Susan Klopfer, author

The Plan

Scheduled for July, 2013 Publication

http://ebooksfromsusan.com

Medgar Evers, WW II veteran and former coordinator of the Mississippi NAACP who was murdered on June 12, 1963 at his Jackson home.

June 12 (Cuenca, Ecuador) -- An excerpted chapter from The Plan was released today by the eBook's author, Susan Klopfer. "This chapter was written honoring the life and death of civil rights hero, Medgar Evers, who was killed in the early hours of June 12, 1963, in Jackson, Mississippi.

The Plan, set for publication in July, is based on the murders of two gay, black lawyers and a white supremacist, former FBI agent turned private detective, Klopfer says.

"One lawyer was killed in Alabama, while the other two men were murdered in Mississippi. What secrets did they hold that got them killed? Focusing on the assassinations of Medgar Evers, President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Plan moves from Mississippi to Ecuador, as friends of these three men try to save one more life – a spouse of the murdered Montgomery lawyer."

In the chapter released today, lawyer Clinton Moore of Clarksdale is the last of these three men left standing. He recalls earlier years when his friend Joe Means was still alive:

"They had worked together and separately, trying to solve selected cold cases from the 1950s through the 1970s. Moore narrows the list of murders they'd studied, trying to determine if either he or Means had come across potentially dangerous information in their work, asking what might have triggered the murder of his friend."

Will he discover this in time to save his own life? Klopfer said Chapter 19 -- The List has been posted to Twitter and Facebook where readers will link up to "find new information about the murder of this civil rights hero."

She also has placed the chapter on her blog, The Emmett Till Blog at http://emmett-till.blogspot.com/2013/06/ebook-author-posts-free-chapter-of-plan.html "where it will remain posted."

The chapter is also posted on Klopfer's official book blog at http://ebooksfromsusan.com/.

Author of Mississippi Murder Novel Set For Cuenca, Ecuador Reading; An Evening With Writers In Transition

Three Mississippi Murders and a Chase Through Ecuador: The Plan, by Susan Klopfer. Set for publication in May.

*****

WIT (Writers in Transition) presents An Evening of the Spoken Word California Kitchen Restaurante 02 May 2013 . Thursday . 7pm Free Admission . Cash Bar Authors A piece of a  chapter from "Once a Sleuth", by Bob Ray, author of Broken It's a clue from a mystery novel, but to find out which clue, you have to buy and read the book. "Learn From My Mistakes: A Real Estate Tale of Woe", by Michele DeWolfe It is about buying an apartment in Cuenca, and everything we should have done differently. "Red Creeper", by Frances Augusta Hogg A writer learns the importance of discipline. " The Moores of Coahoma County", Chapter 2 of The Plan, by Susan Klopfer Clinton Moore, a recently murdered Mississippi Delta lawyer, is visiting the site of the home he would have finished building, if it weren't for his tragic end. He listens in on a conversation between one of the town's social elites and a newcomer, a woman from Iowa who would have been his neighbor. They're planning a social event for the town's Culture Club. "Driving in Cuenca - Anecdotes and Advice" by Lawrence Hamilton The author relates some experiences of driving in Cuenca, and some advice regarding his thoughts of avoiding pedestrians and other drivers. Chapter 7 of "Methuselah's Promise", by Chris Petersen author of Methuselah's Secret Continuation of the novel as the story of the quest for the long life drug unfolds. For more information, please email writersintransition@yahoo.com or visit www.facebook.com/witcuenca

Where In The World is Hunter Gray (John Salter)?

A special post by Hunter Gray ...	3:45 PM (6 hours ago)

Posted widely. I have always believed in hitting issues openly.

I posted the following piece, On Being A Militant And Radical Organizer -- And An Effective One, almost four months ago.  It's increasingly obvious that, at the events commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the great Jackson Movement, I will be "the man who isn't there."  No meaningful invitation focused on that Movement and its full sweep has come to me from any quarter in that Jackson setting. No surprise. The sentiments expressed by me in my aforementioned Organizer piece continue to stand in total -- and very strongly so.

But my book, Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism, can and will represent me very well indeed at Jackson and elsewhere.

We have picked up indications of a surreptitious and defamatory "whispering campaign" in certain Jackson, Mississippi circles directed against me personally -- including even some hostile radical-baiting!  Well, I was a member for some years of the old-time Industrial Workers of the World (IWW Wobblies) -- and I'm a life long supporter of militant industrial unionism, and left democratic socialism with libertarian trimmings. Usually non-violent in the tactical sense, the IWW was once described in semi-jocular/semi-serious fashion as a "cross between Henry David Thoreau and Wyatt Earp."  In any event, there's never been any secret about any social justice doings of mine.

