Civil Rights Events

Mississippi -- Grenada County Freedom Movement

Back to Violence

Bruce Hartford narrates.

It becomes clear that although our numbers decreased slightly, the "no audience" campaign has failed to stop our marches. The power structure apparently decides to go back to violence.

Friday, August 5. There is a fund-raising party in the Tie Plant neighborhood with SCLC's Freedom Singers. Around midnight, troopers and police surround the Collins Cafe were the party is being held and block all the roads leading into the area. They shoot tear gas into the cafe and arrest as many people as they can on various charges such as "drunk & disorderly" and so forth. About 50 people are arrested.

Saturday, August 6. New demands related to police brutality and state repression against protesters exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech are added to the demands made on July 9.

Monday, August 8. Federal Voter Registrars open an office at the Chat & Chew Cafe on Union Street in the Negro community. (They had previously had an office in the basement of the Post Office, but the aura of fear and violence hanging over the downtown area kept everyone away and they had registered only 22 people in two weeks.) Over 300 people are registered the first day, including many who were finishing up the registration process started at the courthouse but not completed because of the double-registration trick (Hartford 1).

White power-brokers are furious. To them, shifting the registrars into the Afro-American community is evidence of sinister collusion between defiant Blacks and a hostile federal government. They clearly understand that large numbers of Afro-American voters will inevitably doom the continued domination of traditional Jim-Crow-style white-supremacy. …

And in city and county-wide elections Blacks might end up holding the balance of power between competing white candidates. If that came to pass, sooner or later whites challenging incumbent office-holders would begin advocating policies and offering concessions aimed at winning the support of Black voters — thus ending the complete exclusion of Afro-Americans from all aspects of political power. … (Battle 2).

A night voter rally is held in front of the Registrars new offices. The police order us to clear the streets. We do, but continue the rally on the sidewalk and yard. The police attack with tear gas, and beat people with their billy clubs. About 20 people are injured.

Tuesday August 9. Another voter rally is held in front of Chat & Chews. A mob of whites gather at the corner of Commerce (Hiway 51) & Union St. — a quarter block from Chat's. With around 280 folk, we start to march up to the square but are attacked by the mob. The troopers reluctantly clear a path and we continue uptown.

When we reach the square we find it occupied by 700 or so whites, with about 400 of them on the green where we usually hold our rallies. No Grenada police are in evidence. "Now you're going to see a show," Sheriff Suggs Ingram tells Jack Nelson of the Los Angeles Times.

Under a bombardment of cherry bombs, rocks, and bottles we manage to reach the North side of the green (Hartford 11).

As the marchers approach the central green they come under a bombardment of hurled bricks, rocks, bottles, and exploding cherry bombs. March marshals do what they can to knock the flying missiles aside and dodge incoming. "Hold tight, hold tight," they shout over the massed singing. "Keep moving! Keep moving!"

Suddenly a band of the whites on the green charge against the marchers, trying to break their line and scatter the protesters so that individuals can be surrounded and beat down. Shrieking rage, they attack with steel pipes, baseball bats, and flailing clubs. "Niggers! Kill the niggers! Kill 'em! Kill 'em!"

"Hold tight, hold tight," the march marshals shout. "Keep moving! Keep moving! Don't hit back! Sing! Sing!" The marchers don't really need such instructions, by now they're all experienced protesters. But tight packed against each other with their heads down and faces pressed for protection against the person in front of them they can't see what's happening around them and the shouted commands let them know the line is still intact and discipline holding.

More whites charge in with bats and clubs. The marchers cannot reach the green. Nor can they hold their ground in the street. Under vicious attack they are forced to retreat. The 50 or so State Troopers watch with interest but do nothing to deter the white violence. From bitter experience the marchers know the cops are waiting for some tiny sign of defensive-violence by a protester that the lawmen can then use as a pretext for arresting these defiant Blacks who are daring to challenge white supremacy.

