
A who’s who of Mississippi and black Democratic politics gathered to celebrate the opening of the state’s civil rights museum.
The sold out event, held at the Jackson Convention Complex on Friday, was billed as a gala to honor stars of the Southern civil rights struggle but was really a do-over of the grand opening held in December.
After the announcement that President Donald Trump would attend the bicentennial celebration and ribbon cutting of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights, many black leaders opted to skip the event.
Later, a private group called Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights quietly organized an event and invited civil rights icons who boycotted the bicentennial opening. Even though there was scant mention of Trump or the Republican Party, the Friends of Civil Rights awards dinner felt like a rebuke of the president and Republican policies, including on hot-button issues that have dominated news cycles in recent weeks such as the mass shooting at a Florida high school.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who was arrested in Mississippi During the Freedom Rides — his famous mugshot is on display in the civil rights museum — said what he described as voter suppression efforts such requiring photo ID at the polls and partisan gerrymandering of electoral districts are reminiscent of policies he fought against in the 1960s.
“There are forces in America today that are trying to take us back to another time and to another place. We’ve come too far. We’ve made too much progress and we’re not going back. We’re going forward!,” he said to thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the crowd that included legislators and local officials from across the state.
Ruby Bridges Hall, a Tylertown native whose integration of a New Orleans elementary school when she was 6 was the subject of several iconic images, recalled going hunting with her grandmother who carried a shotgun and a pistol.
“She didn’t need an assault rifle,” to hunt, Bridges said.
The killing of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14 in which the gunman used an AR-15 assault-style rifle has refueled the national conversation about gun laws and touched off a movement led by high school age students calling for stricter gun laws.
General Jim Hood, a Democrat and self-described outdoorsman and hunter, did not echo Hall’s admonishment of assault weapons but said he is “encouraged by the young people who’ve stood up on Florida” and called on young people to become civically active.
Speakers also turned a critical eye toward Mississippi.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s only Democrat in Congress, called African Americans in the Legislature and in local government to demand banks have more blacks on their boards of directors and for greater minority participation in major economic development projects such as the Continental Tire factory now under construction near his hometown of Bolton.
“I want you mayors and supervisors that put money in these banks to start asking the tough questions. If the clerk has the same power as the black vice president, then that’s called window dressing,” Thompson said. “Elected officials, we need your help. Now that you have the position, do something.”
The events will continue on Saturday, Feb. 24 with a symposium and several panels on civil rights, women’s economic security and millennial activism.
Former state Rep. Robert Clark and Rita Schwerner Bender were also honored. Bender was the wife of Michael Schwerner who was killed in Philadelphia along with Andrew Goodman and James Chaney in 1964.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.