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175 CHAPTER  “they wouldn’t feel comfortable until i was gone” Oxford, 1963–65 Before long the letters began arriving too. Ruthie, determined to keep some lightness in a difficult time, filed them in folders labeled “in-state goodies” and “in-state baddies” as well as “out-of-state goodies” and “out-of-state baddies.” Three of the four files remain. As Will Campbell has observed, it is almost emblematic of Gray and his loving, forgiving attitude toward his fellow Mississippians that it is the “in-state baddies” file that has mysteriously disappeared. “I lent it to somebody, I can’t remember who, and I just never got it back,” Gray said. Both the Grays remembered, however, that the “in-state baddies” file was significantly thicker than the “in-state goodies” one. Among the correspondents from Mississippi who attacked him in writing , Gray remembered most clearly one from an acquaintance who, with his wife, had been students at Ole Miss with Ruthie. “I got this wire from him just blasting me, calling me the worst kinds of things you could think of! And then he ended it with ‘Love to Ruthie!’ I think that’s so typical of Mississippi relationships—people would scream bloody murder, but then, okay, ‘love to Ruthie.’”1 Mississippi correspondents who praised Gray and thanked him for his words and actions included two elected officials, one a state legislator from Greenville and the other Gray’s congressman, Rep. Frank E. Smith, a moderate who had already lost the state’s Democratic primary as a result of the state legislature’s redistricting; legislative leaders who objected to Smith’s moderate stands had been careful to draw the new district lines in a way that Smith was bound to lose. Another supporter was Aaron Henry, president of the state NAACP, with whom Gray had visited on Amzie Moore’s front porch in Cleveland several years earlier. Henry wrote in response to Gray’s October 7 sermon, 176 “They Wouldn’t Feel Comfortable until I Was Gone” “Yes, I agree with you that we all must take our rightful share for the tragic consequences of the last week. The Negroes for not letting our white brothers know much sooner that we were desirous of implementing the legal gains made over the past few years. The Whites for being so reactionary toward those gains and the Federal Government for taking our complaining to them so lightly for almost too long. Yes, the Church has to accept its share of the blame for its silence for almost too long.” Henry concluded his letter, “Please accept the thanks of a grateful people for your forthright stand now as in the past. . . . With you we will work to bring a better day to all,” and signed it “Gratefully yours.”2 A. D. Beittel, president of all-black Tougaloo College near Jackson, wrote to thank Gray “for the splendid statement you made recently concerning the violence which erupted in Oxford” and invited him to join the effort to revitalize the Mississippi Council on Human Relations, of which Gray had earlier been a part when he was in Cleveland. Beittel wrote, “We need your prophetic leadership,” adding, “There was a little flurry of excitement last spring when we reorganized the Mississippi Council, and the Citizens’ Council proceeded to point out its Communist affiliation. [The allegation was unfounded.] The pressure from the Citizens’ Council was enough to prevent three of the proposed officers from taking office. The chairman was to have been a retired businessman in Jackson and two of the vicechairmen were [Roman Catholic] Bishop [Joseph] Brunini of Jackson and Rabbi [Charles] Mantinband of Hattiesburg.”3 Gray also heard also from the Wheatleys in Greenwood, whose house he had visited after it had been shot into by, they believed, Byron de la Beckwith. Several residents of Oxford who were not members of his church also wrote to express their thanks, including Mrs. Calvin Brown, one of the most powerful doyennes of Oxford University society. Oscar Carr, a former king of Memphis’ annual Cotton Carnival and the otherwise socially prominent owner of Mascot Plantation in the Delta near Clarksdale, sent “a note of encouragement in regard to your sermon . . . on which I congratulate you.” Carr wrote, “If the church fails to speak up on the side of law and order, we might as well disband,” and added, “I for one feel repentant for all of us in Mississippi who...

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