Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers

CONTENTS

ix Contents xiii foreword How Do We Comply?: Answering the Call of Medgar Evers Michelle S. Hite xxi acknowledgments xxiii introduction part I D ixi e Su ite 3 What Kills Me 4 Ambiguity over the Confederate Flag 5 Rotten Fruit 7 Humor Me 8 The N-Word 10 Southern Sports 11 Byron De La Beckwith Dreaming I 12 I’d Wish I Was in Dixie Too x part II So uth er n D r eams 15 Fire Proof 16 Listening to Music 17 Life Apes Art Apes Life: Byron De La Beckwith Reflects on Birth of a Nation 18 White of Way 19 Music, Niggers & Jews 20 Swamp Thing 21 Stand by Your Man 22 Husbandry 23 Unwritten Rules for Young Black Boys Wanting to Live in Mississippi Long Enough to Become Men part III Lo ok Away, Look Away . . . 27 Byron De La Beckwith Dreaming II 29 After Dinner in Money, Mississippi 30 World War Too 31 Believing in Hymn 32 Southern Bells 33 Fighting Extinction 34 Harriet Tubman as Villain: A Ghost Story 35 Legal Lynching 36 After the fbi Searched the Bayou 37 Haiku for Emmett Till 38 No More Fear 39 When Death Moved In xi part IV Ga llant S o uth 43 Byron De La Beckwith Dreaming III 44 After Birth 45 Sorority Meeting 47 One-Third of 180 Grams of Lead 48 Arlington 49 Cross-Examination 50 Bighearted 51 Anatomy of Hate 52 What They Call Irony 53 On Moving to California part V B i tter Fr u it 57 One Mississippi, Two Mississippis 58 A Final Accounting 59 Now One Wants to Be President 60 Epiphany 61 Last Meal Haiku 62 White Knights 63 Evers Family Secret Recipe 64 The Assurance Man 65 Gift of Time 66 Heavy Wait 67 time line 71 bibliography This page intentionally left blank ...