Tom Matlack gives a very personal account of Civil Rights in a time and place where not much was civil–Mississippi, 1964
—-
One hot summer night in 1964 my twenty-six year old father drove a borrowed car down a dark road in Mississippi. He could hear the chirping of the cicadas, the swish of the tires on the road, and above them all, the thumping of his heart. Dad was driving back across the state, through counties known for violence against local blacks, desperately trying to get home. His borrowed car was leaking oil profusely.
Earlier that day, Dad had attended the Freedom Democratic Party state convention in Jackson, Mississippi. This political party had been set up that summer by a group of civil rights activists to select delegates who would attend the upcoming Democratic National Convention and protest the exclusion of blacks from the all-white Party. Dad stopped along the road to replenish the oil over and over but the engine labored mightily, the old car slowly dying as it bled engine oil. Finally, he knew he had to stop and managed to roll to a cross-roads diner before the engine died. He turned off the ignition and looked into the lit windows of the diner. Inside he could see the all-white patrons, and knew that with his long hair and oily, dirty clothes, he would instantly draw suspicion. This was the deep South, after all.
Dad entered the diner and walked past a policeman eating at the counter. Heads turned, and several menacing-looking locals tracked him as he went to the pay phone at the far end of the counter. He avoided their gaze and turned away from them as he unfolded a list of names of safe house organizers along his route. He dialed the local contact and spoke in a low voice, struggling to explain who he was and why he needed help—why, in fact, the black man should come out in the middle of the night to pick up a white stranger—while everyone in the diner watched intently.
Dad walked back outside to the parking lot and leaned against the car. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone came up to him and asked him what his business was. He stood and watched the door of the white-only diner as the minutes ticked by, waiting for a ride that may never arrive.
Dad knew the dangers he faced. Earlier that year, two northern students who had, like Dad, come to Mississippi as part of the civil rights effort, had disappeared. Also missing was their black companion. Two days later, a tip led the FBI to their charred car buried in the swamp. In the process of looking for the bodies the FBI dredged the waterways and found other bodies of black men who had gone missing over the prior months. They finally found the bodies of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in August on a local farm. The two whites had been shot in the heart and the black man beaten severely and then shot multiple times.
♦◊♦
Across the state Mom sat out on the stoop of Rust College in Holly Springs, waiting for Dad to get home. My one-year old brother, Will, had been tucked into bed and Mom was six months pregnant with me. As she sat and stared into the hot Mississippi night, Mom asked herself what she was doing in this foreign country. It was a world away from the New Haven of Yale University, where my father had been teaching. She sat alone on the stoop as the minutes turned into hours. Without Dad there, she felt utterly alone and very, very scared.
The week before my parents arrived at Rust College, local white night-riders had shot into the windows of the dorm building. It was a warning to the black students, and the white Northerners there to help, that registering blacks to vote would be met by violence. Though Mom had seen the bullet holes in the walls, and felt her heart race, that incident had not happened to her. Now, as she sat out on the front stoop, waiting for Dad to arrive, she realized for the first time what it felt like to be black in Mississippi. The terror she felt was the same terror she had seen on the black faces she had been staring at for weeks, the faces of black men and women who had decided the time had come to take a stand, and pay the consequences, no matter how grave.
My parents had arrived on the campus of Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi where Dad taught so one of the black faculty members could go north for advanced study.
In addition to teaching, Dad tried to help register black voters, a quest that ultimately proved futile. The local officials made up reading tests that no citizen could pass, asking blacks to quote from the state constitution, or read long passages out loud which the officials then pronounced were read incorrectly. As a result, Dad had turned his efforts to the Freedom Democratic Party. The idea was to elect black delegates who would go to the national convention and demand to be seated because blacks had been unable to vote for the delegates in the official Democratic Party. Organizing the FDP required secret meetings among blacks and northern whites like Dad. County officials became aware of the FDP and actively tried to stop them through the threat of violence.