In addition, my book, Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism, (now newly out via the University Press of Nebraska, and with a very substantive -- 10,000 word -- new introduction by me), has been the target of the same hostile whispering campaign.  Its quite sound quality is attested by many very positive reviews from its earlier incarnations, among them, the Journal of Mississippi History, Social Forces, The Journal of Southern History, UMOJA -- A Scholarly Journal of Black Studies, Socialist Monthly Changes, Monthly Review Press, Social Development Issues, Sojourners.  You can see these and others via our website book link --http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm -- and some via University of Nebraska Press  http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Jackson-Mississippi,674910.aspx  There are other solid reviews of JM at Amazon.  It's a 272 page paperback, and it won't cost you an arm and a leg.

I pull no punches. There's no pussy-footing. My book provides a very candid, detailed and insider's view of the rise and development of the Jackson Boycott Movement/Jackson Movement of 1962-63 at every step -- AND what very sadly and tragically happened to it.  One reviewer referred very favorably to my "demythologizing impulse." 

You won't find my book at the Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson.  But Square Books at Oxford does carry it.

If so inclined, you can help immensely by forwarding this entire message widely indeed -- to the very Four Directions.  And I am quite certain that any purchaser of my book will find it and its lessons aplenty extremely interesting and most worthwhile.

ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE  (HUNTER GRAY/JOHN OR. SALTER, JR.  (NOVEMBER 25, 2012)

If you're a militant and radical organizer -- and an effective one who is strong on both tangible grassroots gains and a worthy long range vision of a better world over the mountains yonder -- you do your thing and move on to the next social justice crucible.  As you go along, you are remembered fondly and well for a good while by the people for and with whom you've earlier worked. The power structure, of course, will "never forgive and never forget".  But, as time passes and those grassroots people and friends fade from the scene, and if -- if -- you continue as a militant and radical activist, you aren't going to be broadly welcome in your earlier battlefields by very many of the newly arrived contemporary people. This is certainly true if you're an independent rebel.  And all of this is especially true if you're an "outside agitator" who came from afar.

Quite often, in contrast to the openly repressive and brutal and blatantly defamatory Old Guard of yore, contemporary enemies in the old combat fields tend to be covert and surreptitious, frequently hypocritical, and of notably limited courage.

If you morph, as time passes, into a kind of respectable and non-challenging brand of "liberal," well -- you might be brought back to various old battlefields to talk superficially about the old days of struggle.

A conventional academic who writes about the old civil rights wars and, as many academics do, does so cautiously, may be welcome.  And that person might even get an award of some kind.

What brings all of this to my mind is the fact that, in the 50th anniversary of the great Jackson, Mississippi Movement, no one has asked me to return to discuss the movement of which I was the basic and principal organizer, working with a growing number of young people in our NAACP Youth Council and Tougaloo College. I was their Adult Advisor. They were valiantly involved in developing that worthy struggle and, in doing so, running great risks.  The State of Mississippi is helping fund and organize a number of celebrations -- climaxing in June 2013 -- -- focused mostly on NAACP Field Secretary Medgar W. Evers who was murdered in the course of the massive campaign. Planning for these has been underway for months and agendas are relatively fixed. I learned this belatedly. Somewhere in the mix of motives for these events, and there are certainly some strains of altruism, may be the wish to somehow assuage the collective guilt for a very long and sanguinary and hideously racist past -- and the raw brutality of a garrison police state.  OK -- and redemption can occur in the context of honest admission and tangible and significant redress. 

Medgar, a good friend and colleague who I knew well, would likely be the  first person to disclaim sainthood. And many things -- including the Jackson Airport and a college in Brooklyn, N.Y. as well as a U.S. Naval ship -- have been named for him.  I would be among the very last to deny honorable and courageous Medgar any honors of any kind. But it's very clear that any discussion of the Movement itself, and the depth of the cruel and repressive realities of Mississippi that really weren't that long ago, will very likely be handled gingerly and, if mentioned much at all, in very sanitized fashion.

