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