Under heavy attack, the march falls back to the intersection of Green and Doak streets at the northwest corner of the square and then begins retreating up Green towards Pearl Street in good order, taking their injured and wounded with them. The column remains solid, and their spirited singing continues to psychologically repel the hate. One of the lawmen throws a tear gas bomb into the line. With the mob still hounding them, it's too dangerous for the protesters to scatter so they have to hold their breath as they stride through the poisonous fumes.

As the racists begin to follow the marchers out of the square and up Green Street, the Troopers finally bestir themselves. They form a line across the road between the tail end of the march and the howling mob. With their rifles and shotguns resting upright on their hips they face not the violent whites behind them but rather the retreating protesters in front of them — a posture that clearly declares to all that they see themselves as protecting the square and white-supremacy from defiant but nonviolent Afro-Americans demanding justice. Which, of course, is exactly the case. From behind the Troopers, the whites continue to hurl their missiles at the protesters over the heads of the lawmen for as long as the marchers remain in range

Some of the marchers are bruised and bleeding, but just one person needs hospital care— testimony to the effectiveness of nonviolent discipline and training that has carried 280 protesters, mostly women and children, through attack by a violent mob of more than 750 racists.

The next evening, Wednesday, August 10, the Movement rallies yet again outside Chat's on Union St. Again a white mob forms at Union & Commerce, this time armed with large slingshots that they use to shoot exploding cherry bombs, lead fishing sinkers, and sharp links of steel chain over the heads of the troopers and into the rally — missiles that draw blood and might put out an eye. Half a dozen people are injured, though none seriously.

The march to the square that follows, however, is strikingly unusual. After the bloody assault of the night before it is noticeably smaller, less than 250, but it is almost entirely made up of adult Black men who have turned out to face mob violence in place of their mothers, wives, sisters, and children. This is extraordinary. Throughout the South, Afro-American men are the most vulnerable to white violence, police vengeance, and economic retaliation — far more so than women and kids. It is Black men who are most often lynched or assassinated by the Klan, it is they who are arrested on phony charges and sentenced to years in prison. And it is Afro-American men — family breadwinners — who are most likely to be fired from their jobs if they participate in a protest.

But on this night, in this small Mississippi town, these Black men are determined they will not be driven off the square by white violence. They will not retreat from the green. They have told the women and kids to stand aside so they can step up. They understand and accept the necessity of nonviolence, some reluctantly so, others with more commitment. They are ready to endure whatever they have to in order to resist — nonviolently. To enforce this, Afro-American SCLC staff members move through the crowd before the march begins, collecting knives and a few pistols that some of the men have brought with them (Battle 4-6).

Thursday, August 11. The Grenada City Council passes an ordinance forbidding any gatherings on the green. (Earlier in the month the police had resurrected an old ordinance forbidding gatherings at the courthouse, but since voter registration is now being done at Chat & Chew's the courthouse is no longer our focus.)

There are few white hecklers — apparently the "no audience" strategy is being tried again. The night march tries to get on the green but is blocked by a line of police.

Friday, August 12. We decide to make a test-case of the green ordinance. While the march circles around the green, 18 volunteers try to get on the green. They are repeatedly shoved off by the cops and eventually seven are arrested. As the rest of the march begins to leave the square, the line of troopers charge us, hitting people with their rifle butts. Half a dozen marchers are injured, including Emerald Cunningham, a 14 year old girl who had polio and is unable to run or dodge. The troopers beat her in the back with their rifles.

Harassment arrests increase. Twenty or more people are arrested on various charges over the next weeks. The nightly marches no longer try to hold rallies on the green (because of the ordinance) but instead we circle around the green singing freedom songs.

Sunday, August 21. Last attempt to integrate church services. After being refused we put up picket lines at the Baptist and Presbyterian churches.

Monday, August 22. The usual night march. It seems to us no different than any other march.

Wednesday August 24 — Sunday, August 28. Voter registration, Blackout picketing, mass meetings, and night marches continue.