Am I surprised, shattered by this omission of any meaningful invitation?  Not at all.  In the half century that has elapsed since the rise and climax of the Jackson Movement, I have not received one invitation to come there and speak at length. (I have given several impromptu talks when down there over the years.)  In 1979, I was asked to come to Jackson, expenses paid, for a relatively small part on a panel at a large civil rights retrospective.  I came, with about fifty copies of a 35 page (single spaced) paper on the Jackson Movement, and broadened my small space of time into a short but trenchant speech which, with reference to the National Office of the NAACP and the deepening shadow of the Kennedy administration back then, I concluded  with a denunciation of "the subversion by the corporate liberals of New York and the self-styled "pragmatism" of those splendid scoundrels residing in Camelot on the Potomac." That drew a thundering and standing ovation from about one thousand people.

I know, personally and experientially, a great deal about what happened Movement-wise in those critical years of 1961-63 in Mississippi's capital.  I'm one of the very, very few persons who does -- and  one of a now tiny number who know the innards. (I was chair of the Jackson Movement's Strategy Committee.)   In fact, I wrote a book -- Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism -- devoted mainly to an inside view of the Jackson Movement -- the only detailed account of the massive struggle and likely the most detailed book about any local grassroots movement of the '60s. It pulls no punches.  It was very well received when it appeared in 1979 -- especially by those grassroots people in Jackson who actually participated in that crusade and/or who knew first hand what had happened.  Outside of Mississippi, it was well received broadly -- drawing a large number of most positive reviews. (It was reissued late in 2011 by the University of Nebraska Press in expanded form with a new and  substantial introduction by myself.)

As Jim Loewen, a sociologist and professor and writer, very familiar indeed with Mississippi recently wrote:

"Classic account . . .Jackson, Mississippi presents a vivid insider's view of the Jackson boycott movement, the demonstrations that led to mass arrests, the actions of courageous young people, and the murder of Medgar Evers and the incredible tension of his funeral march.  As you would expect, given that Salter was and is a sociologist and a radical, it also contains penetrating analyses of the role of each acting group, including the national office of the NAACP, black ministers, the city government and police force, White Citizens Council, etc. And it shows the important role played by Tougaloo, some of its students and faculty members (including Prof. Salter), and its president, A. D. Beittel."

Despite the extremely repressive odds, we all -- and I emphasize all -- accomplished a great deal in the sanguinary travail of the Jackson Movement of 1962-63.  That stands forever as a shining mountain.

When you're done with your work in a particular setting, you can justifiably look back for awhile, garner lessons and secure appreciation.  But it's dangerous to your life's organizing mission to look back too long and too much. Time-lock can be deadly  to critically needed activism. There have been many campaigns for me after Jackson -- some large, some smaller, all of them important to people of the fewest alternatives.  A truly effective organizer rides over the mountains and crosses the rivers into new horizons of meaningful struggle.  That's the true joy, the ultimate satisfaction, and the great and enduring lure.

(This piece is also found on the Our Thoughts section of Civil Rights Movement Veterans.)

IN THE MOUNTAINS OF EASTERN IDAHO

HUNTER GRAY (HUNTER BEAR)

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org
(much social justice material)

I have always lived and worked in the Borderlands.

See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded in Fall 2012. Photos. Material on our Native
background.)

See the new and expanded/updated edition of my very well-reviewed
"Organizer's Book" -- the inside story of the massive Jackson
Mississippi Movement, the murder of Medgar Evers, and more.
And with my new and very substantial introduction:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

Civil Rights Author Releases Autopsy of Mississippi Lawyer; Death of Cleve McDowell 'Still a Mystery'

For Immediate Release

Susan Klopfer

Civil Rights Author, Speaker

http://susanklopfer.com

Mississippi Civil Rights Author Releases Autopsy of Delta Lawyer Murdered in 1997; Report Found in Sunflower County Courthouse Basement 'Leaves Open Questions About What Really Happened to Cleve McDowell'

(Gallup, NM) – A controversial autopsy of a civil rights lawyer murdered in 1997 has been placed on the Internet “for the public to see” by the author of three Mississippi civil rights history books and eBooks.

“I still think about Cleve McDowell, how brave he was and how he remains a forgotten civil rights hero. And I believe his murder should be reinvestigated,” Klopfer said today, after placing the 29-page report on a civil rights blog, MississippiSovereigntyCommission.com. 

Klopfer, a graduate of Hanover College, is the author of Who Killed Emmett Till, The Emmett Till Story, and Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited. She is a former acquisitions and development editor for Prentice Hall, and has won journalism awards in Branson, Missouri for her investigative work.

The story of Cleve McDowell, a small-town civil rights leader who investigated the murder of Emmett Till and so many others killed in the civil rights movement has been “pretty much” forgotten, Klopfer said.

