It was 1965 when the riots broke out. They started when a black man named Jed was severely beaten by a white man in Mississippi.

One evening Jed was walking home after work when a white man came up to him and started calling him names. Jed tried to ignore him but the man wouldn't quit. He kept heckling Jed with things like, "Go back to Africa where you belong, nigger! Niggers have no right to be in America. They should all be slaves again!" Jed just kept on walking, but the heckler just went on and on about black people. Then he starting pushing Jed. Jed finally felt compelled to fight back although he'd tried his very best to hold it in. He remembered what his mama told him time and time again, that violence wouldn't settle anything. Then all of a sudden a fist came down on Jed. His head felt as if it were struck by a hammer and blood trickled off his face and he began to feel warm inside. The scent of blood and sweat was all around him. The white man walked away as if nothing happened.

When Jed got home his aunt Nell asked him what had happened to him. He told her that a white man had picked a fight with him and knocked him down. This upset her and she tried reporting it to the police, but they wouldn't listen to her. It seemed that all the white folks were against them and she didn't know what to do. When she tried to voice some of her concerns to the city hall, it was as if the government wasn't listening to her.

One night late in the week a band of the Ku Klux Klan appeared outside of her house and chanted and hollered for Jed and his aunt to come out. The other black people in the neighborhood were all too frightened to do anything about it. Then the men set up a wooden cross in her front yard and set it on fire. Jed and his aunt were scared stiff and didn't know what to do. All the commotion and panic confused them too much. Then when one of the men pulled out a gun and shot it towards their house, suddenly without warning a white man living across the street came out with his double barrel shot gun and fired it twice in the air and told the men to get the hell away from their house.

The next day Nell and Jed thanked Rick for getting rid of the men. Rick was a public defender and took an active interest in their case. But a couple of days later a gang of Klanners attacked Rick for defending Jed and his aunt. Rick reported it to the police but they acted like it was no big deal and did nothing about it. Finally Rick took the case to Federal Court and prepared to fight a hard battle.

A few weeks later the Klan terrorized the whole black neighborhood around Jed's house. But Nell spoke up again, telling her neighbors that they had to do something about this soon, or they'd never be in control of their lives again. That's when the riots began. The next night blacks attacked white stores and other white-owned businesses in the neighborhood. Police were sent in but the neighborhood had become a battleground. When the police could no longer control the situation the national guard had to be sent in to stop them from destroying the entire town. Day and night there were shots and explosions and fires everywhere which completely tore up the life of the town. It only ended when Rick finally won his case for Jed and Nell in Federal Court.

Fred Alstrom

Thanks Rick!