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Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
Winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Lillian Smith Book Award, the Mississippi Historical Society McLemore Prize, the Herbert G. Gutman Prize and the Gustavus Myers Center for Study of Human Rights Outstanding Book Prize.
Publication of this book was supported by a grant from DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana.
Publication of this book was supported by a grant from DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana.
560 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 12, 2008
probably the best book on the civil rights movement I have ever read in my life.
If you are at all interested in this topic, by all means, buy, borrow or steal a copy of this book.
On page 423, the author notes the following:
"Blacks had struggled for their freedom in Mississippi since the earliest days of slavery an continue to fight for their rights as citizens down to the present. Still, the period beginning with World War II and ending with the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968 encompasses the most intensive and comprehensive period of grass-roots organization and protest in that state's history; as a result of that campaign, Mississippi experienced more sweeping changes in the area of race relations during those three periods than at any time since the end of the Civil War."
The book's title says it all; it is the story of black Mississipians who often gave their lives in the ongoing fight for civil rights & freedom over the above-mentioned time period.
My book is filled with post-it notes, well dispersed throughout the book's 400+ pages but I will only make brief comments on my impressions of this book.
What I did not realize before reading this book was that the Mississipi government's (state/local) methods of dealing with anyone connected with Mississippi civil rights programs were virtually totalitarian in nature, called by one journalist "something akin to NKVD among the cotton patches." (60). The State Sovereignty Commission, created in 1956, kept tabs on everyone through wiretapping, bugging, keeping dossiers of anyone who might even be suspected of belonging to or working for any kind of civil rights group. Locally, Citizens' councils began right after the Brown v. Board of Education decision was made in 1954, when talk of desegregating began. But the Citizens' councils went beyond the question of desegregation: it served to promote & ensure white supremacy through whatever means possible -- be it through violence, economic intimidation, whatever. In order to begin to try to secure basic human rights, as well as those afforded to them through the US Constitution, black Mississippians began to fight back. While other blacks had been killed & lost property in their early struggles, it was (as the author notes) the killing of Emmett Till in 1955 which garnered the attention of the country, making an "indelible impression on black teenagers eerywhere." (425) With the help of various organizations (SNCC, CORE) that came into Mississipi to volunteer to help in the fight for civil rights & freedom, the local people were able to organize more of the black population and get them to freedom schools to become more literate to be able to pass the tests set up to block them in their attempts to register to vote or to demand better conditions as human beings. The personal commitments and sacrifices these people had to make are the focus of the book. It sheds light on the Freedom Summer, the various marches for freedom, the hard work of the volunteers, demonstrations & mass movements, but also serves to enlighten its readers on the political plays going on in the background, between the groups helping the locals to fight for their rights, as well as at the top levels of national government, where getting the Federal Government to do anything was often impossible even after numerous deaths & media exposure showing the harsh realities of black life under a white supremacist regime in Mississippi. The politics and power plays among the civil rights activists also gave rise to the "Black Power" movement, something else I did not know.
I could go on, but you really should just read this book for yourself. I do have to say that I was reading this book over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and wondered why no one ever thought to make a holiday for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, a REAL African-American hero in the fight for civil rights. Not to belittle Dr. King's efforts, but this woman deserves to have a day of her own. And Fannie Lou Hamer knew when she died that the struggle wasn't over when she noted "...we ain't free yet. The kids need to know their mission."
Local People is an outstanding work, and I know I'm going to come back to it again. It takes a while to read, but it is worth every second.
If you are at all interested in this topic, by all means, buy, borrow or steal a copy of this book.
On page 423, the author notes the following:
"Blacks had struggled for their freedom in Mississippi since the earliest days of slavery an continue to fight for their rights as citizens down to the present. Still, the period beginning with World War II and ending with the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968 encompasses the most intensive and comprehensive period of grass-roots organization and protest in that state's history; as a result of that campaign, Mississippi experienced more sweeping changes in the area of race relations during those three periods than at any time since the end of the Civil War."
The book's title says it all; it is the story of black Mississipians who often gave their lives in the ongoing fight for civil rights & freedom over the above-mentioned time period.
My book is filled with post-it notes, well dispersed throughout the book's 400+ pages but I will only make brief comments on my impressions of this book.
