say, "You can't do that, we're about to have a trial, these are my witnesses. Besides, they were all there and they can take the 5th Amendment if need be." [ie., not testify against themselves]
Then he takes out a piece of paper and reads: "Are you instructing these people to resist lawful enforcement of the laws by a peace officer in the course of his investigation?" He had all this written out. "Uh oh, it's a set up." I say hold on, and I go to the phone and call the ACLU Boss. Well, he is pissed off because, as he says "I told you this would happen." I change the subject and ask: "He doesn't have any right to do this, does he?" He says "No, but you're going to be in jail within five minutes, anyhow. He's going to arrest you unless you direct your witnesses to cooperate with him and I know you're not going to do that. And then we're going to have all kinds of shit to deal with." So I said, "Well, thanks for the support."
So I go back, he asks her again, and I say, "I instruct all of you not to answer any questions put to you by the Chief." He says to me, "All right, you are under arrest," and handcuffs me.
Bruce: Just to clarify this, you meant they were not to answer any questions until such time as they're on the stand under oath?
Don: Right.
Bruce: It's not the "you have the right to remain silent" . . .
Don: . . . we didn't need Miranda [requirement that police read you your rights]; we knew our rights and that included not speaking to him on the basis of the 5th Amendment. So a couple of deputies come out, take me to the jail, and then as they ask each one of the people, five or six or seven, they all refuse and they're all arrested. So when Sid's case comes on, he's out of his cell and we're in the cell. They tell him what happened: that the lawyer's in jail, the witnesses are in jail. He says, "Well, I'm not going to proceed without my lawyer." So they bring him back, and now we're all in the same cell. The Boss then removes the cases to the Federal Court, you know about that, right?
Bruce: That was under what law?
Don: Under a Civil War Reconstruction statute [Title 28 USC 1441 et seq]. As Northerners or Yankees were coming into the South after the Civil War, they'd be arrested, possibly killed, and there was no way to get a Judge's signature in time. So Congress passed a law that allows a lawyer to have the power without a judge's signature. There's nothing else in the law that a lawyer can do by himself to effect a result, except Removal. The lawyer's signature removes the case to federal court, nothing else like it.
Bruce: Does that law still exist?
Don: Yeah, yeah. In fact, I advised Ruchell Magee, one of the survivors when George Jackson's brother was killed in a California Courthouse shootout to free Jackson. Magee was using Removal and I was advising him how to do it.
Now what Removal meant in Mississippi, as a practical matter, is that you didn't leave the jail. There was no federal jail to go to, but the cell became a federal cell, and anything that happened to you would subject them to federal law. So the case was Removed and the Boss is howling at me, "When are you going to leave the South?" I say, "Soon, soon."
So when I get out, I go to the prosecutor, who I was friendly with. I say, "What's happening?" And he says, "You shouldn't fuck with a man's livelihood." I say, "You mean the movie, the Elvis thing?" He says, "Yes. He is convinced you did it on purpose." I asked, "Can you intercede and tell him that — I swear to God — I did not know what was playing and I wouldn't have done it to hurt him financially. That wasn't the goal at all." He agrees to try.
During the next two or three days, many SNCC workers were arrested — one guy who hadn't renewed his driver's license, or was using his out-of-state license after 30 days — just all kinds of chicken-shit arrests. Then it died down. I ended up apologizing again to the theater owner and this time he accepted my apology. Which did teach me something: that race separation was not as important as the economics.
Bruce: At least for many of them, not for all of them.
Don: Bruce, you've talked about non-violence, and/or conversely the danger of violence or not being non-violent. Well, the lawyer version of being violent is a humiliating cross examination. It was understood that I wouldn't do that because it would hurt my clients, but once I got carried away. The case was strange in that everybody was a witness: me, the judge, we were all there. It was a total civil rights (drunk & disorderly) harassment: a nice young black couple who I knew very well, ate in their home, slept over, played with their kids. Now they are both in jail and I'm angry — and there was a problem caring for the children. I lost that detachment that's needed for the job; I also lost track of how to help then. My goal was to injure the bad guys and humiliate the structure. I came in loaded for bear.
The judge says, "All right Don, are you ready to start?" I say "Yes. My first order of business is to ask you to remove yourself from the bench, because you were an eyewitness and we are going to call you to testify in this case." That was taken very badly. For one thing, to find another judge creates all kinds of commotion. Then I started cross-examining the cops. I said do you have a...
