Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
L ookiNg B aCk
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Frankye Adams-Johnson
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white libraries. One of those students happened to be a member of my church and the neighborhood
where I lived. So I began to get involved with the NAACP youth council. With that involvement I
began to get a better understanding of this movement that was taking place in the city and other
parts of the state. I wanted to be a part of this movement. So in May of 1963, I had my first opportunity to participate. I was one of the students who helped organize a walk out of my high school in
support of the college students who had gotten beat up for sitting in at the Woolworth lunch counter
earlier during the week. About six hundred students from the three black the three black high
schools walked out and marched that day. But we
didnt get very far because we were arrested; there
were so many of us marching that there werent
enough paddy wagons or enough space in the city
and county jails to hold us. So, they brought in
garbage trucks and we were hauled off to the county fairground and thrown into a compound that
was used for housing livestock. There at the fairground we became human livestock, our bedding
was the hard concrete floor, and our food consisted
of powdered milk, cold bologna slapped between
staled bread.
I was one of the students who helped organize a walk out of my high
school in support of the
college students who had
gotten beat up for sitting
at the Woolworth lunch
counter...
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asked me all kind of crazy questions about who were putting us up to marching and doing the
things we were doing. They wanted to know why I was making up stories about being hit. One of
them threatened me by saying that they were going to take me way somewhere and dump me and
now one would ever know what happened to me. I was so scared; I thought I would pee on myself.
Another scary time what happened upon our return to Mississippi after many of us has journey to
Washington DC to join others in the March on Washington. About six bus load of people from
Mississippi went to the March. When we returned we stopped at the bus station in Meridian,
Mississippi. We were all fired up from the March so
we got off the bus and dashed straight to the restroom and lunch counters designated for white
only. We had marched on Washington, so no more
of this segregated stuff for us, two four, six eight,
we were going to integrate. I remember coming
out of the restroom and seeing this gang of white
thugs attacking some of the blacks from the bus
who had come into the station and sat down at the
white lunch counter. With all the swing, lashing
out, pushing and shoveling, we all ended up back
outside the bus station. Back outside, it seemed as
if all the whites in Meridian has gathered in white
supremacy mob-style fashion; they were throwing
eggs and other stuff in our direction; at the same
time they yelled all sort of racial slurs at us. A mob
of people were attacking us shortly after we crossed
the state line, returning home from the great March on Washington for freedom, jobs and equal
where Martin Luther King has made his great I have a dream Speech and Malhalia Jackson had
with her powered voice bellowed out How I Got Over; a spiritual rendition that brought many of
us to tears. So, the brutal welcoming party that
awaited us upon our return to Mississippi; quickly
snapped us from our illusions, reminding us that Jim
Crow was still alive and well; Wow, that was pretty
scary.
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lives in Mississippi became so important that the thought of giving up never really occurred to me.
There was a song that we used to sing, We will never turn back until we are all been free, until we
have equality. It was that kind of thing; a thing like a simple song gave us courage and kept us
going on. So no, I don't know that there was ever a time I thought about giving up. The movement
mostly inspired me to keep fighting on. So even today I don't feel things are different in many ways;
and, even today I don't feel like giving up. I suspect I get discouraged sometimes but I never say,
oh let me throw my hands up because nothing is ever going to change. So Ive always believed
that things change if we help make them change.
how did the assassination of Martin Luther king
impact the movement?
Oh, now you're asking me how the assassination of
Martin Luther King impacted the movement. I
would rather respond if you asked me how the
assassination of Medgar Evers impacted our lives
here in Mississippi. Have you ever heard of
Medgar Evers?
Yes.
Most of the time we hear so much about Martin Luther King, but I'd like to talk about people that
you don't hear that much about. I'd like to respond to your question now and discuss how the assassination of Medgar Wiley Evers affected my life. How about that?
how did the assassination of Medgar evers affect your life?
First, let me tell you a little something about Medgar Evers. He was the NAACP field secretary here
in Mississippi, and Medgar Evers organized the Jackson Youth Movement which I was a part of. His
assassination was the first death, in terms of a nationally known leader, that impacted my life. You
seem when you grow up here, you hear about people getting killed by hateful white people, like the
fourteen year old boy, Emmit Till in Money Mississippi who they say was brutally murdered for
whispering at a white woman., So you grow up hearing about these types of bad things happening
to people black like you; you hear about bad thing happening to people who stand up and fight for
their human rights and the civil rights. But hearing
about this bad thing about Medgar was so different
because it was actually hearing about someone I knew
up close and personal. This was not someone that I had
read about; or heard my folk talk about. He was someone that I had spent time with at the NAACP office; he
was someone that taken the time to teach us young
folks what it was to stand up for what you believe in; he
was a man who cared about our well-being and a man
who always encouraged us. I was with him at the last
mass meeting he would attend less than an hour before
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his assassination. At that very same meeting he plead with the elder leadership of movement to get
the young people out of the fairground compound, the city and county jails because of the deadly
dangerous those places posed to us. And so the impact was of his assassination was very, very devastating. It was the first time that I really realized what it meant to get killed, to be gunned down
standing up for freedom. The impact of that left many of us very saddened because that was the
very first time the reality of bad things happening hitting close to home. It was no long what you
hear about but rather a new knowingness of the high price of freedom. A knew knowingness of
what could happen to people like me. But this
knowingness did not make me want to give up, in
spite of the threats, in spite of knowing that death
was a real part of the struggle for freedom I felt
inspired to fight on anyhow. Before I'll be a slave,
I'll be buried in my grave is another song that we
used to keep us going because you know that even
though these bad things are happening, even
though these great people are being gunned down
and being assassinated, that was part of the sacrifice you made. And so the impact of the assassination filled me with mixture of sadness and fear, but,
it also gave me courage to fight harder.