Monday, August 29. This is the first day to pick up and fill out "Freedom of Choice" forms for the court ordered school desegregation. In the morning, 300 students and parents march to the Negro high school to pick up the forms (Hartford 12-15).

… the Civil Rights Act in 1964 requires cutting off federal funds from segregated school systems. Without those federal dollars, southern politicians would have to either close schools or significantly raise taxes — neither of which would sit well with white voters. So most of them reluctantly realize they have to begin accepting at least a few Afro-Americans into all of the formerly white schools.

Yet they remain committed to retaining their separate and unequal duel systems — one white, one "Colored." For the ruling elite, it's not just that they want to limit social mingling between the races, it's also a matter of restricting as many Afro-Americans as possible to the kind of "sharecropper education" that limits them to menial, low-paid and highly-exploited occupations like field hand and domestic servant. To ensure that the federal dollars continue to flow from Washington while simultaneously keeping the great majority of Black students in segregated schools, they devise Freedom of Choice plans. Under such plans, parents are "free" to choose which school — white or Colored — their children are to attend. Everyone knows, though, that Afro-American parents who choose a white school face firings, evictions, foreclosures, boycotts organized by the White Citizens Council, and violent terrorism from the Ku Klux Klan.

Since few Black families can risk losing their job, home, or business (to say nothing of their lives), white political leaders across the Deep South are confident that just a few Black children will enroll in formerly all-white schools. Those few will then face harassment and humiliation by administrators and teachers — and implacable hostility and abuse from the white students who outnumber them hundreds-to-one. Unrelenting pressure on Afro-American students and their families can then be counted on to force many (in some cases all) to "freely choose" to withdraw from the white school and go back to the Colored school.

Such Freedom of Choice plans allow southern whites to piously claim they no longer practice racial discrimination and that Afro-Americans simply don't want integration because they are "freely choosing" to send their children to the segregated Colored schools. Since Afro-Americans are no longer legally required to attend Colored schools, officials argue they are in compliance with the Civil Rights Act and therefore should continue to receive federal funds. From 1964 until 1968 when Freedom of Choice plans are finally ruled illegal they effectively perpetuate segregation in public school systems across most of the South).

Grenada is one of the die-hard segregationist strongholds that has adamantly refused to allow any school integration at all despite Brown and the Civil Rights Act. Which is where matters stand when the Meredith March and the 20th Century arrive in June of 1966.

The newly-formed Grenada County Freedom Movement asks the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to file a lawsuit demanding that Grenada cease operating its still completely segregated white and Colored school systems. Presented with an open and shut case of flagrant violation of both Brown and the Civil Rights Act, federal judge Clayton quickly rules that Grenada schools have to be desegregated forthwith — by September!

The Grenada school board responds with a Freedom of Choice plan — no doubt expecting to end up with just a handful of Black children attending the two white schools. But Grenada now has a powerful and well-organized movement to support Afro-American parents, assist them in resisting intimidation, and provide timely legal aid. And SCLC's Washington office stands ready to make sure that both the Justice and Education Departments diligently enforce federal law.

On the morning of Monday, 29 August, some 300 Black students and parents led by the GCFM march together en masse to pick up the "choice" forms. By Thursday, September 1st, some 450 Black kids have turned in forms choosing to attend the white schools. That's an enormous number — not just for Mississippi but for the entire Deep South where most white schools still have less than a dozen Afro-American students (if they have any at all).

Whites in Grenada are aghast — and enraged. Hecklers begin returning to the square to harass the nightly marches for the first time since the voter-registration violence two weeks earlier. Day by day, the number of hostile whites shouting hate and fury rapidly increase. Though tension is clearly rising, few police or troopers are present.