“Go to Mississippi’s state civil rights library that houses civil rights reports and books, and ask for something on McDowell. Most likely, you will get a blank stare. The state has forgotten this man – the first African American to be admitted to the University of Mississippi’s law school – and a cohort of James Meredith and Medger Evers.”

McDowell a 'Bad' Lawyer, Delta Matron Claims

Klopfer said she learned of McDowell only because she asked a simple question about a gate protecting an unfinished home on the outskirts of Drew, Miss., where McDowell was born and later murdered.


“I was riding in a car with one of the matrons of this small Delta town. I saw the rusted gate and several large stakes driven into the ground. It looked like a construction project that was halted a number of years ago – and it turned out this was a home McDowell was building for himself at the time he was killed.”


Klopfer said she asked the driver of the car, a woman she was interviewing at the time on what happened – who abandoned the construction, and why.


“She would not look me in the eyes, but said a ‘bad’ lawyer was murdered, and was building this house at the time. That caught my attention and I started asking people about the ‘bad’ lawyer, and soon I began to piece together his story.


“As it worked out, he was an important person who set several state records for African Americans. His short stay at the University of Mississippi was controversial – he was kicked out for carrying a gun in self-defense. He had been chased by students with guns back to his car, and even when driving home. Nothing happened to the white students, but McDowell was booted out. His law professor helped him get into a Texas law school where he finished, and returned to Mississippi to practice law.


When Klopfer approached the current dean of the law school, asking for the letter of recommendation that was written for McDowell back in 1963, she said he refused to hand it over.


"Several years later, I received a copy of the letter from an archivist at the school. She personally pulled it from law school files so that it would be saved from destruction.”

McDowell's attorney friend 'commits suicide' in Alabama

Klopfer became further intrigued with the story, when learning that another black lawyer, McDowell’s protégé and investigative partner, was killed in Alabama (“committed suicide”) several years before McDowell was murdered.


“McDowell went to Alabama and investigated his friend’s 'suicide.' He knew this man since they were children, and even influenced his decision to become a lawyer.


“When McDowell returned to his Delta home from Montgomery, he told a best friend this was not a suicide, but a murder – there were signs of torture. He also told this friend, he (McDowell) would be next.”


McDowell immediately quit practicing law in his office, and started a small church in Drew where he spent his last years. "His secretary told me that he stayed at the church most of the time, telling her how to proceed. She told me that on the day before he was killed, he wrote a lengthy resume that included all of his accomplishments."


Klopfer personally believes that McDowell and his friend were very likely investigating the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


“Too many signs point in this direction. McDowell was a friend of King. He worked for the SCLC right out of law school, and on several occasions, Dr. King visited his office in the tiny town of Drew. After learning as much as I could about McDowell, I know that he was a dedicated and persevering man, who investigated many murders in the Delta, and would not have left King’s assassination alone. 

Finds Clue in Lubbock, Texas Newspaper

"In an obituary appearing in a Lubbock, Texas newspaper  –  where I once worked as a journalist  –  it was reported that he was known for investigating civil rights crimes, with several other lawyers. Ironically, this information never made it into Mississippi newspapers, as far as I could tell.”


McDowell also had working papers in boxes and in his safe, stashed in his office from various investigations over the years, including the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago visitor to the Delta who was murdered in 1955.


“Those papers all disappeared following McDowell’s murder. All of his guns were removed from his office and home, too. Months later on, his entire office ‘caught’ on fire.”


A young man was arrested for McDowell’s murder, and remains in prison.

Autopsy Leaves Questions

“In court records that I found in the basement of the Sunflower County Courthouse, I learned that this young man tried to commit suicide while in jail, and that after confessing, he later claimed he did not kill McDowell, that he admitted guilt because he was threatened he would be charged with a capital crime if he did not plead guilty.”


The autopsy leaves some real questions for Kloofer, “after learning how McDowell’s murder was described in court.


“Some pieces don’t fit the puzzle, and I believe that this murder is far more complex than what meets the eye. I never met McDowell, of course, because I did my research in 2004 and 2005. But every time I tried to interview family members and some friends or relatives about him, and about his murder, I ran into a brick wall.


"The person who did the autopsy was frequently questioned by his peers regarding his standards. And then, a host of crime scene questions have not been resolved--in fact, they need to be asked!"


Klopfer said her book, Who Killed Emmett Till, gives "relevant details that have never been resolved" about the murder.


Cleve McDowell’s story may be further complicated, "because he was gay (as were several major iconic civil rights figures, at the time) and he kept this secret quite well. This has made it more difficult to find his true friends, and often when I do, they usually won’t talk because they seem to be either afraid or embarrassed.”


