The Glorious Fourth Of July - Mississippi, 1964

riverside radio wi fi on non commercial fm station of the riverside church in the city of new york prisons the glorious fourth of july the city nineteen sixty four we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the person and then on skis just a few miles north of jackson mississippi

on the grounds of two blue collar hundred or so on july fourth you soon beyond the borders of the magnolias have their minds set on committed they are the proposition that all men are created equal endowed with an unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and so they are here in mississippi a citadel of white supremacy in for segregation and violent resistance to champion those very ideals such force one hundred and eighty eight years ago in the declaration within their presence in the city and their activities on behalf of negro voter registration and organizing the freedom schools throughout the state is of course i'm not for most white mississippians they're denounced was bitterness as meddlesome educators come from outside to stir up trouble in the city and destroy the harmonious relationship between

the races a mood of tension and anxious expectancy was unmistakably felt throughout mississippi this fourth of july for the most part the trappings and ceremonies typically associate with a fourth of july were absent in jackson the state capital for example stores and offices and most restaurants were closed and the streets are largely deserted downtown in the business district of american flags were flown but there were no parades no patriotic ceremonies are observances northwestern's of bonding no band concerts no firing of camp no fireworks displays for most mississippians the fourth of july was simply a day all for more on everyone's mind though was a new civil rights act of nineteen sixty four as yet untested in the state of mississippi here now is a composite sampling of what people thought and felt in mississippi

on this glorious fourth of july nineteen sixty four alex is a very historical overview that a wall street after the civil rights law haven't been put into effect you know we will yell i mean it can write hey says as far as american people are concerned about the condition of this with overdue then just that day wiesel the people celebrating but in stop mona think what he was the most celebrated far but now we know it's early in the fall

progress farmland care most favors happen within two of races minnesota just mentioned the land of the free and mississippi i think that if our founding fathers knew what was happening to day and make it turn over in their graves they'd be without them out at that and to celebrate the basic questions because of those gaps just a second diversity

is emancipation of the white race so he wasn't even a date which we celebrated yo yo ma but the uncertainty and thirty six i'm an independent america you know the american declaration of independence love reading but promised corruption who by the way if he knew what i've got all the day at the local animal anywhere journal india's great and i think lincoln a bit too i'd like to ask you what no doubt would have been announced david that day if our revolution that they get those seventeen and seventy six had not resist it happen that way at not resist do it

or tyrannical an oppressive laws want to be an opinion about our grandfathers who had and eighteen and six is that they like slavery and like bass solos willingness of made it without a pie i'm martin assumption federal power a fifteen year old mississippi boy in route to a fourth of july event called clean on a log we're going to go to law school was so they get to take including nylon dolls those that need the car broke down and or valves in there add money allocated now williams thank you keeling over

i don't know on the fourth of july but for fatah will lean on that is going to ensure that if it's in the group i don't wait to be snapped on the pastry no no on a nominee soon and co follows mississippi summer project headquarters that we hadn't addressed in gulfport yesterday that we requested from the

fbi now i'm sad i just heard some other information indirectly that be radical white group perhaps the klu klux klan is dropping my aeroplane pamphlets over the gulfport saying that some into effect the black savages are going to turn the gulfport coast into a congo for the job it sounds like they think there's going to be some kind of violence instigated by in the book and maybe a day of independence and they gave the caliphate year plan for it and have lives that are at today this is a system that they even celebrated little wobbly that what this country needs right now more than

integration segregation mr johnson and goldwater is a fact at the grassroots level that we need more and fourth of july picnics with the sousa marches the star spangled banner and more people get enjoyment of the senate races the eight run ins with its boom in your mouth the prize in the what you got a lifesaver ought to they can go old fashioned family picnic and get together for waste their patriotic speech on the fourth of july to encourage more patriotism i mean is are there public favors for the american role in this event a sakharov a new york two viewpoints the city governor paul b johnson and johnson attorney jack young one of three and only three mississippi lawyers willing to handle civil rights cases i think that race relations there would be excellent if these agitators were not in the state they do not come down here for any good purpose

like i'm down here on remedial education which is a reflection on the school system the last great unknown although fire negri teaches in shelters if we have them in mississippi i think that they've come down the us to provoke trouble and the reason i feel that way is because practically everything that they do isn't public and is designed to arouse the feeling of the local people i think senator is well often that he knows his wealth is that he has confidence in the white and neighbor leadership of history and that is like the filipino the distrust to be left alone people of approval rating might lose

some of them i think in the states where jobs jobs available tiananmen know so well in a low income bracket and that is this is a big problem that amanda vincent security income feels like they will get rich didn't add an additional american jobs and then and you can't just remove the people know i feel about serious and they know they have to maintain and the ones who are critical of you trying to be certain level on all areas and forth is are an extremist fanatical third person

but regardless of how anyone feels i am dedicated to on all and we're going to do our best to enforce or not a mistake regardless of relax don't like well i think that basically most people in the city of their fat people i think they'll only a lot of luck but i think that the news media to a large extent it possible for weapons to hold these people come in and the line and we can it was still writes is outside out to the hinterlands comics of the thought and the cannons to keep people were killed i don't anticipate the

violent groups taken an action all these so the pushy type of labor organization taken into immediate action and feel that they haven't they one that legislation do makes that tests to run after the passage of this legislation i think that the feeling of the country again and big cities on the south than anywhere else that they don't have to move with great caution or else we could have some very chaotic days an independent local symbol commerce at the local people of them limits to comply with the law so a lot of its amended nation it's