Segregationists use the ten day delay to wage a fierce campaign against Black parents to coerce them into withdrawing their children from the two white schools. Some parents are fired from their jobs, others evicted from their homes. Black families and Movement activists are plagued with racist phone calls filled with curses, obscenities, and explicit death threats. Most Afro-Americans respond by quickly hanging-up, but men who listen to the call are treated to graphic descriptions of how they will be castrated with rusty razor blades and Black women are regaled with detailed descriptions of the brutal, savage rape soon to be inflicted on them. This campaign of racist intimidation and retaliation is clearly being organized and orchestrated — by someone but it's not clear who. Klan? White Citizens Council? Elected officials?

To counter it, and to support students and parents, marches to the square are doubled to twice a day, afternoon and evening. Day after day and night after night 200-300 courageous activists march and march again. Day after day, night after night the mobs grow larger and angrier, hurling objects and attacking with fists, bats, chains, and steel pipes. Though cops and Troopers are under court orders to restrain violence and protect demonstrators from mob attack, their reluctant, half-hearted, and pro-forma gestures in that direction are clearly no more than a pretense. Neither the mob nor the demonstrators take them seriously — Afro-Americans are on their own (School Crisis 1-5).

Monday, September 12. First day of school. A huge white mob surrounds Grenada's elementary and high school. Equipped with two-way radios, they bar all approaches. Radio-equipped scouts in pick-up trucks search for Negro students (grades 1-12) coming to school and direct the mob to attack them. There are few police in evidence and they do nothing to halt the violence. Some cars carrying Negro children manage to drop the kids off, but others are blocked. The majority of the 250 or so students are walking to school in ones and twos and they are set upon by the roving bands of whites who beat them with clubs, chains, bullwhips, and pipes. This is not a spontaneous mob, this is a military-style action organized and led by the KKK (Hartford 16).

Some of the cars carrying Black children manage to drop their kids off, others are blocked and attacked by the mob who smash windows with baseball bats and steel pipes and then batter those inside. There are few police in evidence and they do nothing at all to halt the violence. A contingent of riot-equipped State Troopers loiter around the corner. FBI agents stand by taking notes. They make no effort whatsoever to enforce the federal desegregation order, or the Civil Rights Act, or the U.S. Constitution, or to protect innocent children from brutal attacks. When asked by a reporter what they are doing one replies that they are "investigating" to, "determine whether any federal laws or court orders had been violated."

The majority of the 250 or so students who are still determined to integrate the white schools come from the Northside Afro-American neighborhood around Belle Flower church where the Freedom Movement has its strongest base. Most of them are walking to school in ones and twos. They are set upon by roving bands who beat them with clubs, chains, bullwhips, and pipes. A white woman trips Richard Sigh (12) with her umbrella, men kick him and beat him with pipes, breaking his leg at the hip. Another young boy is forced to run a gauntlet of cursing men, blood sheeting down his face. "That'll teach you, nigger," yelled one of the whites attacking him. "Don't come back tomorrow!" A white woman watches a gang of men whip a pig-tailed elementary school girl. A reporter overhears her murmur to herself, "How can they laugh when they are doing it?"

Braving the danger and violence, almost a third of the 250 Black kids manage to make it into the temporary safety of the school buildings. For some reason, the mob doesn't follow them inside — possibly out of concern that in narrow building corridors white kids might accidentally be injured by their violence.

The remaining Afro-American children, bruised, bleeding, and terrified, retreat back to Belle Flower church which now resembles a war zone first-aid station more than a place of worship. In a total failure of foresight, SCLC has made no preparations for anything like this at all. Other than singer Joan Baez and nonviolence advocates Ira and Susan Sandperl who are volunteering in Grenada to support the Movement, there are no outside observers. Nor are there any MCHR volunteer doctors or nurses on hand to care for wounded. SCLC staff and parents have to pitch in with emergency first-aid ferrying the badly injured to a hospital in the all-Black town of Mound Bayou more than an hour distant (Mob Terror 1-2).

Less than half the 250 children manage to reach the schools, the rest, bruised, bleeding, and terrified retreat back to Bellflower Baptist church which now resembles a battle zone first-aid station more than a place of worship.