The New Mexico author adds that “so little” is still reported and understood about the entire modern civil rights movement in Mississippi.


“This is a small piece of the big civil rights story, but I would really like to know more truth – for now, I really believe that the case of Cleve McDowell is not closed.”

**Related Links

Cleve McDowell Autopsy Report

Mississippi Sovereignty Commission Blog

Emmett Till Blog – McDowell Story
Chapter 21, Where Rebels Roost, Cleve McDowell

Scott Sisters Update; Jackson NAACP Honors Prison Warden (What??)

Nancy LockhartApril 25, 2010 at 7:59pm
Subject: 4/25 SCOTT SISTERS UPDATE ~ By Sister Marpessa
Greetings all,

Mrs. Rasco recently learned that Jamie's condition is unchanged and
that when last they spoke she was being worked up for a possible
urinary tract infection. She was mentally strong, however, and very
grateful that her mother and supporters are sticking by she and
Gladys through all that they have suffered.

MDOC Commissioner Christopher Epps, whom we've been contacting
for months regarding the disastrous level of Jamie's care and who's
been steadily misinforming people that she's not as sick as we've
regularly documented, even after she had to be hospitalized several
times for high toxicity and infections that almost took her life, is
being HONORED as the KEYNOTE SPEAKER by the Jackson
County, MS NAACP at their upcoming banquet on April 30, 2010!

Link: http://www.facebook.com/l/aadef;www.gulflive.com/sendthispage/sendthispage.ssf?http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-living/2010/04/christopher_epps_to_speak_at_freedom_fund_banquet.html

How could this branch, which is actually portrayed as an activist branch
that has courageously taken on the police dept. and most recently
the fire dept., completely ignore the sickeningly outrageous case of the Scott
Sisters! And to add insult to injury, laud Christopher Epps, who covers up the
low-budget, some-timey care that denies Jamie Scott regular medications,
regular dialysis, and the specific diet she has been told repeatedly that
she needs to maintain any semblance of health. The medical care is said
by inmates there to be abysmal on every level, and particularly so for Jamie
Scott, with end stage kidney failure!

This is a smack in the face to Mrs. Rasco, to whom Epps made false
promises of relief for Jamie, as well as Jamie and Gladys Scott, their
supporters, and the community at large! This organization should be fighting
on the front lines for justice for the Scott Sisters and not inviting Christopher
Epps to some banquet! And what of the national NAACP, why are they
NOT responding to the many requests that have been made of them for
the past 15 years to become involved in this case!

This is the final indignity and must not go unchallenged. This bureaucrat
should not pompously sit up there picking his teeth and pontificating
while Jamie Scott lay suffering in one of the very prison cells that he
oversees, a prison cell that she (nor her sister) should even be in!

Please contact the president of the Jackson County, Mississippi NAACP,
Curly Clark, and ask him:

* Why is the NAACP distinguishing a man who would allow a woman to
deteriorate in a prison on his watch until she is now at end stage of kidney
failure?

* Why does the NAACP want to hear from a man that won't permit this same,
very seriously ill woman to be housed in the Medical Bldg. on the grounds of
that facility so that she can be cared for by her sister and instead has
her housed in a mold-infested, damp, breeding ground for the infections
which have repeatedly threatened her life?

Ask Jackson County NAACP President, Curly Clark, and State President,
Derrick Johnson, why they are not involved in the fight for justice for the
Mississippi Scott Sisters, a shocking and internationally known atrocity
occurring right in their own backyard!

This entire event should be protested if Epps remains on the program
and attendees given refunds for their $30 tickets!

Curly Clark, President, Jackson County NAACP
228-762-9692

Derrick Johnson, State President
Mississippi State Conference NAACP
1072 West J.R. Lynch Street
Jackson, MS 39203
Phone: http://www.facebook.com/l/aadef;601.353.6906
Fax: http://www.facebook.com/l/aadef;601.353.1565
Website: http://www.facebook.com/l/aadef;www.naacpms.org

===================
Further comments from Nancy Lockhart:

"In Charleston South Carolina - A Supervisor of The Charleston Place Hotel - tied a hangman's noose and placed it on an elderly Black employee's neck - Gentleman contacted the NAACP - no assistance because Charleston Place Hotel Hosts the yearly fund raising breakfast free of charge for the NAACP every year - How Do I know? - I made the case public, I wrote the press release and conducted the press conference.
http://www.facebook.com/l/aadef;www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008/02/08/afx4635027.html

I'm rather disturbed when individuals ask, have you contacted the NAACP, ACLU, SCLC, and blah, blah, blah. Hell yes they have been contacted, haven't just been rocking in a chair for the past 5 years 7 months with the Scott Sisters Case. Join the mass e-mail campaign to the NAACP in protest of EPPS being guest speaker at the freedom fund banquet!

