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Ed Spannaus correspondence, June-September 1964
1964-07-16 Mike Kenney to Ed Spannaus Page 2
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16 July 1965 c/o Mr. T. L. Louie Route 2, Box 187 Tohula, Mississippi Greetings, Ed, from Delta My views on ruralfuckingAmerica are well know. I detest Iowa. Yet here I am living on a farrm for the first time in my life -- and am enjoying it. Well, wedon't quite have all the comforts running water or toilets, etc but we do have a refrigerator and a gad stove... and our ration of insects. Holmes County is not at all what I pictured Mississippi to be like. We are in the fringe of the Delta here. There are some plantations close, but where I am staying is an area of small farms (100 to 200acres) set up in the 1930's (for independent Negro famers) as the Mileston Project (Mileston is the general name of the community around here. Mileston proper consists of a store and two gas pumps and a church.) The farms are set back from the main road into the delta.They are all reached bydirt roads. Very few whites know their way around these roads but they are still dangerous and we never travel at night .. . well, not too often. The farmers are the backbone of the movement. They are free and independent souls who cower before no man. they own their own land and provide relatively well for their families. They are a quietly proud people and rightly so. In the town of Tohula where we have recently canvassed things are much different. There the people work for wages and are very fearful of losing their jobs for attempting to register to vote. Many are afraid to talk to us. In the two bedroom house in which I live we have 5 small girls, a baby. 3 teenage girls, the mother and father, one 11 year old boy, and a grandmother, plus the two of us volunteers. The fice children sleep in a pinwheel fashion in one bed. Cephas (the other volunteer -- a Negro so that I am integrating the house) and I share a room all to ourselves and alternate, one in the double bed and one in a sleeping bag on the floor (The Louies do not know about this or they would probably force another bed on us.) I am really impressed with the people here. It is quite and that there is no future for young people in Mississippi. Most of the young people go off to Chicago into what may well be a worse environment. Even though the people in the towns are fearful, we are making progress. My roommate and I have been working in Tohula for more than a week and we have gotten to know many beautiful people. We have gotten to know many of the problems of this community; last year a 17 year olf boy was shot in the back by a white man for no reason at all and his murderer was never even bothered about the deed ( in fact, I now see him riding around with the deputy sheriff as they watch us; a new sewer was put into the white community and the Negroes waterbill raised 56 cents a month to help pay for it (56 cents is between 1/5 and 1/4 of a day's pay for most Negroes around here) while the Negroes still have to use outhouses paved roads end at the beginning of the Negro ghetto Negroes are paid much less than whites for the same work (unlike the North, fortunately by the way, I see that disaster befell the Republican party last nite), etc. etc. etc.
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16 July 1965 c/o Mr. T. L. Louie Route 2, Box 187 Tohula, Mississippi Greetings, Ed, from Delta My views on ruralfuckingAmerica are well know. I detest Iowa. Yet here I am living on a farrm for the first time in my life -- and am enjoying it. Well, wedon't quite have all the comforts running water or toilets, etc but we do have a refrigerator and a gad stove... and our ration of insects. Holmes County is not at all what I pictured Mississippi to be like. We are in the fringe of the Delta here. There are some plantations close, but where I am staying is an area of small farms (100 to 200acres) set up in the 1930's (for independent Negro famers) as the Mileston Project (Mileston is the general name of the community around here. Mileston proper consists of a store and two gas pumps and a church.) The farms are set back from the main road into the delta.They are all reached bydirt roads. Very few whites know their way around these roads but they are still dangerous and we never travel at night .. . well, not too often. The farmers are the backbone of the movement. They are free and independent souls who cower before no man. they own their own land and provide relatively well for their families. They are a quietly proud people and rightly so. In the town of Tohula where we have recently canvassed things are much different. There the people work for wages and are very fearful of losing their jobs for attempting to register to vote. Many are afraid to talk to us. In the two bedroom house in which I live we have 5 small girls, a baby. 3 teenage girls, the mother and father, one 11 year old boy, and a grandmother, plus the two of us volunteers. The fice children sleep in a pinwheel fashion in one bed. Cephas (the other volunteer -- a Negro so that I am integrating the house) and I share a room all to ourselves and alternate, one in the double bed and one in a sleeping bag on the floor (The Louies do not know about this or they would probably force another bed on us.) I am really impressed with the people here. It is quite and that there is no future for young people in Mississippi. Most of the young people go off to Chicago into what may well be a worse environment. Even though the people in the towns are fearful, we are making progress. My roommate and I have been working in Tohula for more than a week and we have gotten to know many beautiful people. We have gotten to know many of the problems of this community; last year a 17 year olf boy was shot in the back by a white man for no reason at all and his murderer was never even bothered about the deed ( in fact, I now see him riding around with the deputy sheriff as they watch us; a new sewer was put into the white community and the Negroes waterbill raised 56 cents a month to help pay for it (56 cents is between 1/5 and 1/4 of a day's pay for most Negroes around here) while the Negroes still have to use outhouses paved roads end at the beginning of the Negro ghetto Negroes are paid much less than whites for the same work (unlike the North, fortunately by the way, I see that disaster befell the Republican party last nite), etc. etc. etc.
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