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The genuinely historic "Gauntlet Letter" is attached. (Marxmail does not handle attachments but the letter can be read in full via the "A Piece of the Scrapbook" link at the conclusion of this little narrative.) Throwing down the gauntlet to the Mississippi power structure: May 12, 1963. I made the motion before a special meeting of the Mississippi State Board of NAACP Branches -- of which I was the only non-Black member -- which sought the broadening of the Jackson Boycott into a massive non-violent protest movement. My motion was approved unanimously. Following this, Medgar Evers and I went to my house at Tougaloo College and I then typed this individual letter many times: to Governor Ross R. Barnett, Mayor Allen C. Thompson, City Commission, Bankers Association, Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Jackson Association, Junior Chamber of Commerce, and the Mississippi Economic Council. Medgar and I signed each letter at that point and he left for Jackson to get Mrs. Doris Allison's signature. The power structure, dominated by the powerful White Citizens Council, stonewalled. It brought in thousands of (white) " law enforcement officers " -- the many hundreds of Jackson city police, the thousand member Jackson police auxiliary, sheriffs and deputies and constables from every one of Mississippi's 82 counties, the entire Mississippi Highway Patrol, and finally the National Guard. Turning the State Fairgrounds into a gigantic concentration camp, these nefarious forces arrested several thousand of our people. Repression was bloody. Klan types poured into Jackson from the entire region. Medgar was murdered, I was almost killed, and now -- decades later -- Mrs. Doris Allison and I talk by phone at least once a week. My collected papers are held by the Mississippi State Department of Archives and History (as well as at State Historical Society of Wisconsin) and I am a Life Member of the august Mississippi State Historical Society. (Mrs Doris Allison passed away several years ago. Her good spouse, Ben, died soon after. They remained staunchly committed to the struggle for a full measure of human rights for all throughout the whole of their long lifetimes. We miss them both very much. They are the Godparents of our grandson/son, Thomas, and they will always remain so. H.) See these three consecutive pages: http://hunterbear.org/a_piece_of__the_scrapbook.htm HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO www.hunterbear.org (much social justice material) I have always lived and worked in Borderlands. See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]: http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm (expanded May 2012) For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new and substantial Introduction by me. We are close upon the 50th anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of1962-63.: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm Personal Background Narrative (with many links): http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