News reporters and photographers, white and Negro, are also viciously set upon. They too, bloody and battered, fall back to the church. …

Around 9:00am, SCLC staff members lead the children [who had fled to the Baptist church] in a march to try to reach the schools as a group and all are savagely attacked. Emerald Cunningham, who walks with a pronounced limp, can't run fast enough to escape. She is beaten down in the street, kicked, and clubbed with an iron pipe. A Klansman puts a pistol to her head and threatens to kill her if she dares go to the white school. The police who are watching the whole incident laugh. Emerald and some other children are hospitalized, as are some of the SCLC staff.

At noon the schools let out. The mob is still outside, waiting for the Negro children who had managed to get inside that morning. Before school is turned out, the teachers call all of the white girls to the office where they wait in safety. The Negroes (boys and girls) and the white boys are then dismissed into the mob. The Negro children trying to leave the schools are beaten and three more are hospitalized (one with a broken leg, one with fractured skull).

Singer Joan Baez and nonviolent activists Ira and Susan Sandperl are in Grenada to support the movement. They join SCLC and GCFM activists who are trying to rescue the kids and protest the inaction of the police. They participate in the marches and share the danger over the coming week. Lula Williamson is arrested for "assault" (because the white woman had attacked her with an umbrella the night before on the march) and held on high bail (Hartford 16-17).

Dianna Freelon Foster was going into the eleventh grade in the fall of 1966 when the civil rights community decided it was time to integrate the public schools. Every night, hundreds of people would gather at a church near the courthouse square to sing freedom songs, pray and preach. Then, in the power of the Holy Ghost, they would march to the courthouse and take a stand for civil rights. And when morning came, the first day of school, hundreds of black children had the audacity to show up at the all white schools of Granada, Mississippi.

“We walked into the school the first morning, ” Dianna remembers, “and the first thing I noticed was how beautiful it was–nothing at all like the black school I had been attending. It was a very tense atmosphere and you had the feeling something was wrong. Then, one by one, all the white girls were called to the office. I remember thinking ‘there was no way all those white girls can fit in that tiny little office’.”

When all the white girls had left the building, the black girls were informed that the school was closing for the day. “We walked out the door,” Dianna recalls, “and all I could see was a bunch of white men, some of them sitting in the branches of the trees, and they were all carrying weapons: baseball bats, tire irons, that sort of thing. We tried to rush back into the school but the principal locked the door on us. That’s the thing that really hurt me–that a human being could do something like that–locking us out when he knew we were in danger.”

“We were walking with a male student and we were trying to get to the church, because that’s where we felt safe and strong. Then the men surrounded us. They were pushing and prodding us girls, but it was the boy who received the real beating. They would have left us pretty much alone, but every time we tried to help our friend who had been horribly beaten, they’d start beating us up too. I guess I blocked it all out of my mind. For a long time I didn’t remember much about it. But then, years later, I talked to my mother and my brother, and they told me how awful it really was” (Bean 1-2).

A huge white mob fills the square waiting to attack the nightly march. The state troopers promise that if we don't march they will protect the children the next day. In return for that promise we agree to cancel the march. We don't trust the troopers, but half the kids are still determined to go to school the next day (the other half are too terrified), and we have to do whatever we can to provide for their safety. (Hartford 17-18.)

Works cited:

“Battle for the Ballot (Mid July-August 14).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#gren_return

Bean, Alan. “The Day Dianna Freelon Foster Refuses to Forget.” Friends of Justice. Web. https://friendsofjustice.blog/2011/11/09/dianna-freelon-foster-we-need-to-remember/

“Black Students Attacked While Integrating Schools in Grenada, Mississippi.” Clarksdale News. Web. https://clarksdalenews.com/2-day-in-civil-rights-grenda-ms-integration-attacks-1966/

Hartford, Bruce. “Grenada Mississippi—Chronology of a Movement.” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/info/grenada.htm

“Mob Terror and the Courage of Children (September 12-19).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#gren_return

“The School Crisis (August 29-September 11).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#gren_return