What I did not realize before reading this book was that the Mississipi government's (state/local) methods of dealing with anyone connected with Mississippi civil rights programs were virtually totalitarian in nature, called by one journalist "something akin to NKVD among the cotton patches." (60). The State Sovereignty Commission, created in 1956, kept tabs on everyone through wiretapping, bugging, keeping dossiers of anyone who might even be suspected of belonging to or working for any kind of civil rights group. Locally, Citizens' councils began right after the Brown v. Board of Education decision was made in 1954, when talk of desegregating began. But the Citizens' councils went beyond the question of desegregation: it served to promote & ensure white supremacy through whatever means possible -- be it through violence, economic intimidation, whatever. In order to begin to try to secure basic human rights, as well as those afforded to them through the US Constitution, black Mississippians began to fight back. While other blacks had been killed & lost property in their early struggles, it was (as the author notes) the killing of Emmett Till in 1955 which garnered the attention of the country, making an "indelible impression on black teenagers eerywhere." (425) With the help of various organizations (SNCC, CORE) that came into Mississipi to volunteer to help in the fight for civil rights & freedom, the local people were able to organize more of the black population and get them to freedom schools to become more literate to be able to pass the tests set up to block them in their attempts to register to vote or to demand better conditions as human beings. The personal commitments and sacrifices these people had to make are the focus of the book. It sheds light on the Freedom Summer, the various marches for freedom, the hard work of the volunteers, demonstrations & mass movements, but also serves to enlighten its readers on the political plays going on in the background, between the groups helping the locals to fight for their rights, as well as at the top levels of national government, where getting the Federal Government to do anything was often impossible even after numerous deaths & media exposure showing the harsh realities of black life under a white supremacist regime in Mississippi. The politics and power plays among the civil rights activists also gave rise to the "Black Power" movement, something else I did not know.
I could go on, but you really should just read this book for yourself. I do have to say that I was reading this book over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and wondered why no one ever thought to make a holiday for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, a REAL African-American hero in the fight for civil rights. Not to belittle Dr. King's efforts, but this woman deserves to have a day of her own. And Fannie Lou Hamer knew when she died that the struggle wasn't over when she noted "...we ain't free yet. The kids need to know their mission."
Local People is an outstanding work, and I know I'm going to come back to it again. It takes a while to read, but it is worth every second.
June 16, 2008
When you have to read books whether you like 'em or not, it's a pleasure to bump into one you love. Jackie Dirks assigned this as part of a Culture and Society class I took, and I'm so glad she did. The author is an amzing storyteller who seems to squeeze in a lifetime's worth of research without ever boring you.
My American Hero is a man I would have never heard of if I hadn't read this book. James Merdith served eight years in the air force, enrolled in Jackson State while he fought to enroll at Ole Miss. After winning the court case, he faced a crowd of 3,000 throwing bottles and bricks- a riot that claimed two lives. He endured the disrespect and graduated in 1963. When he graduated he moved out of Mississippi for years, and who could blame him? But he came back, without advance billing, to achieve a simple feat. Walk across Mississippi. Unfortunately, "the attempted assassination transformed what had been a lonely walk into the last great march of the civil rights years."
This book is chock full of American heroes, and tragedies, and things that make you say "I didn't know that happened."
A must read for all Americans.
My American Hero is a man I would have never heard of if I hadn't read this book. James Merdith served eight years in the air force, enrolled in Jackson State while he fought to enroll at Ole Miss. After winning the court case, he faced a crowd of 3,000 throwing bottles and bricks- a riot that claimed two lives. He endured the disrespect and graduated in 1963. When he graduated he moved out of Mississippi for years, and who could blame him? But he came back, without advance billing, to achieve a simple feat. Walk across Mississippi. Unfortunately, "the attempted assassination transformed what had been a lonely walk into the last great march of the civil rights years."
This book is chock full of American heroes, and tragedies, and things that make you say "I didn't know that happened."
A must read for all Americans.
June 24, 2024
I made the mistake of holding off on writing this review until after my dissertation and now I can only really comment on the parts I used…
Two things that made this a really valuable book to me were the contextualisation of Joyce Brown’s poem and the role of religion in female militancy.
The first, written after the McComb freedom house was bombed, directs a scathing critique at his own community for their unwillingness to offer facilities. Brown’s poem, though shocking, stirred a latent solidarity. One man, breaking down as the poem was read, shared how pleased he was that his own thoughts had been given a voice. Church space was offered to the freedom school soon after and, through these public actions, local leaders became integral to the summer project. Throughout the book, Dittmer makes visible a hidden world of local resistance, but it is this account of a community rallying behind a 16 year old’s poem which really brought it to life for me. I had seen the poem a few times before (once in a sloppy archive search for “fear” and again in the anniversary edition of Letters from Mississippi) but never realised its full implications. This is the value of Dittmer’s work for me, he puts historical details into a framework of lived experience.