See Free The Scott Sisters Group Page or, http://www.facebook.com/l/aadef;www.freethescottsisters.blogspot.com

Federal Judge to Mississippi: Cease School Segregation

US District Judge Tom Lee has given the Walthall County School District in Mississippi 30 days to amend its student transfer policy and ordered an immediate halt to the alleged "clustering" of white students into certain classes in Tylertown, Miss., elementary schools.

"The district shall cease using race in the assignment of students to classrooms in a manner that results in the racial segregation of students," Judge Lee said in his eight-page order.

"The district shall randomly assign students to classrooms at the Tylertown Elementary Schools through the use of a student management software program," the judge said.

The action stems from a federal desegregation order issued in August 1970 – nearly 40 years ago. The case was closed for lack of activity in 2001.

In 2007, lawyers with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division contacted the Mississippi school district to monitor its compliance with the 1970 desegregation order. The action revealed two alleged violations.

The district was allowing more than 300 students – most of them white – to transfer from their assigned schools to a predominately white school, the Salem Attendance Center, outside their residential zone, according to court documents.

The second alleged violation involved grouping white students into a few designated classes at three other schools in Tylertown. The action created a significant number of all-black classrooms at each elementary grade level, documents say.

“It is unacceptable for school districts to act in a way that encourages or tolerates the resegregation of public schools,” said Thomas Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division.

Warren Richey of the Christian Science Monitor continues:

Jamie Scott Rushed Back To Prison So Mother Could Not Visit Hospital 3/25 Mississippi Scott Sisters Update

Jamie and Gladys Scott








Nancy LockhartMarch 25, 2010 at 5:24am
Subject: Jamie Scott Rushed Back To Prison So Mother Could Not Visit Hospital
3/25 SCOTT SISTERS UPDATE!

NOTE: If reading this before 10:00 a.m. EST or 9am CST on 3/25, please tune into http://www.facebook.com/l/9e070;www.wjzd.com for a Scott Sisters update from Mrs. Rasco on the Rip Daniels "It's a New Day" (http://www.facebook.com/l/9e070;www.itisanewday.com) show. Rip Daniels is a very dedicated supporter who starts each show off at 10 a.m. daily counting down how long Jamie and Gladys have been wrongfully locked down and tormented in that prison and will even discuss the case during some mornings on his program, so please check in as regularly as you can.
* * *

Mrs. Rasco and her entire family are in Mississippi to visit Jamie
and Gladys as well as to participate in the 3/26 MWM/BWDL Press
Conference scheduled for 12 noon in front of the Jackson, MS
Capitol Bldg. at 400 High St. The organization is asking for letters
of support for their campaign by 12 midnight 3/25 to be sent to
nationalmwm@aol.com or officialmwm@yahoo.com
For more info call: 267-636-3802.

Jamie has been in the hospital since 3/15 with a very serious infection,
severe weakness, extreme pain and swelling. Jamie stated that
she was "kicked out" of the hospital on Tuesday to prevent Mrs. Rasco
from coming in and asking questions, in fact an extra
guard was placed there to make certain that Mrs. Rasco didn't
come in there to see her. Jamie told Mrs. Rasco that she couldn't
believe how her 4' tall momma caused so much worry among those
prison officials!

She was abruptly moved to her old cell in the prison to await the visit with her mother and family to take place Wednesday for an hour, after which her family was to visit with Gladys for an hour. However, the Assistant Warden met them at the entrance and stated that some of the children weren't on the list to come in. After much wrangling and his personally searching the young men he permitted everyone to visit both women together BUT for one hour total, which actually ended up being less than an hour due to all of the wasted time spent being searched and with the Asst Warden on the phone rechecking names in the waiting area. The family watched in tears as Jamie climbed off of a bus and limped slowly and weakly to the visiting area and questioned staff as to why she wasn't given a wheelchair,to which they had no answer.

Jamie and Gladys grabbed onto each other and their family members
for a very emotional reunion, especially for the children. Both women
had lost quite a bit of weight, Gladys from extreme stress and depression
and Jamie due to her serious illness. Jamie stated that she was told by
the doctor that 6 catheter infections was much too much and that
she never should have had so many temporary catheters, which blew out
all of her veins where they were placed. She currently has a shunt in her
groin which is extremely painful and must be surgically removed next
week. She is scheduled to stay in her old cell until Friday, at which
time she is told that she will be returned to the hospital.

