Honoring Black Ancestors : Lest We Forget....

MississippiRed

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Aug 11, 2004
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Speakers honor bomb victim Jackson
By Julie Finley
The Natchez Democrat



NATCHEZ — The 90-or-so people gathered at a Wharlest Jackson Sr. memorial service Monday night had fond memories, proud comments and sad stories, but they didn’t have what may be needed most — justice.

It’s been 39 years since a bomb planted under Jackson’s truck exploded, killing him. And it’s been 39 years with no arrests.

Family, friends and community members gathered at Christian Hope Baptist Church for the first service of its kind.

“That day some 39 years ago tonight was forever etched into the minds of some,” Mayor Phillip West said. “It inspired calls for justice, but justice never arrived.

“I know we are working, but with each passing day I feel somewhat hopeless to see some justice brought to Wharlest Jackson.”

Jackson, treasurer of the local NAACP, had recently been promoted to a “whites-only” job at Armstrong Tire & Rubber Co. He worked a full shift on Feb. 27, 1967 before getting in truck to drive home. He only made it a few blocks.



“One man gets the opportunity to better himself, and one evening he got bombed,” the Rev. John Scott Sr. said. “Because of Wharlest Jackson Sr., Mississippi is a better place to live.”

And his death wasn’t in vain, speaker after speaker told the family.

“It was and is now what signaled the Natchez African-American community was not going to be turned around,” Ser Seshab Heter-Boxley said.

West said Natchez has come a long way since Jackson’s death b ut has a long way to go.

“We are charged with the responsibility to make the city of Natchez better today that it was yesterday,” West said. “Wharlest Jackson’s death symbolized a movement toward this day.”

West and others acknowledged embarrassment that there hasn’t been a memorial service for Jackson in past years. West also said he wanted the city to do something to commemorate Jackson’s life and death.

Two of Jackson’s children, Wharlest Jr. and Denise Ford, were at Monday’s service with their families and heard several speakers praise Jackson’s role as a family man.

Henry Murphy was a child when Jackson married into his family.

“I remember Wharlest Jackson as the guy who always twisted my arm and made me cry,” Murphy said. “He was like a big brother. This was a family man. In his household he was the glue that held it together.”

John Scott Jr. was a child when Jackson died and was friends with the Jackson children.

“The sadness I felt at the death of Wharlest Jackson was not because a civil rights leader had been killed but because my friend had lost a father.”

Ford, who helped organize the service, thanked everyone for attending.

“We know that in the depths of our hearts God has taken care of our situation,” she said.

In July, U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton reopened Jackson’s murder case along with the civil rights killings of Charles Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee of Franklin County.

Anyone with any information about any of the murders can call the FBI at 601-948-5000 or the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol at 601-987-1560. Lampton’s office can be contacted at, 601-965-4480."





MississippiRed
 
BLOODY SUNDAY

March 7, 1965



On March 7, demonstrators start a 54-mile march in response to an activist's murder. They are protesting his death and the unfair state laws and local violence that keep African Americans from voting. Led by SNCC activists John Lewis and Hosea Williams, about 525 peaceful marchers are violently assaulted by state police near the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside Selma.
Television networks broadcast the attacks of "Bloody Sunday" nationwide, creating outrage at the police, and sympathy for the marchers. Alabama police turn back a second march, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other religious leaders, on March 9th. Following a federal judicial review, the march is allowed to resume, escorted by the National Guard. On March 25, 25,000 marchers arrive at the State Capitol building in Montgomery. Soon afterward, the U.S. Congress will pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, forcing states to end discriminatory voting practices.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/10_march.html
 
On July 25, 1946, four young African Americans—George & Mae Murray Dorsey and Roger & Dorothy Malcom—were shot hundreds of times by 12 to 15 unmasked white men in broad daylight at the Moore's Ford bridge spanning the Apalachee River, 60 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia. These killings, for which no one was ever prosecuted, enraged President Harry Truman and led to historic changes, but were quickly forgotten in Oconee and Walton Counties where they occurred. No one was ever brought to justice for the crime.

http://www.mooresford.org/history.html
 
Sharpeville Massacre
The Origin of South Africa's Human Rights Day

By Alistair Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide


On 21 March 1960 at least 180 black Africans were injured (there are claims of as many as 300) and 69 killed when South African police opened fire on approximately 300 demonstrators, who were protesting against the pass laws, at the township of Sharpeville, near Vereeniging in the Transvaal. In similar demonstrations at the police station in Vanderbijlpark, another person was shot. Later that day at Langa, a township outside Cape Town, police baton charged and fired tear gas at the gathered protesters, shooting three and injuring several others. The Sharpeville Massacre, as the event has become known, signalled the start of armed resistance in South Africa, and prompted worldwide condemnation of South Africa's Apartheid policies.

A build-up to the massacre

On 13 May 1902 the treaty which ended the Anglo-Boer War was signed at Vereeniging; it signified a new era of cooperation between English and Afrikaner living in Southern Africa. By 1910, the two Afrikaner states of Orange River Colony (Oranje Vrij Staat) and Transvaal (Zuid Afrikaansche Republick) were joined with Cape Colony and Natal as the Union of South Africa. The repression of black Africans became entrenched in the constitution of the new union (although perhaps not intentionally) and the foundations of Grand Apartheid were laid...

http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheid/a/SharpevilleMassacrePt1.htm
 
the struggle continues......

Sharpeville Massacre
The Origin of South Africa's Human Rights Day

By Alistair Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide


On 21 March 1960 at least 180 black Africans were injured (there are claims of as many as 300) and 69 killed when South African police opened fire on approximately 300 demonstrators, who were protesting against the pass laws, at the township of Sharpeville, near Vereeniging in the Transvaal. In similar demonstrations at the police station in Vanderbijlpark, another person was shot. Later that day at Langa, a township outside Cape Town, police baton charged and fired tear gas at the gathered protesters, shooting three and injuring several others. The Sharpeville Massacre, as the event has become known, signalled the start of armed resistance in South Africa, and prompted worldwide condemnation of South Africa's Apartheid policies.

A build-up to the massacre

On 13 May 1902 the treaty which ended the Anglo-Boer War was signed at Vereeniging; it signified a new era of cooperation between English and Afrikaner living in Southern Africa. By 1910, the two Afrikaner states of Orange River Colony (Oranje Vrij Staat) and Transvaal (Zuid Afrikaansche Republick) were joined with Cape Colony and Natal as the Union of South Africa. The repression of black Africans became entrenched in the constitution of the new union (although perhaps not intentionally) and the foundations of Grand Apartheid were laid...

http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheid/a/SharpevilleMassacrePt1.htm

:whip:
 

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