Civil Rights: Do Not Despair

• Share

(2 of 2)

Concerted Conspiracy. The second legal attack came before a three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, where a battery of civil rights lawyers attempted to invoke an 1866 Reconstruction statute empowering federal courts to appoint special U.S. commissioners to police areas where citizens are being denied their rights. Judge Mize had thrown the case out of his court last July, and the lawyers were appealing.

In their brief, they accused a formidable array of Mississippi officials and organizations of a "concerted, planned and organized conspiracy" to deny the Negro his rights. Among the defendants named: Sheriff L. C. Rainey and Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price of Neshoba County, where three young civil rights workers were murdered last summer, the white Citizens Councils, the Ku Klux Klan, and Americans for the Preservation of the White Race.

In a brief supported by more than 250 affidavits, the lawyers pleaded for the application of "judicial remedies against the carnage that is today occurring" throughout the state. As things stand, they said, "the Negro seeking his civil rights and liberties and the fulfillment of his status as a citizen and a human being has become a virtual outlaw in Mississippi."

A mere temporary restraining order, argued Lawyer Arthur Kinoy, would go a long way toward remedying this situation. "Even if it has no effect on the perpetrators of violence," said Kinoy, "it will tell the Negroes of Mississippi and the people of America, 'Do not despair, do not despair of the American system of government. There is rule of law, there is a judicial tribunal that will answer your pleas for justice.' "

The Time to Speak Out. The most remarkable thing was that even Mc-Comb, consistently the most intransigent of the intransigent, was obviously awed by the fact that there is a rule of law. The day before the Biloxi hearing started, 650 of the town's leading doctors, lawyers, ministers and businessmen placed a full-page ad in the Mc-Comb Enterprise-Journal declaring that "the time has come for responsible people to speak out for what is right and against what is wrong." Said the ad's signers, who described themselves as "Citizens for Progress": "There is only one responsible stance we can take and that is for equal treatment under the law for all citizens regardless of race, creed, position or wealth." To restore peace, they urged an end to "harassment arrests" by local lawmen, cancellation of "economic threats and sanctions against people of both races" and the reopening of "avenues of communication and understanding."

Apparently, the ad had a salutary effect. The day after it appeared, 20 Negroes led by Charles Evers, brother of murdered Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers, turned up at a segregated theater and several restaurants and motels.

With 60 state highway patrolmen and FBI agents standing by, they ran into nothing more serious than cold stares. At the formerly all-white Continental Restaurant, two white patrons ostentatiously walked out, but the Negro group was served.