Bruce: Wait a minute, didn't the trial stop at that point?
Don: Oh yeah, until they got a new judge.
Bruce: Well, could you have allowed him to testify without removing himself from the case?
Don: No. Nobody can testify, be cross-examined and then be an impartial judge. But I didn't need him as a witness. That was just to do a number on him. First I cross examined the cops. I say, "Did you give a sobriety test?" And they didn't know the word "sobriety." And then I explained what the word meant and I asked, "Did you do this test? "Did you do that test," and "Did you ever have any training in any of these tests?" I went on and on, and then I put the judge on. I said, "You saw what was happening?" He said, "I heard somebody yell 'motherfucker.'" I said, "But you don't know who yelled it." He says, "It could have been you." He was really pissed. So the result is they get convicted, with a heavy sentence. And when I walk out of court, I realized that my affection for them hurt them.
The next day I'm in the same court, waiting for my turn, when the judge calls for the prosecutor, who is not available. Judge Sam looks my way and calls me up to the bench. He says: The prosecutor's unavailable and I'm appointing you as substitute prosecutor for these purposes," which any judge can do.
Bruce: In the case that you were also the defense attorney?
Don: No, this was the case before me.
Bruce: An unrelated case?
Don: Yes. And I look around and see the defendant is the mother of one of the civil rights workers, who I know very well. I say, "I can't do it because I know her," and what not. He says: "Now looky here, I'm giving you all the courtesies as if you were a Mississippi lawyer, and if you want these courtesies, you're going to have to follow my instructions and do what I tell you to do. You have to earn your keep here." Of course, he knows that this is going to put me in a very embarrassing situation because of who the defendant is. But the mother comes up to me and says, "Do it, we can't afford to lose you as our lawyer." And so I quickly get one of my clients in the next case to run out and tell the son, so he won't find out second-hand, and then I plead her out for a suspended sentence.
Afterwards, the judge invites me into his chambers and now he feels kind of better, because he got one on me. I say, "I'm sorry about yesterday. I was out of control. Would you lower the sentences to probation?" He says, "All right." I really was part of the white Southern power structure, with my own duties and obligations. It was very tricky.
(A year later, I'm in Alabama, and the Beatles are coming to Memphis, which is 30 miles from Holly Springs — but a long way from Selma. And I have a girlfriend who is flying in to go with me. So I call up Judge Sam Coopwood and I say, "Sam, you know the case I got coming on in a month or two, one of the old cases that I'm still handling? Would you advance that to this Friday?" And he says, "Is this some civil rights trick?" I said "No, actually I want to trick the ACLU into paying my air fare to get me from Selma to Holly Springs, so I can drive to Memphis to see the Beatles. I'll have my girlfriend with me.")
Bruce: And you were in Alabama when you made this call?
Don: Yes. And he laughs. The thought of . . .
Bruce: Tricking the ACLU. . .
Don: Yes. So he agrees and moves the case up: I introduce my girlfriend to him and he tells her what a rascal I am. And to make an impression, he gave me an acquittal. He gave me a win to let me make an impact on my girlfriend. It was all very bizarre.
As December of '65 rolled around, I began to see the pitfall of what I had considered a powerful combination for the clients: the suit and the coveralls.
As a lawyer I was compromised. On one extreme, my strong personal feelings for my clients: for example, the black couple blinded me in court and actually hurt them (though I undid it, this time); on the other end, I had friendly feelings for their worst enemies, which could inhibit me so subtly I might not even recognize it.
As a civil rights worker I compromised my community. Even with the Voting Rights Registrar and the School Integration, had the SNCC leader not also been credited/blamed for all the accomplishments, there might not have been a firebomb, less shootings at lights, and a lot less tension. I was told by a local confidant that the people — those I thought I was helping — wished I was gone. They feared something worse may yet happen. No one asked me to leave but I now could see I had overstayed my welcome.
So I decided it's time for me to leave, go back to my normal life.
Not surprising, there was little protest. The black community balanced the many advantages of having a live-in civil rights lawyer with the increased violence brought about, it was believed, by the presence of that same lawyer. The verdict was against me. While the sharecroppers were not prepared to ask me to leave, my departure was not resisted.
