Late one night in October 1961, I flew from Atlanta to Jackson, Mississippi, with Bob Moses. We didn't sit together during the silent one-hour flight, nor did we make eye contact at the empty airport. Not that it wasn't legal. You simply wouldn't take the chance.

The next day, with my late friend Paul Potter of the National Student Association, I rented a car and drove two hours south from Jackson to McComb, a fiercely segregated town of 12,000. We had arranged to meet Moses by pulling up to a gas station parking lot with our lights out, changing cars, lying low in the back seats and finally being smuggled into a basement room with blankets covering all the windows. There we discussed the voter registration drive and freedom school opening in town.

This was shortly after the Freedom Rides had shaken Mississippi and the Deep South, exposing the violence that awaited any who challenged the segregated status quo. Today, when early civil rights workers are widely honored, it is well to remember the national mood in those days. At the time, Attorney General Robert Kennedy wondered aloud if the Freedom Riders "have the best interest of the country at heart," since they were providing "good propaganda for America's enemies." The New York Times editorialized that "nonviolence that deliberately provokes violence is a logical contradiction." A Gallup poll that summer had revealed that 63 percent of Americans opposed the Freedom Rides.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.