built on this fourth of july three missing civil rights workers three congressmen from new york and california are in philadelphia on the show the county the governor spoke the gulf where there were fireworks in vicksburg mississippi a junior chamber of commerce sponsored its annual fourth of july americanism barbecue with dr been tested organizer of more than one hundred white citizens councils as principal speaking at i'm not against it has a map and declaration of independence is an associate of the press plouffe of applause and with the end of italy of reckon there's a lot of wood paneled are as the source of a day or a sovereign pilots aren't a

while one of the most sacred and meaningful it would give them up in individual market is the right because that's fine and the new contract and set a personal friend of so much so that it ranks second in importance and american bill of riot it was extremely important the data the many times and that day to day living and i'm going to sell them out and all the staple it may be a lesson may be a men's lives they've never been to page audit citizens of this generation will believe it you know that exists that they own this independence day before that do live there and then silently may you and i but the letters are under god that we are

bonobos that at all costs and that was that that word at all to launch pentagon is that in that song fiji generations old basic individual rights or that our forefathers fought and bled and died i think v that angle here a sixty seven year old mississippi woman at the freedom bookstore in jackson distribution center for segregation was literate or an extremist right wing publications of all kinds and just what is going to happen i don't

know but i do know that freedom is taken from any god living christian people because some folks want to reach certain goals that i know and i believe that our nation knows when we have lost our font of belmont we become slaves but your average mississippi and has been reared with that comment and the best friends a common people and they're not the ones at a stubborn trouble

it's been outside committee that outsiders and of course they can prey on people who are not too well they educated and to say that the sap is not being played or when just two hundred years ago these people could fall you who use it has put up money isn't just a lot that people need to stop and think before the paul fontaine johnson tried and people who have given much of their lives their financial resources and everything else to the bottom of a group of people who were trying to prevent i've done it all my life i've been taught to do to mississippi moderates if they write a restaurant and i want to be where they are and i enjoy my mail and i'll enjoy the company of my friends they are not personally they can't actually because there isn't any

reason to go about it and i don't see any point and im bothering me and if this restaurant serves good i drink my beer and write my whiskey and a reliable also a more regular tennis of my church an anomaly but you've got to be a god fearing any public spirited since the get go and the busch's nation on until martinez i'm not sell them as i'm not naturalism and i know what you've got you got to fight for that well bob all that's not our we met a great novel don't like you but first of all you've got to be an america and if it's a law you got to comply with on the afternoon of july fourth a twenty three year old ex slave or otis woodward simply walked into the dining room of the sun sends motel in jackson and made the first test of the civil rights probe of accommodation section of the new civil right small no one had known in advance that he intended to make this start test he was served without hesitation or incident

that night the downtown movie house was integrated on the morning of july fifth dr claude hudson of los angeles long time member of the end of the lazy people are directors checked into the heidelberg hotel in jackson daughter heads well we didn't call it testing the law we needed hotel accommodation and we walked into the category hotel in after registering they pass the registration blank too often we decide that it's called a boy incident drew our old and ill inside this room tent villages sits in and then when we get through with that we went to the dining room five of us in the green room and out a very delightful rep wilson and the cost was reasonable that that got me you know i have a particular lip at any advantage of him staring out at us we see big reductions like that that the rest of the people

silence science of her in that noisy v board members ms general counsel naacp day john davis leader from east orange new jersey to my ancestral most watched last of the front maurice white system socialist state in double a cd field secretary for mississippi charles evers brother of the slain leader doug evers it's alive and they say mississippi has a lot of the day for americans everywhere i only hope that somehow meant you can reverse what is happening today and i feel the

panama he does know that his band was not in vain and the eu along with thousand and bob a lawless country how many shoe that he did not go in maine it makes my heart feel happy to know that mississippi a particularly jackson as mavis don't fall then i feel that it's a way of also reminded so some of jackson's you have time that day and i'll show you that we are gratified we plan to use every available restaurant hotel motel swell into why and then they announced that any other citizen in town do we attend a user to uganda sudan and business and doesn't want to comply with the reasons that we meet him as a civic to not live another group of built

on paper the law and be implemented thank you glorious for the mississippi nineteen sixty four was produced by riverside radio wypr a non commercial fm station of the riverside church in the city of new york reporting from mississippi water nixon convict him or why now by way a footnote while in mississippi recording interview materials for this special program we encountered as other these men have manifest hostility in the attitudes and manner of a considerable number of white

mississippians others were cordial and cornered in jackson at the leading downtown hotel robert healy hotel we were physically assaulted on the night of july fourth while conducting an interview in the hotel's cafe large just as we were preparing to leave owen seated with her escort at a nearby table as if we would record her an opportunity to voice her views well she was speaking to men all white in their mid twenties and well dressed a cactus from behind without preface our warning one struck me a ball with force against the side of the head knocking me backwards out of the chair to the floor the other men grabbed the portable tape recording equipment slammed it down twice with full force on the floor and then started on it repeatedly with his feet no one intervened the two men then physically pushed and shoved us out of a hotel here now is a playback of that interrupted interview any unprovoked attack right

now in any way that's right maybe one day you know oh wait

yeah jackson's to police to pierce expressed his regret over the assault on the floor his destruction of expensive recording equipment the robert e lee hotel where this occurred on monday morning closed rather than a compliance with the civil rights act of nineteen sixty four you know in a day this program was produced by w r v e r

fm new york the non commercial station of the riverside church and is distributed in the united states by the broadcasting foundation of america