But I was also popular in black Benton County, my arrest, because I was a lawyer, having eliminated any doubts of my commitment. So, with ambivalence, I was given a Church farewell evening with laudatory speeches about my accomplishments, most of them exaggerated, some even the achievements of others. Many sharecroppers told anecdotes about how they had watched me driving about lost in the county, my failures at cotton-picking and my (I thought disguised) abhorrence of the vegetables they served me nightly. Some praised me as an educated white man who lived with and treated them as equals. One recalled the violence during this period, as if to remind the congregation not to overdo the praise for fear I might change my mind and stay.
Not without ambivalent feelings myself, I rose to speak. I told them my life's adventure was over and that I would always remember them. Then, in a deliberate change of pace, I ended on a self-deprecating note of much truth:
I have given you something that not even Aviva ever gave you. Because I was so incompetent, you now know you no longer need an outsider to lead your Movement.
Amidst laughter, one ingrate loudly mouthed: "Amen!"
On my last full day, I visited Holly Springs to say goodbye to the SNCC workers who threw me a grand, drunken party. Here there was no ambivalence. They liked me and the excitement I generated. Besides, they expected everyone to leave sooner or later . . . and a lawyer, all the sooner. After also bidding farewell to Judge Sam and the prosecutor (continuing the camaraderie that had compromised my work), I was driven to the Memphis airport for my flight to New York and my resumption of a normal life.
Bruce: When did you leave?
Don: Shortly before Christmas of '65. Although I was very sad to leave, the other side of me said, "Well, now you've done it. In New York, you can live on these memories forever. It's absurd being down here instead of advancing your career."
Bruce: So you lived basically in Mississippi for about four months?
Don: That's right. So I go home and all the friends greet me, they're excited about me . . . but quickly they become uncomfortable with me. My very best friend actually said it: "You've become the kind of person that we used to go together to hear people like you." He's saying, in effect, we're no longer peers. That was pretty shocking, we had gone together to high school, college, worked summers together — everything.
Bruce: He thought that you were somebody he would go to hear at a lecture, in other words, you were above him?
Don: Yes. That's how he felt. My lawyer friends thought I was a freak for giving up the Wall Street job and doing this bizarre stuff. I didn't want to do any more corporate work. I would have liked to go back to ACLU but they were furious with me. So I used an "in" I had with a Justice Department lawyer and tried for a job with their civil rights division in D.C. I sat for the interview, my friend praised me (which in court always means you're about to lose), and then he sits me down with somebody who has the interview sheets. He starts off: "Let me ask you a question, Don. If you saw a crowd of Klansmen beating up Sid Walker, what would you do?" "I would break it up, of course." He says, "You understand now why you can't be in the Justice Department? Because we're not allowed to do that. We can't physically interfere." Which is true: they investigate but don't intervene.
Bruce: That's their rules?
Don: Yeah, that was their instructions. And he said, "You would never be happy with us." And I said, "Yeah, I guess that's so." Maybe he let me off easy instead of being rejected. I went back to New York and I knew it was a waste of time to call ACLU because the Boss was furious at me for everything that had gone on: the hanging tree thing, getting arrested in Holly Springs, not leaving — so I called the New York ACLU guy, Henry Schwartzchild — the boss of my boss. I asked him, "Is there is any chance?" He said, "They'd never take you." And I said, "I assumed so."
Bruce: Was your boss only for Mississippi or for the whole Southern region?
Don: He was the whole Southern region because ACLU worked in only one Southern state.
Bruce: He covered all the Southern states?
Don: Yes and no. There was that image, but we didn't then have resources to do more than Mississippi. The only place we every traveled to out of state was to the Fifth Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
So about another week goes by, and suddenly Schwartzchild calls me; he says, "Somebody who was supposed to stay in Mississippi during the Christmas holidays can't do it now, there is nobody to do it and everyone's vacation is going to be destroyed . . . unless you would be interested in coming down for a couple of weeks, temporarily, just for a few weeks." I said, "And that's OK with the Boss?" He says, "He'd be very grateful if you came; he's divorced and was looking forward to seeing his children. Everybody would be very grateful." And I said, "You're going to pay my air fare and some salary?" I was broke by this point. "Yes," he said.
