----- Original Message ----- From: "Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear at earthlink.net> To: "Marxism Discussion List" <marxism at lists.panix.com>; <marxist at yahoogroups.com>; "ccparty" <ccparty at egroups.com>; "Socialist Lists" <socialistsunmoderated at debs.pinko.net>; "RBG-Alliance" <RBG-Alliance at egroups.com>; "ASDNET" <asdnet at igc.topica.com> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 9:48 AM Subject: [marxist] Sensible skepticism on alleged 1943 massacre of a thousand Black GIs in South Mississippi
A Mississippi story -- strange, even for the very sanguinary Magnolia State, is presently making the rounds. Appearing in the June 11, 2001 issue of In These Times, its essence -- the ostensible 1943 massacre of 1,000 Black GIs in a South Mississippi military base [near Centerville, Wilkinson County] -- is showing up (cautiously) on some Lists. I have not seen that issue of ITT -- and the link to the story, provided by the lists involved, doesn't seem operative at this point. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that healthy skepticism is certainly called for on this one. [The fact that the Pentagon has discounted this is not, believe me, my basic reason.]
Mississippi, like some other places [Idaho!] , is murky, mysterious. Like other of the old-hard core Southern settings, Mississippi is full of bloody stories -- and many are indeed hideous. If the swamps and the rivers could only talk! Most, not all, of the victims have been Black. And there are still sections of the State which, when I visit, I do quietly take along a protective firearm. There are long memories and current challenges.
I have a pretty good feel for Mississippi. As many know, I and my wife, Eldri, went there in the Summer of '61, became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Jackson and elsewhere in the state, and in other Deep South settings. Although we left the South in the Summer of '67, I have maintained close contact with some of the old war arenas -- and this very much includes Mississippi in which I've been deeply involved, now, for forty years.
Even today, with considerable population growth since the really "turbulent years," there are few secrets in Mississippi. Forty years and more ago -- and certainly in 1943 -- there were very few indeed. Many of these things never did -- and still don't -- get into the news media. But they were and certainly are very well known . A standard joke in Mississippi has always been that you could whisper anything at Hernando [northeast corner] or Moss Point [southeast] or Woodville [southwest] or Corinth [northeast] -- and it would take it only three days to cover the entire state.
This story, the swift massacre of a thousand Black GIs and bodies buried in mass graves and shipped north in boxcars, simply doesn't fit, despite -- apparently according to ITT -- the relatively recent appearance of witnesses. Aside from the general lack of secrecy about anything in Mississippi, other reasons that I have problems with this are:
The return of vets from World War II had a major impact on the country. This was especially true in situations where minority vets returned to racist/segregated home areas: Blacks in the South; Chicanos and Native Americans in the Southwest -- and there are, of course, many other ethnic and geographical examples. I knew Medgar Evers -- the courageous martyred NAACP field secretary, extremely well. He, like many of the civil rights activists in Mississippi [e.g., the also martyred Clyde Kennard, Hattiesburg] of the 1950s and 1960s, was a WW2 veteran. He was also extremely interested in veterans' affairs. He was a member of AMVETs -- one of the better vet groups which was quite opposed to segregation [unlike the Legion and VFW]. He came up with the solid idea, around April, 1963, that he and I [a more recent vet, early '50s] should form an AMVETS chapter in Jackson and do everything we could to start it on a racially integrated basis. I was all for it. Medgar wrote the national AMVETS office in early May and I signed the letter with him. Two days after he was shot to death from ambush -- June 11 -- I (and Medgar's family] each received a long letter from the national commander of AMVETS, which, written of course before Medgar's murder and addressed jointly to Medgar and myself, enthusiastically approved the idea of an integrated unit at Jackson. The idea died in the great turbulence that followed his death: we immediately launched massive demonstrations which were bloodily suppressed. [ My AMVETS letter is my collected papers in Mississippi Dept of Archives and History and a copy is in my comparable collection at State Historical Society of Wisconsin -- and I maintain an AMVETs membership out of loyalty to my old comrade.]
But never did I hear Medgar -- who knew everything in Mississippi -- mention this presumed 1943 situation. Nor did any of the other men, very much attuned to the problems of Black vets, such as another old friend, the late Sam Bailey, ever indicate anything of this sort. Nor did any of my Tougaloo students from that area ever bring anything like this up in their myriad of genuine accounts of hideous nature.
In the Spring of 1962, a Maryland-based Black MP corporal, Roman Duckworth, Jr., on his way to Taylorville, Mississippi where his wife was giving birth to their sixth child, was taken from an interstate Trailways bus by a White Taylorville constable and murdered in front of at least thirty witnesses. His crime? He had refused to sit in the back of the bus. We rallied as fast and as much as we could on that one -- and, much to the fore, were the Black vets in Mississippi. The Army, by the way, sent an integrated color guard to Taylorville for his funeral and the US Justice Department did nothing at all.
But, again, if there had been a whisper of this presumed 1943 atrocity, Medgar Evers would certainly have known it. There were many Black cooks and other Black workers on and around a base of that sort. And they always knew much -- always. A major civil rights intelligence force in places like Mississippi were Black maids in the homes of prominent White segs and Black janitors working in the headquarters of places like the White Citizens Council. [In an Eastern North Carolina situation, the very large and violent local KKK unit, the Klavern, always sent its robes to a White dry-cleaning establishment -- where all of the workers were Black. Thus we always had an up-to-date roster of that section of the Enemy's forces!] White racism put many-faceted, helpful blinders on our foes!
What happened to the hundreds of bodies ostensibly shipped North in box-cars, presumably on the Illinois Central. In Mississippi and adjoining areas, regardless of the season of the year, this would certainly not have been unnoticed enroute -- much of the route going through Illinois.
Other factors greatly inhibiting my acceptance of this story are, simply, surviving family members involved -- plus the fact that Centerville is not far from New Orleans. That fascinating old city, while never any bed of roses racially, featured, even in the World War II period, militant Labor [longshoremen et al.], many many Left radicals of all colours, and relatively strong civil rights organizations. The grapevine from South Mississippi certainly has always reached down there!
Even an atrocity involving a much smaller number of victims would, I'm certain, have been broadly noted. A very statistically "small" situation -- e.g., a few victims -- might well be obscured -- especially if they were not from Mississippi. But this story speaks, apparently, of a thousand.
The horrors of Mississippi -- and many other settings in the United States -- are certainly legion. And I haven't yet had an opportunity to read the ITT piece. But I do have serious problems with this account and, if it turns out to be false, I shall be wondering why it was written and published. If false, it does the Cause no good. If, by some remote chance, it is true, it raises the most profound questions at all levels and in all directions.
If anyone has any solid info on any of this, I'd very much appreciate hearing it.
In Solidarity,
Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] Idaho
Hunter Gray www.hunterbear.org
"[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." --Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31
Community email addresses:
Post message: marxist at yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: marxist-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: marxist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
List owner: jplst15+ at pitt.edu
Shortcut URL to this page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist
Also take our one-question survey at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist/polls
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/