" White People are interesting" My Book Response to Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi

I have heard of, and read some, about the conspiracies involving J. Edgar Hoover targeting African Americans and presidents slow action to defend Blacks, but to have these vivid illustrations of Hoover’s plight against African Americans prior to his COINTELPRO actions against the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King Jr. etc. and the president agreeing with Hoover’s methods, was enlightening and generally upsetting. It was not as if Hoover was inconspicuously plotting against Blacks. He publicly said, “We most certainly do not and will not give protection to civil rights workers…” But in the same speech, he stated that the law enforcement should “comply with the new civil rights law.” But his efforts in trying to convince the local terrorists to obey weren’t for the welfare of African Americans, it was meant for those who dared to harm whites. Apparently, his message of applying the civil rights law to only certain Americans was clearly internalized by local terrorists when two African American men’s mutilated bodies were discovered in a river.

The Lyndon Johnson presidential administration’s delayed reaction to the violence in Mississippi is reminiscent of our recent Katrina tragedy and the Bush administration’s lackadaisical response. How interesting that we still vote into office ambivalent “leaders” who make conscious efforts to attempt to negate and not build upon the progress (arguably minimal) made by their predecessors. As the supposed leaders of the free world constantly developing a “Great Society” they continue to make plans that are not all encompassing. Presidents such as Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson did implement laws pivotal in the progress of African Americans, but the adoration offered to them is undeserved. Each of them made decisions under pressure and when their ideal ways of satiating the public was unsuccessful. Lincoln only signed the Emancipation Proclamation because he could not allocate the funds to remove Blacks from the country, Roosevelt didn’t want Blacks to march so he instituted a new labor law, Kennedy took his time with Little Rock’s school integration issues and now we read about Johnson’s apprehension to resolve issues in McComb via military action. It’s not the first time, but to have more evidence of consistency in leniency towards those who don’t uphold democratic laws and the utilization of political tactics to circumvent injustices targeting the country’s minority is all too frustrating. What makes President Lyndon Johnson’s story so similar to those before him is that Blacks benefited only because the government’s lack of action began to negatively affect whites. It was when Governor Johnson feared military occupation of his state that he acted against the Klan. It wasn’t until two young middle-class white men died that the White House moved into action. It was not until after tension was created as a result of numerous bombings and white business owners’ livelihood began to suffer because the threat of the federal government imposing on their town was scaring away patrons that the bombers were finally arrested.

Interestingly Hoover’s own words reveal the paradoxical actions and propaganda disseminating from the past and current presidential administrations, “In recent years, a campaign of falsehood and vilification has been directed against the FBI by some ignorant and subversive elements. In the world-wide struggle of free people, the truth is still one of the most potent weapons. And the record of the FBI speaks for itself.” How can a governmental figure acknowledge “the world-wide struggle of free people” when his own FBI agents are assisting in keeping Blacks captive in the country he was hired to make safe for all residents?