Don: So I go down and the Boss is very happy to see me, tells me I'm in charge, "but don't worry because nothing happens during the holidays." I decide that this is my chance to make an impression on him as to how good a lawyer I am, get rid of my "wild man" image. Then he might change his mind about me. So I start upgrading all of his legal work: lawsuits, forms, notices, lists — everything they did, I redid: Wall Street style. Good stuff.
After a couple of days, it's Christmas Eve, and those in the Movement who had stayed in Jackson — which was mostly those that didn't have any money to go anywhere — were preparing a big party, to which I was invited.
At 6 pm on Christmas Eve, while I was in my office anticipating the party and wrapping up the day's activities, I receive a phone call: Mass arrests have begun in Canton!
The Boss had told me of the "Black Christmas" boycott against white merchants in Canton, a city about 20 miles northeast of Jackson. Though there were as many blacks as whites there — for lack of registered voters, Canton was controlled by the whites. The control was economic as well, and blacks, long relegated to menial work, were now boycotting for responsible positions. Black children would face empty stockings on Christmas morning but the white merchants would face insolvency. The picketers were at their posts outside the shops, neither side had yielded, and the white reaction was now beginning.
Bruce: This was the CORE project, right?
Don: No, it was SNCC. They arrested the whole picket line, and as more people came out to replace them, they also were arrested. On Christmas eve, they called ACLU and I called the people from the party to say, "I'm afraid the party's off, we're going to have to work through the night doing Removals." In the 1960's, we only had slow mimeograph machines and there are going to be over 100 petitions to prepare. And so I'm getting all kinds of reserves, and then...
Bruce: Getting all kinds of reserves?
Don: Reserves, people that are going to type through the night, bring in typewriters, do it all night. These were mostly SNCC workers who didn't usually do legal work.
Then I went down to Canton to talk to the folks and look over the scene. I told them the legal work is under control — though I wondered. While I was there, I met the local SNCC leader and then went back to Jackson, after also recruiting some of them to help. We worked — literally — through the night. (We got them out in a few days.)
Worrying about the safety of those arrested, I invoked a Movement stratagem: "The Walter Cronkite ploy!" It was the Movement's premise that the glare of public attention often neutralized even the most violent antagonists. Telephoning the jail, I affected a TV commentator's non-accent and, purporting to be the world-famous TV anchorman, Walter Cronkite, inquired about the Christmas Eve arrests which "the whole country is aroused about." As Cronkite, I was told that everyone was safe, received a complete list of those arrested and learned the general nature of the charges and bail. The deputy told me that he watched my show as often as he could, that coverage of the South did not tell the whole story and that I (Cronkite) should visit myself to see what is really happening. I told him that I would.
There were additional phone calls to make: to apprise the real media, to reassure the families of those in jail — but not to call the Boss. I was determined to show him I could handle a crisis on my own.
So the case is coming on quick; they do it real quick in the South, within five days or something like that. I go back to Canton and get the basic information. They're being held under an anti-boycott law, which actually were anti-union laws.
Bruce: Yeah, I remember.
Don: I went to one of the deputy sheriffs, and I asked for bail, a delay, and some documents; the guy was just livid. "Do you realize how many children (he meant white children) are not going to have toys because of this boycott? And how rough life is for these (white) merchants because of this boycott."
Now, all I had to do was prove my clients could not obtain a fair trial in a Canton court. Easy to prove in conversation on North Farish Street, but not under stringent rules of evidence in federal court: a single set of arrests is not sufficient proof of a pattern of racism. I had to show more.
Initially my plan had been to exhibit a racial pattern by showing that racism had also occurred the previous year. But as I interviewed blacks in Canton and found them referring to incidents years, and at times decades back. (In one interview, a 90-year-old man told me of incidents in the l9th century.) I considered tracing racism in this one city all the way back to the end of the Civil War, if possible. My proposal involved a massive task that would require interviewing virtually every black family in Canton, investigating almost a hundred years of court records, and requiring the support of the entire black community and almost every SNCC worker.
I worried about the demonstrators but I recognized an opportunity for myself. This was my best chance to remain in the South. The Removal Hearing offered me the chance to impress the Boss into hiring me. Maybe, I thought, there was a role for me beyond being a civil rights lawyer who moonlights as a civil rights worker. I had seen the problem of me being in charge of a community; I had seen the problem of getting too close to my clients — and too close to the court personnel.
But what if instead of lawyer alternating as a civil rights worker, it was one lawyer combined with a civil rights worker — me — using both skills at one time. A legal-political approach to win in court while using the case to help organize communities.
The civil rights worker in me saw implications in this lawsuit larger than merely acquitting the defendants. Here was a political issue that could further embolden the black community, get media attention and educate Northern supporters and place significant pressure on the federal government to intervene in matters like Canton: a legal-political approach.
I conferred with the SNCC workers, who agreed — along with the local folks — to the Canton experiment and began a door-to-door oral history of Canton, while I subpoenaed virtually every book, record and public official in that city. Excitement spread as memories led to memories, and documents were found behind newspapers covering holes in walls and ceilings.
Bruce: To block the chinks in the wall so the wind doesn't blow in.
Don Jelinek. Right. While shuttling back and forth between Canton and the Jackson office, I coordinated this effort. I also prepared legal papers to attempt to convince the federal courts not to Remand (return) the Canton cases back to the state courts.
The key to success was not to have the burden of proof. If the evidence is equal, the loser is the one with the burden of proof. The burden of proof is not reasonable doubt, it's just more likely than not. But if they had the burden that would be different. So, to the language of a 1962 court decision which held that "the State of Mississippi has a steel-hard, inflexible, undeviating official policy of segregation," I added a legal maxim I had often used in New York: "A state of facts once found to exist is presumed to exist until proven otherwise." The burden, I would argue, rests on Canton whites to show no discrimination, while we offered our evidence to the contrary. The hearing was to be in Vicksburg, the scene of a major Southern defeat in the Civil War.
Bruce: And this doctrine had been concluded in a case?
Don: Yeah, in a case about the entire state of Mississippi, not just one place. It was probably a Justice Department case. And people asked why does that matter? I said because the burden shifts, the crackers would have to show no discrimination while we showed actual discrimination, which would be impossible for either side to prove. And I said...
Bruce: Why would it be impossible for you to prove discrimination?
Don: Because they'd just have people say the opposite.
Bruce: They would just lie.
Don: Yes. This could actually be a major case if we pull up a history of discrimination in Canton and use it as a springboard for that presumption, that would get a lot of publicity, the boycott was difficult, and the Movement needed a boost.
Bruce: So if you establish the presumption of a history of discrimination, that would invalidate the arrests or it would justify the boycott?
Don: No, neither. But it would keep the case in the federal court, where some federal trial judges were good — and, if an appeal was necessary, there was our wonderful, pro-civil rights, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. At this point, I subpoena all the officials, especially the sheriff.
Bruce: If you're talking about Madison County, which I believe you are, his reputation, he was a notoriously bad sheriff is what I remember. He was one of the famous ones — but I can't remember his name.
Don: I visited his office and it was clear that there was no way to hand him the subpoena. SNCC had an idea. They got a local guy in town, dressed him up as bad as they possibly could, and sent him in to the sheriff's office. He says, "I want to file a complaint because one of the deputies called me a nigger." And they all laughed and said, "All right, sit down." So then I come back with my pretend-subpoena and say, "I am here to subpoena the sheriff, I demand he come out." They say, "He's not even in town," and what not. And so I walk out, and as soon as I walk out, the sheriff comes out and they are all laughing; our guy gets up and hands him the subpoena with the money for fees. And do you know what the reaction was? "Who would think they'd trust a nigger with five dollars?" That was their reaction. Now the sheriff was forced to come to court.
All of Canton would be there to see if Vicksburg history would repeat itself: local blacks in rented buses and community-organized car pools, white city officials under subpoena, and, of course, the accuseds.
Bruce: The bus was for bringing your witnesses?
Don: No, mostly spectators. We had done the TV thing, Stokely had taken care of that.
Bruce: Meaning getting press?
Don: Yeah, and the media were there because it was a whole town and news is slow during Christmas. I've been staying in Canton and suddenly the Boss appears. He's back, he's seen the work I've laid out for him, and everyone is talking about Canton. So he came out to see what's happening. And since I'm trying to get this job, I say, "Why don't you do the honors and I'll be your second chair (assistant)." And he thought that would be fine. So, he's talking to the cameras and giving statements.
When the case is called, I rise to speak but the District Attorney cuts me off. "With all due deference to this court," he began in a slow, deferential drawl, "I am obliged to inform you that the People of the City of Canton have dismissed all the indictments and there are no criminal cases for review by this court."
I was overjoyed that my clients were all free of these charges but also disheartened that the evidence would not come out in this trial. The Canton folks were heavily discouraged, so I made a little speech to get people to feel better. I said, "Look at the victory," and little by little the awareness of their victory and the impact it would have on their lives in the future took hold. Meanwhile, the Boss was giving statements to the press. And I go out and . . .
Bruce: Wait a minute. Did they drop it because they knew that you were going to win?
Don: Oh yeah. As you know there're no secrets in the South — the subpoena on the sheriff made it very clear, but also I'm sure there were black people in town who told them what we were doing. So I went out for lunch with the leader in town, Stokely and some others.
I said, "I made a decision. If I can get a job with ACLU, I would like to do variations on "Canton" again. But if I don't get the job, I would like to be full time with SNCC."
Stokley and the others agreed.
That night the Boss invited me to celebrate with dinner at his home, and announced that he had directed Schwarzchild to find the money to hire me as a staff attorney. He then formally offered and I formally accepted the job.
A few days later, I flew back to New York to give up my rent-controlled apartment and deal with my belongings. For reasons not clear to me even now, I rid myself of most of my material possessions in order to be safer in Mississippi, as if I could run faster and duck quicker if I did not have a sectional sofa, three lamps and pounds of books waiting for me in New York.
Then, ending a career of upward economic mobility, I return to Mississippi to stay as a full time, minimally paid, staff lawyer for ACLU, working on mass integration suits and criminal defense . . . and for SNCC, whenever I am on the road. Since I still get all the Holly Springs area cases — because I know everyone. — I am always moving around the state.
Don: One horribly hot day in Jackson, I'm with a SNCC guy named Mike Higson and my dog. We recklessly decide to go to the Ross Barnett Reservoir (named for the ex-Mississippi governor, who, in 1962, touched off a riot when he defied a federal court order and refused to admit black student, James Meredith, to the all-white University of Mississippi). The Reservoir was off-limits to civil rights workers because hostile white gangs gathered there. But since there was no other beach nearby, needing to cool off, we foolishly decided to take our chances. So we are on the beach, and my dog runs off to play with another dog.
When the owners of the other dog walk to us — innocently — to talk dog-talk, they take a look at us, especially Mike who has a beard. I don't know why I didn't focus on his beard. They say, "You're nigger-loving Yankees," and you're this and that. Mike is British and using his accent, says, "No, I'm a tourist seeing your wonderful state . . . ." The biggest of them turns to me and gruffly says, "What about you?" I hadn't spoken yet. I say, "I'm a civil rights worker." To this day, I can't imagine why I said that. And the guy punched me in the jaw, knocking me unconscious, standing up. I didn't fall but I was unconscious. How do I know? Because I had bruises all over my upper torso that I had no memory getting, Mike told me they punched me in the chest. But I was just unconscious on my feet, and they apparently pounded away at both of us and we were really bloody.
Finally, our tormentors finished with us and ordered us off their beach; we hobbled off, not running in order to maintain some dignity. Once in the car, we checked each other's injuries and then drove to Mike's girlfriend for peroxide, sympathy . . . and condemnation for visiting the Reservoir (a refrain I would hear for many weeks afterward). Mike, in the midst of telling her the story, all at once remembered my "confession." In a hysterical manner, laughing, then choking, then aching at pains made worse by the laughing, Mike roared, "Why did you say we were civil rights workers?" His woman, not sure which of us was the craziest, shook her head in disbelief.
Bruce: Sometimes you know, you just...
Don: Can you figure it out?
Bruce: You don't always act from logic, I mean, I remember one time in Selma early on, I had only been in the South a few days, I moved from CORE to SCLC. I was walking with this guy, maybe a SNCC worker, I don't know who, but an old hand. A white guy comes out, points a shotgun down at us, and starts going into the "I'm going to kill you," routine, and the guy I was with says, "Motherfucker, if you're going to shoot, go ahead and shoot, I don't give a fuck. Go ahead and shoot." He's taunting him, "Shoot! shoot!" And the guy didn't shoot. See, that's the thing about both the South and nonviolence: In the South everything was much more personal as opposed to institutional, so often you were dealing with the enemy as individual people, as opposed to when they were all lined up in their swarms, like the police phalanxes.
Don: That's very profound.
