Kathy E <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Secrets of a turbulent, segregationist past were revealed to the public
on Tuesday as files of a discredited state agency, the Mississippi
Sovereignty Commission, were opened under court order.
The commission, created by the state legislature in 1956, outwardly
promoted the virtues of a segregated Mississippi to the rest of the
country. Secretly, the agency spent tax dollars spying on all who
dared challenge a system that dictated separation of the races and
white supremacy.
Armed with information from its spies and informers, the agency
apparently spread rumors, misinformation and lies about civil rights
leaders, college administrators and others.
The commission went out of business in 1977, four years after then-Gov.
Bill Waller vetoed its funding. Lawmakers wanted the documents sealed
until 2027, but a federal judge in 1989 ordered them opened to the
public.
Well-known names
The records made available for the first time on Tuesday were being
viewed on three computer terminals set up at the state Department of
Archives and History in Jackson, the state capital.
The 132,000 pages of documents are expected to expose an organized
pattern of discrediting civil rights organizations by trying to tie them
to communist groups.
Some of the estimated 80,000 names contained in the files include
Washington attorney Vernon Jordan, singers James Brown, Harry Belafonte
and Joan Baez, jazz musician Dave Brubeck and actor Sidney Poitier.
The names of 42 other living victims of the agency's espionage will
remain private until their death.
Family of murdered merchant seeks evidence
The commission's inner workings were of prime interest to the family
of Vernon Dahmer, a black merchant killed in 1966 when Ku Klux Klan
members firebombed his home and store in the town of Hattiesburg.
"We have waited for a long time for this opportunity," said his son,
Vernon Dahmer Jr. "But our main goal today is to get the files, go back
to the district attorney's office and see if there is any evidence to
move the investigation forward."
Nervous amid a cluster of television cameras, Ellie Dahmer, the widow,
said, "Whatever is in there we want to see it. We have a right to know
what they said about him, what they wrote about him."
Dahmer was targeted by the Klan for agreeing to collect poll taxes at
his store to help register blacks to vote.
Three Klansmen were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. A
fourth pleaded guilty and testified that Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers
masterminded the firebombing, but two mistrials set Bowers free.
'Spied on for doing your duty'
Also among the first to search the files was state Sen. David Jordan,
who said a computer search of his own name turned up newspaper clippings
mentioning his civil rights work in the Mississippi Delta in the
late 1960s and early 1970s.
"To find out someone is watching you and you've become part of a
watchdog for your state, it's hard," Jordan said. "It's more
disappointing than angering. It's disgraceful to have been spied on for
doing your duty and trying to become first-class citizens."
In the years since the files were sealed, some of the information has
been leaked, showing up in various newspapers and publications and in
scholarly research. Other documents were destroyed as internal memos,
dating to 1965, indicate.
The Sovereignty Commission kept tabs on civil rights and voting rights
activities in the state, paying particular attention to what many
members believed was a communist infiltration of activist groups.
'It was a necessary job'
"We were under the threat of being overrun by an alien force led by the
communists," Horace Harned of Starkville, a former state lawmaker and
two-term member of the commission, told The Associated Press.
"This was a time when the Freedom Riders were marching and burning
things from New Jersey to California. They threatened to march through
Mississippi," Harned said.
Memos from then-commission executive director Erle Johnston show the
commission recruited people to get on communist organization mailing
lists and passed those materials on to aides to President Lyndon
Johnson.
But Harned, who served on the commission from 1964 to 1972, still
believes the agency did what it had to.
"We did the best we could do to identify the communist leaders, to put
spies in their organizations and to find out who they were and we
publicized it.
"Whether it was legal or not ... never bothered me," he said. "We
needed to have those spies who told us what they were doing. We
appreciated that these intruders, and that's what they were, a lot of
them were misguided, not realizing who was leading them and putting up
the money."
Harned, now retired, said passage of the Civil Rights and Voting
Rights acts came after "we had already gotten past the real bad part
(the demonstrations and rallies)."
"We kept the radicals and communist-led marchers from taking over
Mississippi," he said. "It was a necessary job."
--
Kathy E
"I can only please one person a day, today is NOT your day, and tomorrow
isn't looking too good for you either"
http://members.delphi.com/kathylaw/ Law & Issues Mailing List
http://pw1.netcom.com/~kathye/rodeo.html - Cowboy Histories
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2990/law.htm Crime photo's
Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