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live predominately on their side of town or in some rich suburbs. However, you have places where
it seems to be a good mixture But, when you put it all together, when you shake it all up and say,
well now lets see how integrated we are and s probably if you did your own survey it's would
probably reveal that 80 percent of the people still live segregated. Now, whether that's by choice or
systematically forced is a key question. In this day and time, segregation is not as overtly enforced,
there are no laws that say that you cannot live in a certain area, but then you have economics and
you have other things, other situations that force people to be segregated so, if there's a mix it's usually where economic, class, and social status play
important roles. So if youre a very low class person
of certain economic background you rarely live in a
certain neighborhood. I would say that many people cannot afford to live in certain in places; so, in a
sense then economic situations force people to live
separately. So we don't have the laws that say that
black people cannot live on a certain streets or in a
certain town, but we have systemic situations that
dictate where people live.
...all of it contributed to
making me the woman
that I am, the conscious
person I am, the courageous woman that I am,
the loving and caring
person that I am.
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any of that because all of it contributed to making me the woman that I am, the conscious person I
am, the courageous woman that I am the loving and caring person that I am. The experience
equipped me with a wealth of knowledge and great wisdom that I can pass onto younger generations such as you. It equipped me to be a role model for younger generations; to tell you that it is
better to stand for something than to spend life during nothing. These are things I can pass down. I
am a grandmother now so I can pass down these stories to my grandchildren, who in turn can pass
the torch on to their children.. Those wonderful opportunities, these wonderful insights I gained
from being a part of this dynamic movement. What
awesome blessings!!! Why would I want to change
any of that?
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hunt your way out. , So as a young child growing up in Pocahontas, Mississippi, we had to coming up out of the wood and walk the dirt road that connected to the paved street which was the
white side of the town to get to our colored school, on the other side of town. Each day we hit the
paved street lined with white house, picket fences and manicured lawns, a little white boy would
run to the fence do a little sing-sung ni**er, ni**er, ni**er. He would do this every day with more
of a fascination of his newly acquired vocabulary than the hatred implied in the word. Yeah, I was
first called the N-word by a little white boy named Jimmie(we learned his name from his mother,
who would allow him to exercise his vocal cords for a
while, then she call out to him, Now, now, Jimmie,
thats enough, now you leave dem ni**ers uh long, an
come in the house. Would this constitute harassment?
I doubt that little Jimme was even conscious of the
mean connotation of the word. But the most profound
and meanest experience while moving to and forth
through the white side of town occurred the day a particular woman, whom my mom had once worked for
and quitted because of the womans hatred for Negroes
for no apparent reason, other than pure hatred , let her
dogs out to chase us. Now, talk about harassment, how
foul is that? In the movement, each day that we went out, we knew that bigots would be on standby
to harass us spit at us and yell racial slurs at us.
how much different do you think your life would be if you werent involved in the Civil rights
Movement?
Now there is a profound question! Was not for my involvement in the Civil and Human rights
struggle, my life would bevery shallow. I think that I would be like some people, unconscious of
whats going on today. I think that I would be selfish. I often observe people, and how self-centered
they are, how consumed they are with their own material needs. I would be probably one of those
people you know; satisfied with my domain, contented that I have a nice home, that I have a nice car
to drive, contented that I have a job; oblivious to the plight of other; not caring that right around the
corner from me some poor soul might be suffering; not caring that there are people who still dont
have the right to the tree of life; that people still don't have decent housing fit for human shelter, not
caring that many young people of certain economic backgrounds are not getting a quality education;
not caring that there are still people who are getting charged with crimes that perhaps they didnt
commit. So had I not had the experiences of The Civil and Human Rights Movement to enlighten
me on what the struggle means; on what it means to have equality, what injustice means, or what it
means to simply care, I would not be able to process the injustices that I still see exist today. I
wouldnt have the desire to encourage young people to be concerned about injustices. This experiences was a life-long valuable educational process for me, it equipped me with an undying love and
compassion for what happened to my fellow beings on this planet..
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o verCoMiNg o BstaCLes
aNd
a ChieviNg d reaMs
What life lessons did you learn during that time period?
The most important thing that I learned is that if you don't stand for something then you will fall for
anything. That if you don't fight for your freedom, that if you don't fight for your rights and you
don't know where it is that you came from, that if you keep go around in circle doing the same
things expecting different results, that you will continue to live in mental slavery. The life lessons
that I have learned is that you must stand, and you must fight for the things that you believe in;
you must stand on your core values and principles no matter the whats or what ifs. You must
fight for the little things so that the big things are not taken away. Above all, you just stand.
Interviewed and Transcribed by: Karl Bauman, Amanda Brown, & Emily Bauman
h ErE , n AmE