Delta Fragments: The Recollections of a Sharecropper's Son

Whites in the Struggle

Whites in the Struggle While life in Mississippi can be languid and pleasant, certain hazards confront the dissenter who would disparage the local customs. Mississippi is famous for a past of police brutality, and for the sure harassment , even to death, of those who defy the code. . . . Today [1964] the press has become even less bothered about reporting brutality than it was shown to be by a down-played news story in the Raymond Gazette on July 18, 1885: “Four negroes were lynched at Grenada last week; also one at Oxford.” James W. Silver, Mississippi: The Closed Society Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion. William Lloyd Garrison, The Story of His Life I could see it on their faces, the polite smiles that couldn’t completely mask the sense of frustration and bewilderment they were feeling. “Knowing your students ” means that you can pick up on such things. Then comes the question that is on many of their minds: “Dr. Hodges, do you believe all whites hate blacks?” I have learned from years of hearing this question in various forms not to answer with the quick retort: “Of course not, and I never said that!” Nor would they, nor should they, be satisfied when I mention John Brown or William Lloyd Garrison Whites in the Struggle 192 or any number of other whites who devoted much of their lives and careers in pursuit of justice for all citizens. At the same time, I don’t want to give the erroneous impression, suggested in so many films and documentaries, that no progress at all would have occurred without the assistance of whites. The students who have enrolled in this class on African American religion are a diverse group: blacks and whites, males and females, a few international students. They have majors ranging from business and engineering to English and political science. Most are from the South but not all. Most have taken my class because they need it to fulfill a requirement to graduate. Some are there to learn something about African American religion and whatever that entails. Others are there because they feel their attendance and membership in a black church has given them a head start in the class. They are, for the most part, deeply religious and conservative. Many of the black students also evince a conservatism that at first may appear disarming. Perhaps no one is completely prepared for a class in which the instructor needs the students as much as they need him. I am sincere when I admit that I seek to have the kind of dialogue with them that I wish I could have had with their parents and grandparents. So these students, while conservative in many ways, know well that the circumstances of my background have placed me in a different political camp than they; yet they haven’t been able to reconcile the treatment of African Americans and others in the South with their understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Certainly, there must have been others who felt as they do. So why wasn’t there even a greater outcry among those Christians who were having their religion hijacked in the name of states’ rights and southern heritage? The students deserve a much more nuanced response to their questions than I might be able to give them on the spot. Perhaps I need a whole class—or even a course—to discuss the complex and interesting dynamics involving the participation of whites in the civil rights movement. Since I’ve been so close to the problem, maybe I’m incapable of giving an unbiased opinion, but they do expect and deserve some response. Whites participated at all stages of the freedom movement during the 1950s and 1960s. This includes laying the groundwork for legal challenges to segregation as in Brown v. Board of education, the Freedom Rides, sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, protest marches, and demonstrations. The one reason that there was not more of a hue and cry from white citizens is that those in charge of maintaining the status quo made the participation of whites such a perilous 193 Whites in the Struggle affair. In many ways, it was much more dangerous for whites to participate than blacks, although it was dangerous for both. This is shown in so...