Count them one by one : Black Mississippians fighting for the right to vote / Gordon A. Martin. Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Martin, Gordon A.

Series:

Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies.

Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Suffrage--Mississippi--History.

African Americans.

Suffrage--Mississippi--History.

Suffrage.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (299 p.)

Place of Publication:

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Forrest County, Mississippi, became a focal point of the civil rights movement when, in 1961, the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit against its voting registrar Theron Lynd. While thirty percent of the county's residents were black, only twelve black persons were on its voting rolls. United States v. Lynd was the first trial that resulted in the conviction of a southern registrar for contempt of court. The case served as a model for other challenges to voter discrimination in the South, and was an important influence in shaping the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Count Them One by One is a comprehensive account of the groundbreaking case written by one of the Justice Department's trial attorneys. Gordon A. Martin, Jr., then a newly-minted lawyer, traveled to Hattiesburg from Washington to help shape the federal case against Lynd. He met with and prepared the government's sixteen black witnesses who had been refused registration, found white witnesses, and was one of the lawyers during the trial. Decades later, Martin returned to Mississippi and interviewed the still-living witnesses, their children, and friends. Martin intertwines these current reflections with commentary about the case itself. The result is an impassioned, cogent fusion of reportage, oral history, and memoir about a trial that fundamentally reshaped liberty and the South.

Contents:

CONTENTS; PREFACE; PROLOGUE: In the Office of Registrar Luther Cox: "How Many Bubbles in a Bar of Soap?"; 1. Race-Haunted Mississippi; 2. A Civil Rights Division in Justice; 3. Civil Rights and the 1960 Campaign; 4. Theron Lynd and the End of an Era; 5. Preparing for Trial; 6. The New Judge in the Southern District of Mississippi; 7. The First Witness, Jesse Stegall; 8. For the Defendants; 9. The Burgers of Hattiesburg; 10. The Other Young Turks; 11. Eloise Hopson: "I'd Like to See Them Make Me Change Anything I Want to Say"; 12. Hercules and Its Inside Agitator, Huck Dunagin

13. Huck's Men: The Black Workers at Hercules14. B.F. Bourn, Storekeeper and Freedom Fighter; 15. The Reverends James C. Chandler and Wayne Kelly Pittman; 16. The Reverend Wendell Phillips Taylor; 17. The Leader, Vernon Dahmer; 18. The White Witnesses and the Women Who Registered Them; 19. "Negro or White Didn't Have a Thing in the World to Do with It": Theron Lynd Takes the Stand; 20. Ike's Fifth Circuit: Getting On with the Job at Hand; 21. After the Trial; 22. Mississippi Today; EPILOGUE; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612939266

9781282939264

1282939262

9781604737905

1604737905

OCLC:

676700665