Both Jamie and Gladys want all of their supporters to know that
our activities are very greatly appreciated and that they want us to
keep on! Mrs. Rasco and family are also very thankful and hopeful
that together we can get those women released from this horrific
situation soon! If we keep pushing and use our creativity to call
attention to this case, it will happen! If you write, then write about
it; if you sing, sing about it; poet about it; creatively perform about
it; print out flyers and distribute them at programs and events, however
you can do it, please help get the word out about the plight of these
women, there's something that every one can do!

The Days of Blogging for the Scott Sisters that happened on 3/18 and
is so wonderfully happening again today will really help get the word out
on the case in wider and broader areas of the internet and hopefully lead
to much more support and national attention! Thanks so much to all
of the participants and we will be posting links to all of the blogs that
participated at the Scott Sisters site, so please send them in so that
you can be acknowledged! Of course everyone is encouraged to
continue blogging beyond today and please do!
~~~~~

We still don't trust that Jamie will receive adequate medical care once
these hospitalizations are completed, which was proven by the fact that
as soon as she was returned from the hospital yesterday she was
put right back in that moldy building where she was originally housed!
JAMIE SCOTT NEEDS TO BE HOUSED IN THE MEDICAL BUILDING.
Someone as seriously ill as Jamie needs to be somewhere that she can
get assistance in better living conditions, and that's not in the infirmary
and definitely not in her original cell. The Medical Bldg. would give her
access to her sister, Gladys, who would help her with her activities of
daily living and monitor her condition, just as other family members
incarcerated together there are permitted to do with less life-threatening
illnesses than Jamie suffers.

We must keep pushing for media attention to what's going on and are
continually pressing for nationwide press. A complete and in-depth
examination of this travesty of justice must be exposed!! Please
forward all of the info at the site to anyone, anywhere that can help
to make that happen, the Scott Sisters need to go prime-time to
apply enough pressure to make this Gov. do the right thing.

Jane Velez-Mitchell should do an entire segment on the Scott Sisters
now that she is aware of the case, please contact her and urge her to
follow-up her brief mention of the Scott Sisters on her 3/6 "Issues with
Jane Velez-Mitchell" with a more significant segment that will focus on
Jamie's serious medical condition and the Scott Sisters case
period. The contact form is at http://www.facebook.com/l/9e070;www.cnn.com/feedback/tips/newstips.html

EDITED FROM SCOTT SISTERS LIST SERVE

Appeals Court Affirms Conviction Of Reputed Klansman In Civil Rights Era Cold Case In Miss.

James Ford Seale (Daily Mail, UK)

A federal appeals court has upheld the 2007 conviction of a reputed Ku Klux Klan member in the kidnapping of two black men who were abducted and killed in rural Mississippi in 1964.

In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of judges said the evidence in the case against James Ford Seale was sufficient for the jury conviction in the trial that took place 43 years after the crimes. Friday's decision came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans.

The judge who dissented said that too much time had elapsed to try Seale and that incriminating statements Seale made should have been barred from his trial.

Seale, now 74, is in federal prison in Indiana. A Mississippi jury convicted him of two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and he was given three life sentences.

CBS News reports--
* * *

For Jamie Scott, an $11 Robbery in Mississippi May Carry a Death Sentence

On February 25, a small crowd gathered outside the state capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, to push for the release of sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott, who are serving two consecutive life sentences apiece for a 1993 armed robbery in which no one was injured and the take, by most accounts, was about $11. Supporters of the Scott sisters have long tried to draw attention to their case, as an extreme example of the distorted justice and Draconian sentencing policies that have overloaded prisons, crippled state budgets, and torn families apart across the United States. But in recent months, their cause has taken on a new urgency, because for Jamie Scott, an unwarranted life sentence may soon become a death sentence.

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella continued this story--
* * *

Mississippi Prom Cancelled; ACLU Files Suit; All Because of Gay Date Threat

JACKSON, Miss. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi today filed suit in federal court against the Itawamba County School System, which canceled the prom for one of its high schools when a student challenged a ban on bringing same-sex dates.
The federal suit asks the court to force the school board to reinstate the prom and alleges that district officials have violated the First Amendment rights of Constance McMillen, a senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School.

USA Today Update

Curtis Flowers: The Unbelievable Still Takes Place in Mississippi Justice (or Lack Thereof)

