Natchez Civil Rights Movement — 1965 — Pivotal Year

Natchez Civil Rights Movement — 1965 — Pivotal Year. Natchez Trails. , The National Guard patrolled St. Catherine Street on September 3, not long after the August 27 bombing that nearly killed NAACP President George Metcalfe. The crowd stands in front of the Dr. John Banks House (above), then headquarters of the NAACP. Governor Paul Johnson sent 650 National Guardsmen to Natchez after the city rejected a list of demands submitted by the NAACP in the wake of the bombing. , This paradigm of economic boycotts supported by paramilitary organization was first utilized in 1965 in Natchez... The insurgent model of Natchez was replicated throughout the state... , , Akinyele O. Umoja, “We Will Shoot Back,” Journal of Black Studies, January 2002. , On September 30, the city obtained an injunction against demonstrations. Over the next several days, more than 500 demonstrators were arrested and the City Auditorium (above) became a temporary detention center. About half were bused to Parchman Penitentiary, where they received cruel treatment at the hands of the warden. , After the U. S. District Court lifted the injunction against protest marches on October 6, the city witnessed the largest march of its Civil Rights Movement. About twelve hundred marchers filled the streets of downtown Natchez. They marched quietly and orderly to the Adams County Courthouse (above). Klansmen stood on the street corners to try to intimidate the participants. , With the exception of Charles Evers... the Natchez civil rights struggle , considered by some historians as the most successful of the Mississippi movements , was led by hardworking, regular men and women from the local black community. They organized demonstrations, an economic boycott, and countered the Klan violence, and the lack of police protection by arming themselves. , , Vern Smith, “Ghosts of Mississippi,” The Defenders Online, March 4, 2011. , The [newspaper] article was directed at the cowards who placed hoods over their faces and killed, bombed, beat, intimidated, and distributed libelous filth under the cover of darkness. , , Forrest A. Johnson, Sr. (white attorney and publisher), Miss-Lou Observer, March 31, 1965. , During a march up Franklin Street on October 30, notorious Klansman Jack Seale (above right) of nearby Franklin County stood on a street corner in paramilitary clothing to try to intimidate marchers. , Both Jack and his brother James Ford Seale were implicated in murders and bombings in Southwest Mississippi. FBI records document that Jack Seale became a paid informant in 1967. His brother died in prison in 2011 after being convicted in 2007 of the 1964 kidnapping of two black teenagers who were murdered. , A young man holds a sign (above) on the 700 block of Franklin Street in early December 1965. At a meeting at Zion Chapel A.M.E. Church, activist Bill Ware called for a Christmas boycott against white merchants. This boycott and the demonstrations of 1965 resulted in the city and local businesses conceding to virtually all of the NAACP demands. The city formally conceded on December 3, 1965. , Whereas virtually every other local campaign had ended in failure during the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, the Natchez project had mobilized an entire community and exacted sweeping concessions from the white establishment , without federal intervention... The Natchez campaign was the single greatest community victory for the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi… , Lance Hill, The Deacons for Defense, 2004.