Mom waited and waited that night. Ultimately, exhausted and scared, she dragged herself indoors. She kept listening for the sound of Dad’s car, but he never returned.
♦◊♦
Back at the diner, Dad was beginning to give up hope. Just then an old pick-up truck pulled up next to Dad. Looking into the dark cab, my father saw it was driven by a black man around his own age. Without exchanging a word, Dad got in and they sped away into the night. It was only when they arrived safely at the man’s farmhouse that they introduced themselves and shook hands.
“Robert Miles,” said the man.
“Jim Matlack,” Dad replied. “Thank you for coming.”
The man just shrugged. It was only when Dad was sitting at dinner with the family and eating a home-cooked meal did he learn what it had cost Robert Miles to venture out into the night.
“They shoot at us every night,” Mrs. Miles said calmly, passing my father a plate of brown meat and grits. “But don’t worry, my boys sit out front with a shotgun. They’ll protect you.”
Across the table, Robert Miles’s two sons continued eating without a word.
That night, Robert Miles and his sons took turns sitting on the front porch, passing a shotgun between them. Dad could see the gleam of the shotgun barrels, see the dark outline of the men, and wanted to join them. But he knew that showing his white face on the porch would only jeopardize the family more.
The next morning a local black mechanic picked up Dad’s car and towed it away. He worked on it for two days to get it running again. On the third day, Dad continued back to Holly Springs.
—
photo by shortfatkid / flickr
Hey stranger, good to hear from you! When you think about how your parents left their ‘comfortable’ New England lifestyle behind for an adventure to a place where they could ‘disappear’, well you really appreciate their strength of conviction. It really makes me sad when I hear today’s youth use the n-word so casually , whether in conversation or ‘rap’ songs. It makes me feel the sacrifice that people made (of all races) just aren’t appreciated as they should be. On the other hand, I now see where your sence of conviction comes from. Be proud of your family Tom,… Read more »
The Good Men Project I have spoken to literally thousands of men–from inmates in Sing Sing to a photographer taking picture on this contented in this page…
“He who stands with me shall be my brother.”
I guess that means I’m your Uncle, Tom (no pun intended, but the irony is rich isn’t it?).
It’s good to see that a sense of justice can run in a family. I salute your father and yourself.
The Wet One
Even though this happened a generation ago, it’s still important to remember the sacrifice made by many people from all walks of life. I’ll definitely share this. Thanks.
That was excellent!
Thank you for sharing this poignant story and the heart-ache of all involved. I am grateful for the courage and feel I’ve received a gift that has enlarged my humanity — today — on MLK’s day. Blessings to you and your family, April
PS-When in San Francisco, stop by the MLK wall of quotes between 3rd & 4th on Market Street. The beauty and truth of what he said, still sings….
Tom. Mostly Mich State folks, starting in, I believe, 1965, ran what might be called “pre-mediation” for incoming freshmen at Rust. Six weeks with three hours daily of math, three of what we called communication skills (writing, critical reading), and electives taught by any of us who had something interesting. Swimming classes. Trips to Ole Miss, Shiloh, Wall Doxey for swimming. Had a reunion about four years ago and were told–I hope it’s true–that the pre-freshmen we taught did better than those who did not participate. Turns out that Osborne Bell, first black sheriff of the county, was killed in… Read more »
This is an amazing and important piece of history, a story told the way I like to best learn history — from the vantage point of one individual and how the events of the nation at the time impact him or her. It’s a way to understand insights and and the importance and meaning of today’s events — by framing them with perspective and looking at how an individual questions whether they are doing the right thing or not at the time.
Thanks for this Tom.
This is a deep read I really like it and I feel like that most people do not understand this in todays soceity.
interesting reading(the politics, history, sense of fear), thanks
Interesting story. I was with STEP at Rust 67 and 68. Things had settled down by then. What was your mom’s family name? Was she from MSU?
Jean Yaukey Richard. Mom was from the north (DC) as was my dad. They met in Quaker boarding school in PA.