Bruce: So it's much more personal than any of the confrontations in the North. In the South, the people — even some of the bad ones — react as human beings rather than as units of a military entity.
Don: I remember while they were beating us up, one of them said to the other, "Should we kill them? The sheriff said that we can do anything we want and we wouldn't get in trouble." And the other said "Nah, just beat them up some more." Now they were probably just talking. But there was a lot of truth to what was said.
Bruce: Lot of truth.
Don: So anyway, soon afterwards I get a major case from the Holly Springs area: not allowing people on the ballot in the primary unless they take the pledge.
Bruce: What pledge?
Don: Oh, hating the civil rights laws, etc.
Bruce: The pledge for segregation.
Don: I thought you'd want to hear it, verbatim:
I pledge condemnation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
I favor separation of the races and I declare that integration is a
direct threat to Southern womanhood, children, and all that is right,
good and true.Bruce: Now this is summer of '66?
Don: No, spring of '66.
Bruce: This story about the reservoir, when was that?
Don: Just before.
Bruce: You came down first in the summer of '65, so now this is early in '66 with this Pledge? I don't know about Mississippi, but Alabama had local elections in May of '66, so maybe they were on the same schedule. So this was preparations for the local elections?
Don: Yes. Anyway, so Bill Kunstler has a case to stop the elections from taking place, altogether, on the grounds that the Voting Rights Act hasn't had time to take effect. The Boss had the feeling that Kunstler's case was so bizarre that it would have a negative effect on ours, and I agreed with the Boss. So I called Kunstler, who I'd never met, but I had been to his speeches in New York. I told him our basic feelings. Although, he needed us to find test case plaintiffs for him, and I felt bad, it seemed like the right thing to do.
Kunstler is so charming, he said, "Not a problem, but it's a pleasure talking with you, I've heard such wonderful things about you," and he's telling me how terrific I am, and what not, and how he'll make it somehow. Seduced, I wilted and said, "Well, maybe we could figure out some other way. Such as we could disassociate ourself from your case. So we'll have companion cases." We agree to that. I get my case ready but it's always my fate that they drop my best cases. As I begin, the lawyer for the State of Mississippi interrupts me and says they're not going to use the pledge. And the judge promises me if they change their mind, he'll issue the injunction I requested.
Now Kunstler starts his case. Where my papers had been logical and precise, he was dramatic and emotional, crying for justice and compassion, recalling centuries of slavery and the need for amends. His witnesses were heart-rending, his final statement, sprinkled with biblical and classical references, so persuasive I found myself wondering why I had opposed his lawsuit.
Of course he lost! But he was just magnificent. As I told him how impressed I was, he said, "I think we will win on appeal, don't you?" I said, "No, it can't win on appeal, and that would be a terrible precedent." And he said, "Oh, I'll consider that." But he — and his colleagues — always went straight ahead. It was the first time I'd seen the powerful emotional approach, which really antagonizes, especially in the South. But he reaches the audience — and even the judges. He was wonderful.
Bruce: Was it sustained on appeal?
Don: Oh no. It was bizarre to think that the federal system would enjoin state elections from taking place. It was absolutely outlandish. But very wonderful, and for every ten such cases, they'd win one or two, and really change the law.
No society was so damned by sex as the South — primarily flamed by a worshipping of the Southern White Woman: that paragon of virtue,
the lily-pure maid, the South's Palladium . . . the shield-bearing Athena gleaming whitely in the clouds, the standard for its rallying, the mystic symbol of its nationality in the face of the foe . . . .
The White Man worshipped his "paragon," but lusted for the black female slave — and took her at his pleasure — and, for over 300 years, impregnated her with abandon. The foreseeable result: mulatto babies, raised by their black mothers on the same plantations as their white stepbrothers and stepsisters, and tolerated by white society, even Southern wives, if discretion was observed.
And what of the black male slave? Often he was both a cotton picker and a stud for "nigger-breeding" — according to Southern folklore, an irresistible super male, endowed with a colossal sexual organ . . . and the cause of great concern to the protectors of White Woman chastity.
I have always understood that a Negro who touches a white woman must die. It is something we learn in the South without knowing how or when or where. (A White Southern Man, in 1934.)
For a black man, or a 14 year-old boy (such as Emmett Till), to be charged with alleged sexually provocative behavior with a white woman: flirting (real or imagined); touching, even accidentally; whistling; sensuous smiling or "lascivious looking" could lead to a court-imposed execution or mob-imposed lynching.
I encountered this pathology in the case of State of Mississippi v. Alfred Windom. A note handed by a frightened black woman to a SNCC worker, who then passed it on to me, brought the first word of a black man's plight: "Al Windom didn't do nothin' but he in prison cause a white woman say he rape her."
"Be careful," I was warned. "It happened just north of Pearl River County — Mack Parker's county. You know, where he was lynched." A call to the court clerk confirmed that an "Alfred Windom" had in fact been sentenced to life imprisonment after confessing to attempted rape of a white woman.
It was a full two months before I met Alfred Windom, born in Mississippi, raised in Chicago and street-wise enough not to be awed by this white lawyer — or awed by a white woman either, which was why he was chopping cotton in prison for life.
After a few pleasantries, I asked him to tell me about the rape charge.
"Nothing happened," he said in response. I gave him my best "Don't- bullshit-me-Man" look. "Nothing happened!" he repeated indignantly. "OK," I said, half-heartedly. "Tell me why they charged you."
"You see," he began, "I'd been working for Mrs. "Margie Moore," the wife of a Plantation Owner, and one day, when I was drinking, I went over to her and said: 'I'd like to be with you.'"
"You actually said that?" I winced in fear, as if the lynch mob would come for him now, even here in prison. "Yes," he answered, blushing. "And . . .?" "That's it. She said, 'Don't be silly, Alfred. Go home and sleep it off.'"
"And then what happened?" I asked. "That's all!" "No touching, tearing clothes, threatening? That's all?" "That's all!" he said. "So why . . .?" He didn't wait for me to finish. "They said confess or you'll get what Parker got. Mack had been my friend. I 'confessed.'"
I told Windom we'd do something. When I returned to Jackson, I headed down North Farish Street to the offices of Jess Brown, one of the few black lawyers in Mississippi, one of the most fearless people I've known — and the former lawyer for Mack Parker.
"He was innocent," Brown began, responding to my request to hear the story again, "but they murdered him." Mack Charles Parker, he told me, was a black man falsely charged with sexually assaulting a white woman. Although both lawyer and client knew the accused would never be acquitted by an all-white Pearl River County jury, they hoped that by holding a trial, the record would reveal his innocence and Parker would later obtain a reversal.
One evening, after preparing for trial all day, Jess Brown was asked by the judge if he was staying in town overnight. A strange question, Brown thought in hindsight. "I usually did," Brown recalled, "but that night I had to go back to Jackson. I told the judge I would return in the morning."
That same night, Parker was taken from his cell. Local blacks still tell the story of seeing his "head clanking down the long stone steps of the Pearl River County Jail while he was dragged away by a lynch mob. Although he pleaded his innocence, his body was riddled with bullets." The next day Brown's client was dead, the lawyer alive only because other business had required his departure the night before.
When I told Jess Brown about Windom, he cautioned, "Don't handle it alone. Get your friend, Bruce Rogow, to work with you."
Agreeing, I walked to the ACLU office, obtained Bruce's agreement to work alongside me, and began preparing for the hearing. Windom's defense would not be innocence. How could we prove it? And who would we convince if we did prove it? Rather, the issue would be racism in the court system, the exclusion of blacks from all county juries — and, as concerned Windom, the Grand Jury that indicted him.
Needed were local blacks to review the lists of names on jury rolls and tell us what we already knew but had to prove: that the names were of whites only! Arriving in the county a few days early for that purpose, we solicited aid from the black community. But so pervasive was fear in this county that no one would help us, not even Windom's family.
So we were forced to change our strategy, overnight. Somehow we would have to show instead that he didn't do it, because it didn't happen. With only minimal preparation for our new defense, on a torrid, shirt- drenching morning, Bruce and I drove into white downtown and parked in front of the courthouse. As we walked up the stairs, we were greeted by angry white citizens with cries of "Nigger-lovers!" and "Commies!" As we entered the court room we were introduced to Judge Sebe Dale and two prosecutors: Maurice Dantin, the county District Attorney, and an elderly gentleman, a personal lawyer for the victim, there to protect her from Yankee lawyers.
As if to justify their concern, I called the "victim," Mrs. Margie Moore, as our first