The other, is the section of the Delta movement as “a woman’s war”. Women had been the backbone of black churches and this devotion proved transferable to the movement. Their religious conviction, Dittmer argues, gave them both the courage to participate and faith in its success. He follows the eventual realisation of women’s full potential as community organisers under SNCC, echoing the advice Ella Baker gave Lawrence Guyot: “never, never make the mistake of substituting men in quantity for women of quality.”
Two things that made this a really valuable book to me were the contextualisation of Joyce Brown’s poem and the role of religion in female militancy.
The first, written after the McComb freedom house was bombed, directs a scathing critique at his own community for their unwillingness to offer facilities. Brown’s poem, though shocking, stirred a latent solidarity. One man, breaking down as the poem was read, shared how pleased he was that his own thoughts had been given a voice. Church space was offered to the freedom school soon after and, through these public actions, local leaders became integral to the summer project. Throughout the book, Dittmer makes visible a hidden world of local resistance, but it is this account of a community rallying behind a 16 year old’s poem which really brought it to life for me. I had seen the poem a few times before (once in a sloppy archive search for “fear” and again in the anniversary edition of Letters from Mississippi) but never realised its full implications. This is the value of Dittmer’s work for me, he puts historical details into a framework of lived experience.
The other, is the section of the Delta movement as “a woman’s war”. Women had been the backbone of black churches and this devotion proved transferable to the movement. Their religious conviction, Dittmer argues, gave them both the courage to participate and faith in its success. He follows the eventual realisation of women’s full potential as community organisers under SNCC, echoing the advice Ella Baker gave Lawrence Guyot: “never, never make the mistake of substituting men in quantity for women of quality.”
January 16, 2018
Dittmer chronicles the grass roots politics of the Magnolia State, the home of the South's most virulent form of White Supremacy. Focusing on both the local Blacks of Mississippi and the activists from outside the state in SNCC and CORE, he adds complexity to the picture of the Civil Rights Movement in documenting the interplay between "outside agitators" and native protest. Outsiders from SNCC and CORE could never have survived without the support of local people. He also helps us understand the class undercurrents of a movement that often pitted the black middle class against the rural poor. The trajectory he maps is one that follows native protest from the cauldron of WWII and its aftermath through the 50s and into the 60s. Men who returned from the war and were denied the vote became activists in the 40s and 50s within the NAACP. The 60s are really the focal point of his story and here his focus begins with SNCC and ends with the demise of the MFDP. To move beyond this demise in local activism after 1968 is not the project of this book. Dittmer's conclusion is that the radical demands of the MFDP, like the radical demands of other movements in American history (the Populists?) were not met. Though much of their reform program was indeed enacted. We inhabit an America shaped by the egalitarian strivings of local people from Mississippi as much as we do one shaped by the National Government's halting progress toward equal rights.
Mississippi in the age of "Grand Expectations" was a very violent place, and most of that violence was exercised by white supremacists against blacks. Dittmer catalogs this violence in near numbing detail. As Kim Lacey Rodgers points out in her review, he also " shows the craven role played by the federal government, as the administrations of both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ignored the segregationist violence in the state in hopes of placating men such as Senators John Stennis and James O. Eastland." As Alan Draper points out in his review for the Journal of Negro History, Dittmer's archetype for local people is Fannie Lou Hamer. But she is an archetype, indeed, and in giving credit to the local people in Mississippi he chronicles the lives of people who braved the terror of the South's worst state. In Draper's apt summary, credit here goes
to the people in Ruleville who braved economic reprisals and police violence to register to vote; to the people in Jackson who desegregated public facilities; to the people in McComb who withstood Klan terror to build a community center; to the people in Cleveland who distributed food when the county withdrew from federal support programs; to the people in Clarksdale who boycotted white merchants; and tot the people of Hattiesburg who waited in line for hours to take the voter registration tests. (p. 203)
Granting this, however, Draper takes issue with the way Dittmer uses class. Trying to demonstrate the class politics of the movement, Draper believes Dittmer misrepresents the struggle. Teachers and preachers certainly belonged to the middle class, but so too did business people and independent farmers. And more generally, one is left arguing if the radical democracy represented the larger Mississippi Black population better than the more "moderate" program of the NAACP. Against the class politics of the MFDP, Draper urges a consideration of the mass mobilization around voter registration. I would submit, however, that Dittmer's consideration of Great Society Politics in Mississippi is a lasting contribution to the historiography.
