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Racial Healing In Mississippi
A tale of two men who reveal the best and worst of the South
Page 5 of 5
"Clearly, there's more work to be done," Molpus says. "It began with redemption in Philadelphia. Next, we must get on to the issues today: poverty, literacy, inadequate schools, health care. All of those have issues that must be addressed through the process of race reconciliation."
"So best we think ourselves
How all of us (and we are all Mississippians)
Will be called on to honor
In terms none can foresee
The gift outright"
— Elizabeth Sewell, "The Land Was Theirs before They Were the Land's"
As I was preparing to leave Philadelphia last week, I was reading Elizabeth Sewell's poem on Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. It had been given to me by the Rev. Ralph Edwin King, whose face still bears scars from a Klan attack decades ago. King was the only white clergyman with the courage to speak at James Chaney's funeral 41 years ago.Today, as he did then, he urges forgiveness.
When Killen was convicted and sentenced, I, like most who witnessed the trial, rejoiced.
I was 17 in 1964, and I had desperately wanted to join Freedom Summer. Instead, I grudgingly followed my family's tradition, joined the military and was at Navy boot camp. When I first read about the killings, I wanted revenge. I couldn't understand how in America people were murdered for wanting to vote.
I still wanted retribution as I watched Killen on trial.
And then I read the words King gave me. There is a lot of work to be done. Crosses are still burned in North Carolina. Jeb Bush in Florida was still trying to intimidate black voters in the last election. Sonny Perdue and Georgia's Republican-dominated Legislature have passed a voter ID law sure to disenfranchise many blacks, Hispanics, poor whites and the elderly. Our poor and minorities are fighting a war that British documents show is more a "grudge" between the Bush family and Saddam Hussein than anything else — and the rich and powerful profit. Our schools suck. Health care is increasingly an unaffordable luxury for many. Our old age safety net is threatened, and those most likely to perish if it's ripped are, again, blacks, Hispanics, and the poor.
I can't forgive Killen. I'm not his victim in any direct way. But I hope he seeks forgiveness from those he horribly wronged. I doubt "Preacher" will ever do that.
My last act in Philadelphia was mundane, picking up some laundry from Gipson Cleaners near the courthouse. Regina Hicks, the operator, calls her customers by name. "Mr. Sugg, we just saw you on TV."
"Yeah," I replied, "I'm one of those annoying reporters who have invaded your town."
Hicks gathered her staff — Ann Stubbs, Shirley Tingle, Shunda Horne, Penny Stewart, and Toby Gill, who asserts that he's the "deputy mayor" of the town.
To a person, black and white, they told me how much the Killen case had meant to Philadelphia. "We can heal the wounds," said Hicks, who qualifies as a member of the Philadelphia establishment. "We're not the town in the movie. We have worked for justice and this is a great place to live now, even if it wasn't always that way."
I agree.
Senior Editor John Sugg's daily reports on the Philadelphia trial can be found at www.johnsugg.com.
Senior Editor John Sugg has made two trips to Mississippi in recent months reporting on race reconciliation. Prior to the triple manslaughter convictions of Klansman Edgar Ray Killen, Sugg recounted on his blog about visiting the road where three civil rights workers were slain. He told about the courage of Rita Bender, widow of one of the workers. He reported on eyewitness accounts of the civil rights struggle by its veterans. And, he even let Mississippi's reigning racist have his say. For photos of the 1964 crime scene, the 2005 trial, and all of Sugg's posts while in Mississippi, visit www.johnsugg.com/mississippi_burning/.
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