On the morning of July 16, 1996, four people were brutally murdered at a furniture store in the small Mississippi town of Winona. By 11:00 am everybody had heard the news: Bertha Tardy, the proprietor of Tardy ’s Furniture, had been killed execution style. Carmen Rigby, Tardy’s longtime bookkeeper, had suffered the same fate, as had hired hands, Bobo Stewart and Robert Golden. Golden was black, the other three victims were white. Six months later, Curtis Flowers, a young black Winona resident who had worked three days for Bertha Tardy, was arrested and charged with the brutal murder of four innocent people.

Thirteen years, $300,000 and five trials later, Mr. Flowers remains behind bars and the state has been unable to obtain a final conviction.

Learn more about what is happening in this current Mississippi case. Visit Friends of Justice.
* * *

Killen Sues FBI; Says Rights Violated in Murder Trial of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney

The New York Times reports that Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klansman convicted in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, has sued the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Mississippi’s attorney general, claiming they conspired to suppress his rights to “defend his society and culture.”

Killen, a former saw mill operator and onetime preacher, is serving a 60-year sentence after his 2005 manslaughter convictions in the deaths of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.

Continue Here --
* * *

Mississippi Legislature Impacts Black History Month: Bill Considered Will Mean All White Jury in Flowers Case

From the AP and Friend of Justice:

Mississippi lawmakers are considering a bill that could have an impact on the long-running capital murder case of a Montgomery County man accused of killing four people at a furniture store nearly 15 years ago.

Curtis Flowers is set to be tried a sixth time later this year for the 1996 murders at Tardy Furniture store in Winona.

The case has nearly depleted Montgomery County’s jury pool, and is one of the reason legislators have been asked to approve a proposal to expand the area from which jurors are selected, said Circuit Court Lanelle Martin.

The Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would allow counties to pull prospective jurors from an entire multicounty circuit district. Currently, jurors are sought from the county in which the crime occurred.

Flowers is charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of Winona furniture store owner Bertha Tardy, 59; store employees Derrick “BoBo” Stewart, 16, and Carmen Rigby, 45; and delivery man Robert Golden, 42.

Flowers has had three trials in Winona, one in Tupelo and one in Biloxi. Two resulted in mistrials and three in convictions that were later overturned. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty in the trial scheduled for June at the Montgomery County Courthouse.

Continue --

Black History Month Program Features ‘Mississippi Story Behind Rosa Parks’

Most people who’ve taken a high school history class know something about Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Parks' act of defiance became a symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and the U.S. Congress later called her the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement."

But there was another spark that lit this movement, and it came three months earlier from the depths of the Mississippi Delta, says writer Susan Klopfer of Mount Pleasant. The author of an audio book, “Who Killed Emmett Till?” is set to present a program on Parks and Till for Black History Month at the Mount Pleasant Library in the Large Study Room at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 16. Attendees are invited to bring a brownbag lunch, said Library Director Gayle Trede.

Klopfer lived in the Mississippi Delta for two years on the grounds of a state prison when her husband took a job as the director of the state’s prison psychological services. Her fascination with the region and its civil rights history led her to driving around the Delta “almost daily” to talk with people who remembered the modern civil rights movement -- nearly 60 years earlier.

“There’s a saying in Mississippi, that the past is the present. I found this true as people told me story after story of their involvement in trying to end Jim Crow and achieve voting rights.”

The Delta was an unsafe place for any black person, considering the heightened tension following Brown v. the Board of Education I in 1954 and then Brown II the following year. It was particularly unsafe for anyone violating Jim Crow standards for acceptable behavior in the segregated south.

“Till was a young man from Chicago who had never experienced living in such hostility. He was known to be a prankster and had no idea that his action of harassing a white woman would end his life.”

Parks had been planning her action, but when she and the NAACP heard about the acquittal of the two men who tortured and killed this 14-year-old in Mississippi, they knew the time had come for her move, Klopfer said.

Klopfer plans to tell the Emmett Till story adding new information she gained from interviews, including a woman whose family sheltered three men claiming they murdered Till, the mortician’s assistant who prepared Till’s body before he put it on the train from Chicago, and a student who interviewed one of Till’s killers two weeks before the man died of cancer. Klopfer also plans to talk about Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore and other forgotten Delta civil rights heroes.

A question and answer session will follow Klopfer’s talk and the program is free to the public.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Klopfer
505-728-7924 (cell)
sklopfer@gmail.com
www.susanklopfer.com
404 North Main St.
Mount Pleasant, IA 52641

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