Mississippi in the age of "Grand Expectations" was a very violent place, and most of that violence was exercised by white supremacists against blacks. Dittmer catalogs this violence in near numbing detail. As Kim Lacey Rodgers points out in her review, he also " shows the craven role played by the federal government, as the administrations of both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ignored the segregationist violence in the state in hopes of placating men such as Senators John Stennis and James O. Eastland." As Alan Draper points out in his review for the Journal of Negro History, Dittmer's archetype for local people is Fannie Lou Hamer. But she is an archetype, indeed, and in giving credit to the local people in Mississippi he chronicles the lives of people who braved the terror of the South's worst state. In Draper's apt summary, credit here goes
to the people in Ruleville who braved economic reprisals and police violence to register to vote; to the people in Jackson who desegregated public facilities; to the people in McComb who withstood Klan terror to build a community center; to the people in Cleveland who distributed food when the county withdrew from federal support programs; to the people in Clarksdale who boycotted white merchants; and tot the people of Hattiesburg who waited in line for hours to take the voter registration tests. (p. 203)
Granting this, however, Draper takes issue with the way Dittmer uses class. Trying to demonstrate the class politics of the movement, Draper believes Dittmer misrepresents the struggle. Teachers and preachers certainly belonged to the middle class, but so too did business people and independent farmers. And more generally, one is left arguing if the radical democracy represented the larger Mississippi Black population better than the more "moderate" program of the NAACP. Against the class politics of the MFDP, Draper urges a consideration of the mass mobilization around voter registration. I would submit, however, that Dittmer's consideration of Great Society Politics in Mississippi is a lasting contribution to the historiography.
August 4, 2018
As a lawyer, I had a skewed view of the Civil Rights era in Mississippi. All victories were thanks to the federal court system, right? This book brought me a different perspective, a valuable one that filled out the picture.
June 20, 2015
This book is really eye opening. I think most people know Mississippi has always been hostile to African Americans and is often seen as one of the worst places in the Deep South (along with Alabama) in its dealings of race issues. This book goes into a detailed study of the Mississippi story, from Emmitt Till to Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman, to James Meredith, to lesser known stories as well, it's a great book to read to learn about the civil rights movement. It will certainly give the reader a different perspective on the United States and the Kennedy administration as well.
October 31, 2010
Dittmer provides a wonderfully written narrative about the struggle in Mississippi from post-WWII to the 1970s. Mississippi seems like a foreign country that had not evolved on race relations since Reconstruction, and some of the accounts are heartbreaking. Dittmer covers all of the leaders and movements during this period balanced with the needs and demands of the local blacks as they fight for simple things like voting and the ability to feed and educate their families.
March 27, 2011
very, very good, well detailed recount of a period of the country's history that's not very flattering. It is amazing that through the brutal treatment, it was through the acts of several individuals that our history changed. highly recommend
August 17, 2007
If you like history, this will open your eyes to a new way of looking at the Civil Rights Movement. This book is bad-ass!
August 28, 2009
Great book. Reorients the Civil Rights movement to a ground up study. Presages many of the themes in civil rights scholarship that would dominate in the next decade
May 10, 2011
"The abundance of names and places makes it easy for one to get lost while reading this. This is an important story that is told in a confusing manner."
Read
September 30, 2015A really gripping, community-level study of the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi. Dittmer's book won many awards.
March 31, 2016
This. Book. Has. To. Many. Crooked. Roads. I. Would. Not. Want. To. Be. On. That. Road. Why. Because. Thats. Road. Call. The. Wrong. Turn.
December 12, 2022
Dittmer details the development of grassroots movements in Mississippi from the end of World War II until the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. Spurred by their experiences in World War II, black veterans who initially challenged discrimination in Mississippi were consistently met with violence. In response, these veterans teamed up with the black middle-class to form the NAACP but remained unable to advance the cause of civil rights. Not until two other grassroots movements came together in 1961, the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), did black Mississippians organize sufficiently to advance their cause. The external impetus of CORE, which hailed from outside the state, emboldened the nascent SNCC into community organizing. Over time, community organizers built a confederation of many organizations, including the NAACP. By 1964, the confederation focused on political activism, voter registration, and had created a political party. Eventually dominated by the NAACP, this confederation of community groups in Mississippi empowered African Americans, shifted the attitudes of white politicians, changed the white perception of the Ku Klux Klan, and started to dismantle Jim Crow. While no victory was decisive, Dittmer argues that the power of community put the first cracks into the social and institutional discrimination African Americans faced in Mississippi.
November 10, 2021
Dittmer’s history of the Mississippi Movement is a reminder that true change-making is the product of widespread individual action. Bob Moses and Fannie Lou Hamer understood that local communities themselves are best equipped to spur and sustain a positive difference. This book has taught me a great deal and I am thankful to have read it.
August 12, 2020
Highly recommend for those interested in the Civil Rights Movement!
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews