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WEDNESDAYS IN MISSISSIPPI: The real housewives of Jackson Mississippi

This Op-ed was written by Marlene McCurtis & Cathee Weiss, producers of the Wednesdays In Mississippi Documentarty Film.

There been a lot of buzz recently about (the book and movie) The Help – Is it “true”?  Who is represented fairly?  What’s good and is not so good. Many question the actual merits of movie’s  “feel good” approach to race relations.  As filmmakers this controversy has confirmed our belief that we need more books, more films, and most importantly more talk about what really happened in Mississippi during this time of enormous change.

Set in the middle of the civil rights era in Mississippi, The Help depicts the relationship between two groups of women-- middle class white southern women and their black maids.  At the end of the day, it is a piece of fiction, one writer’s interpretation of the complexity of racial relationships in the south.  Yet, during this same time period there were real-life  black and white women in Mississippi quietly, and some times not so quietly,  working  hard to dismantle the dehumanizing Jim Crow system.  These women were obsessed, not about their toilets or polished silver, but rather about the abject terror incited by such racist stalwarts as the White Citizens Council and the Ku Klux Klan.  They were determined to do what they could to help create a more just society  for themselves and their children.   A few years ago we discovered a story about a few of these very real and committed Mississippi women. As documentary filmmakers, we felt compelled to add their story to our shared history.  It is the story of an amazing, yet little known organization called Wednesdays in Mississippi.

 

During the summer of 1964 under the banner of Wednesdays in Mississippi, over 400 women, both black and white met behind tightly drawn curtains to discuss how they could support the civil rights movement.  These were middle class women—white women who did have ‘help’, yet could clearly see the cruelty and the untenable nature of the segregated system.  They were also black women who were not maids, but who were business owners, schoolteachers, nurses and librarians.  They all were women with power and the will to invoke change. 

Dorothy Irene Height and Polly Cowan, co-founders of WIMS. From the WIMS website 

These revolutionary meetings were organized by Dorothy Height, the head of the National Council of Negro Women and her close friend and colleague, Jewish political activist, Polly Cowan.   Dorothy and Polly were northern, yet they knew women all over Mississippi were working to support civil rights. 

 

The summer of 1964 was Freedom Summer. Thousands of Northern college kids came into Mississippi to set up Freedom Schools and register people to vote.  That same summer Wednesdays in Mississippi brought black and white women from the north into Jackson to meet with their southern counterparts. Here’s how it worked: every week a team of women from a different northern city flew into Jackson. They came in undercover, as respectable ladies- wearing white gloves and  pearls.   They went into the heat and terror of Jackson, often against the wishes of their families, sometimes with great risk to their personal safety. Their goal was to listen to and support the women of Mississippi who sought peaceful and lasting change.

  Fannie Lou Hamer, Dorothy Height and Polly Cowan

While in Mississippi these northern women met with women like Elaine Crystal, a Jewish woman who decided, “to stop playing bridge and be a part of some thing that made a difference.”  Elaine helped form Mississippians For Public Education and fought to keep the public schools opened. And women like Jane Schutt, who was an active member of the integrated organization Church Women United and served as the chair of the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights.  When in December of 1963, the Klan burned a cross on Jane’s yard, she decorated it with Christmas lights and kept right on working for racial equality. 

 

In the black community they found women like Clarie Collins Harvey.   A prominent businesswoman, Clarie had the economic freedom to boldly stand up to racist policies.  She  started WomenPower Unlimited, a grassroots organization  to support young civil rights workers in the state and to register black voters.   Clarie also developed the Chain of Friendship, an informal network of white women outside of Mississippi who supported the efforts of women fighting for integration inside the state.   Jessie Mosley was another mover and shaker in the black community. A professor’s wife, she started the first chapter of the National Council of Negro Women in Mississippi in the 1950s. While her husband’s courses at the Jackson State University “were often observed by members of the Klan or White Citizen’s Council”, this didn’t deter Jessie. She was a huge supporter of Wednesdays in Mississippi and worked  closely with Fannie Lou Hamer and other women activists to develop Head Start programs.

 

Throughout the 1960’s Dorothy Height and Polly Cowan continued to work through Wednesdays in Mississippi (which later became Workshops in Mississippi) to join black and white women together.  They spread throughout the state helping women work together to develop everything from home ownership projects for low-income families to community-based farm co-ops. 

 

In the end, it doesn’t seem fair to place the burden of truth on just one story, like The Help.  Wednesdays in Mississippi offers another perspective on this “truth”. As those who were involved in this project are now reaching their 70s, 80s, and 90s, it is crucial that their story like so many others from that time be documented before they’re gone. The truth will be found when the stories of those on the front line and in the living rooms, those who were the backbone of the movement are told.    Wednesdays in Mississippi is just one of those many stories.

 

 

To find about more about Wednesdays In Mississippi and other women in the movement, please check out the following links:

wimsfilmproject.com

http://www.history.uh.edu/cph/WIMS/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wednesdays-in-Mississippi-Film-Project/266953138296

http://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy

http://www.sites.si.edu/exhibitions/exhibits/freedoms_sisters/main.htm

http://www.nps.gov/mamc/index.htm

http://seesaw.typepad.com/blog/2010/04/wednesdays-in-mississippi.html

 

 

WEDNESDAYS IN MISSISSIPPI

In the past few days since the death of Dr. Dorothy I Height, I have been spending time thinking about her, and researching more about Wednesdays In Mississippi the organization Dr. Height founded in 1963 with my mother, Polly Cowan, . Today I found this fascinating article from 2002 by Lottie Joiner from the The Crisis Magazine. All quotes are from the article:

"By 1964 Black people had been fighting for civil rights for more than a decade, but white resistance remained strong. From the sit-ins in North Carolina to boycotts in Birmingham, demonstrations in Little Rock and freedom rides from Washington to Louisiana, civil rights battles were being fought all over the South. Yet hardly a dent had been made against segregation in Mississippi, a state distinguished by its often brutal stands against civil rights. The first White Citizens Council was established in the state in 1954. Lynchings were common. So were church bombings and cross burnings. Blacks who tried to register to vote were beaten, harassed or killed by local law enforcement officers, many of whom were members of the Ku Klux Klan. Civil rights sympathizers mysteriously disappeared, their remains found years, sometimes decades, later in rivers, fields or under the hard red clay that supported the state's cotton economy.  "

Down In The Delta, from The New Crisis, by Lottie Joiner 2002. I apologize for the ad links but I wanted to show you the original article with photos and I don't have a hard copy to scan. The scroll links are active, so click the arrows and you can look at it all. Please note the beautiful photographs by Michele Stapleton and Dennis Dennis Marsico.

"It was in this climate that women such as Ruth Batson decided to travel to Mississippi in 1964. The call came in March. Leaders of five national women's organizations - the National Council of Negro Women, the National Women's Committee for Civil Rights, the National Council of Catholic Women, the National Council of Jewish Women and United Church Women - convened a three-day summit in Atlanta to address the treatment of women and girls who were jailed for their civil rights activities. Black and white women came from Atlanta and Albany, Ga.; Montgomery and Selma, Ala.; Charleston, S.C.; Jackson, Miss.; and Danville, Va.

The women heard firsthand accounts of the brutality inflicted on civil rights workers. The sessions were led by NCNW's Dorothy Height, who encouraged the women to organize locally and work on ways they could help in their own communities.

For many who attended, it was an education in just how harshly and unjustly the South was treating its Black citizens. Before the session ended, Claire Harvey, the spokeswoman for the Jackson, Miss., group, stood and issued this plea:

"If northern women could visit us regularly during the summer, to act as a quieting influence by going into areas that are racially tense, to try to build bridges of communication between us, between our Black and white communities - to be a ministry of presence among us - it would be of tremendous help to us."

 
Dr. Dorothy I Height and Eleanor Roosevelt, 1960

"Every detail of the project was meticulously planned, including travel and safety precautions, but also how Black and white participants would interact with each other and even how they would dress.

For the participants, many of whom had never crossed the Mason-Dixon line, it was a lesson in the southern way of life. For example, the Black and white participants could not be seen speaking to each other publicly and could not lodge together. The women were told of police traps, such as handmade stop signs or extremely slow speed limits. So they wouldn't stand out, they were advised to wear white gloves like most women of the South did at the time.

" 'We helped to get them to understand the importance of living within the pattern," Height says. "There was no way we could bring about change if we went down there and tried to upset it.' "

   

Original packing list for Wednesdays Ladies. Wednesdays in Mississippi, from Wednesdays In Mississippi digital history website

"We got the news the night before we went to Mississippi that [the three young men] were missing," remembers (Susie) Goodwillie. "I realized then that this was really serious. I was committed to go more than ever." The world would realize how serious the situation was when the bodies of the three men were discovered more than a month later.

In Jackson, Goodwillie, joined by her college roommate, who had just completed her first year of law school, was housed in the elegant Magnolia Towers. She says their rent check from NCNW had to be laundered several times before it reached the hands of their landlords, prominent members of the White Citizens Council.

If people asked, the young women told them that they were in town working on a cookbook featuring southern recipes. Like nice southern ladies, they wore white gloves and attended church three times on Sundays. "We had to be impeccable," says Goodwillie. "If we were going to get through to white women we had to be totally acceptable to white Mississippi upper-class standards."

(Doris) Wilson lived with a Jackson State University librarian and her family until she found other housing in the Black community. She eventually stayed with a professor whose mother was afraid to turn on the lights at night because she feared being shot.

"My God, it really was bad," recalls Wilson. "These were [financially] comfortable Black people, but that was the kind of tension they lived in." Their housing needs met, Goodwillie and Wilson faced another dilemma. They had to meet each week to arrange site visits and meetings with local women willing to host discussions about race relations. But the two couldn't be seen in communities outside of their race, much less get together."

 
Dr. Dorothy I. Height

"(Josie) Johnson and her team were held to strict secrecy, only immediate family and the U.S. attorney general's office could know about the trip. The women were also told that they could not travel as an integrated group beyond Chicago. "When we arrived at the airport [in Jackson] I think I expected to have the Klan there and whisk us off to who knows where," Johnson says.

But Johnson was met by members of her host family, who took the group to a community rally held in a local Baptist church. Johnson, who is 70 now and still living in Minneapolis, was surprised to see the perimeter of the church patrolled by Black men with shotguns.

The next day the team traveled as an integrated group to Vicksburg, Miss. They were well aware of the cars that were following them. "I remember the fear in driving from Jackson to Vicksburg," says Johnson. "It was such a beautiful state. You have this image of all the evil and ugliness that was taking place there, the abuse of people. To see that it was a lush, green, beautiful state was a surprise."

 
Team Debriefing. Scan of original document. WIMS digital website.

"At the freedom school, the group observed young workers sorting books. The facility was a converted barn with partitions separating classrooms. Johnson could see the difficult struggle. "When you think school, you think walls. This was just benches and, like an open-air facility," she says.

After the visit, the women drove through Vicksburg's Black section. "I can close my eyes and see it," Johnson says. "Many of the places where people lived were shotgun-looking houses. You could stand in the front door and look out the back. It didn't look like a thriving community. The people looked like they were living on the very margins of our society."

The group returned to Jackson that evening and attended a hearing of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights at Tougaloo College in Jackson. The organization was gathering data on the condition of the people who were working on the voter registration effort. The women heard stories of people being jailed, fired from their jobs, placed on detention in school and "just all kinds of things that seemed incredibly unreal."

The next day, they learned that the freedom school they had visited had been bombed later that evening"

 
Scan of original document from Wednesdays In Mississippi . WIMS website

I have quoted from this article with permission of the author Lottie Joiner, who is a senior editor at The Crisis Magazine  . When I mentioned this article to Marlene McCurtis, one of the documentary filmmakers who are making the Wednesdays In Mississippi documentary  she told me that this was the article that actually gave her the idea for the film. Figures. 

I urge you to read the entire article which is in a very easy to read  here at Bnet

  
Mary McCloud Bethune, Dorothy Height, Polly Cowan. National Archives for Black Women's History at the Bethune Council House

DR. DOROTHY I HEIGHT, REST IN PEACE

 

Dr. Dorothy I Height and Polly Cowan, Co- Founders of Wednesdays In Mississippi

Dr. Dorothy Irene Height died early this morning at age 98. One of the great leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, her activism, passion, brilliance and determination changed the lives of millions. She was also my my mother's great friend and colleague. Our family loved Dr. Height, and will miss her deeply.

I direct you to my sister, Holly Shulman's, excellent website documenting the Civil Rights Organization, Wednesdays In Mississippi, founded by Dr. Height and our mother, Polly Spiegel Cowan 

WEDNESDAYS IN MISSISSIPPI WEBSITE

 

From the Wednesdays In Mississippi Website. Click image to link.

Wednesdays In Mississippi mostly worked in secret in order to protect the women who participated, whose lives could be in danger from the mission.

 
"Secret Project in Mississippi- Interracial meeting of Women" NY York Herald Tribune, 1964. From The Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. Click image to link.

Text:

New York Herald Tribune, Aug. 30, 1964  By Dick Schaap, City Editor:

They met secretly, these few white women and Negro women of Jackson Miss., in a business office on a border  street separating Negro and white residential sections, because the white women were afraid to bring Negros into their home and afraid, too, to go to Negro Homes. Their fear, of course, was of retaliation from the white community. Their interracial meetings were inspired by a project called Wednesdays in Mississippi, a secret project revealed only yesterday, that over the past two months quietly brought into Mississippi 48 Northern women, white and Negro, many of them socially prominent. The mood of these meetings, encouraged by the Northern visitors to help 'build a bridge' between Jackson Negro and white women, was expressed best, perhaps, in the frank remarks of one local white woman who attended. " My husband would kill me if he knew I were here." she said. "But he's a wonderful guy."" These (white) women are living through a frightening, schizophrenic experience," Dr. Hanna A. Levin, of Maplewood, NY, an assistant professor of psychology at Rutgers University, said yesterday.

Mrs Levin was the leader of Team Seven, the last of the Northern teams- drawing women from New York, New Jersey, Boston, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Paul - to make an excursion to Mississippi. Six of the teams had seven members; one team had six members: every team had at least two Negros on it.

The Northern visitors included Mrs. Robert B. Meyner, wife of the former governor of New Jersey; Mrs. Jerome B. Weisner, wife of the Dean Of Science at Massachusetts Instititute Of Technology; Mrs. August Hecksher, wife of the director of the Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., Mrs. Robert S. Benjamin, wife of the chairman of the board of United Artists Corp.; Mrs. Dorothy I. Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women; Mrs. Edward L. Ryerson jr., daughter -in- law of the former chairmn of the board of Inland Steel Co, and the overall project coordinator, Mrs. Louis G. Cowan, wife of the director of the Communications Research Center at Brandeis University.

ACTIVITY

Each team flew into Mississippi on a Tuesday - the last group landed on Aug. 18- spent Tuesday night in Jackson, spend Wednesday visiting Freedom Schools and other facilities set up by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) in such towns as Meridan, Hattiesburg, Ruleville, Canton and Vicksburg, went back to Jackson Wednesday night and returned home on Thursday.

The Negro members of the teams always stayed in private Negro homes. The white members of the fist five teams stayed in motels. Then, as the group slowly acquired contacts in the white community, the white members of the last two teams found lodging in private white homes. Wednesdays In Mississippi employed a paid staff of three women - two white and one Negro - who spent the entire two months in Mississippi.

Many of the visitors paid their own way to Mississippi but a majority were subsidized, at least in part, by such organizations as The National Council Of Negro Women, The YWCA, The National Council Of Jewish Women, The National Council of Catholic Women, The League Of Women Voters and several church groups.

Each woman was briefed by Mrs. Cowan before she left, given background reading material - including the speech by Mississippi Prof. James Silvester (Silver) which lead to his book, "Mississippi: The Closed Society" and a pamphlet called "Behind The Cotton Curtain" - then was debriefed by Mrs. Cowan when she returned. The debriefings were tape recorded.

From the Wednesdays In Mississippi Film Project:

"However, it was on Thursdays that the quiet revolution took root. This was when the “Wednesdays Women” put on their white gloves and pearls and secretly met with Black and White Mississippi women. In living rooms over tea and cookies the Southern women openly discussed their fears and suspicions about the civil rights movement.  Many, for the first time, voiced their support for change. At that time in Mississippi, mixing with outsiders had dire consequences.  Yet the women came,  they listened  and their hearts and minds began to open.  Their clandestine meetings became the catalyst for great change."

 
Dr. Dorothy I. Height was also a fashion icon. She could really wear a hat!  Photo by H. Darr Beiser, USA Today, 2008

 
January 18, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)  President Obama and Dr, Dorothy I Height

 
At Dr. Dorothy I Height's funeral, April 29, 2010, President Obama cries. I love this photo and the fact that Obama was so moved by such a great woman.

For a comprehensive look at WIMS please go to: Wednesdays In Missisippi website

and The WIMS Film Project

And this, From Laura Flanders, GritTV

More GRITtv

DR. DOROTHY I HEIGHT, POLLY COWAN, AND OBAMA'S INAUGURATION

My mother, Polly Spiegel Cowan, civil rights activist, died in 1976. As I watched the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama I held in my heart the image of my mother and her dear friend and colleague Dr. Dorothy Height.

Cheers to you, Mom, watching from wherever you are now. And cheers to you, Dr. Height. I'm glad you got a great seat at the inauguration. You more than deserve it.

From the NY Times, Sept 17, 2009

One of Mr. Obama’s guests, Dorothy Height, 96, will have a place of honor on the platform — in her wheelchair. Ms. Height, a longtime social activist, was accepted at Barnard College in 1929 but was turned away when she arrived because the school had met its quota of two black women.

“I never thought I would live to see this,” she said of the inauguration of a black president. “This is real recognition that civil rights was not just what Dr. King dreamed. But it took a lot of people a lot of work to make this happen, and they feel part of it.”

 

From NewsChanne8 in Washington, DC, January 19, 2009

At 96 years old, Height has seen many firsts, but when Barack Obama  is sworn-in as the nation's first African-American president, it will be an experience for her unlike any other. "I'll be glad I lived long enough to see it and I think it's the answer to so many prayers- something that people have worked on for a long time."

Born in Richmond, Height first started working in New York City. By the late 1930's, she had established herself as a civil rights activist and joined the National Council of Negro Women.

American leaders regularly met with her. Height encouraged President Eisenhower to desegregate schools and President Lyndon Johnson to appoint African-American women to positions in government. "She has been the glue that has held our civil rights and human rights movement together for the last 40 years and one of the things I'm so happy about is that she lived to see the day," said Rev. Walter Fauntroy, civil rights activist.

In 1957, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women. It was a position she held throughout the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960's. It was a time when the idea of an African-American becoming president seemed impossible. "You know, I had thoughts that often were disturbing, but you can't work at something if you don't believe in it. And I believed that someday this would happen," said Height.

Now that it is happening, the National Council of Negro Women is gearing up for a huge celebration on Inauguration Day. Height will be at the swearing in and then as the parade comes down Pennsylvania Avenue, there will be a celebration at their headquarters along the route.

"We are the only African-Americans who own a building within this quarter of Pennsylvania Avenue and for the first time we'll be ushering in an African-American president," said Christine Toney, National Council of Negro Women

But while the crowds along Pennsylvania Avenue celebrate a new president, Height will also use the day to reflect. It's been a long road to get here and she knows there is still work to be done. "I think that many opportunities have opened up. The country's come along way and I would say to young people to keep up the spirit that we have now and keep your eyes open and your heart open and see how you can take us to the next step," said Height.

So at 96 years old, Height marks another first on Tuesday - one that's stirring up feelings like none other. "It's not just a feeling of joy. It's a feeling of achievement and a feeling of greater confidence in a society in which we live. I think the possibilities of America are unlimited."

Links to Wednesdays In Mississippi, the Civil Rights organization founded by my mother and Dr. Dorothy I. Height.

http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/WIMS/

http://www.wimsfilmproject.com/

http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/got-docs-wednesdays-in-mississippi/