Courage And Terror In Mississippi

On March 20, 1963 the Greenwood, Mississippi Commonwealth carried side-by-side two editorials which graphically illustrate the inability of Southern whites to understand what is happening to their “way of life.” One editorial, entitled “A History Lesson,” chided Latin American oligarchs for failing to see that they could not preserve untouched their system of control over the wealth of their societies. Latin Americans were advised to distribute a slice of bread here and there, lest they lose the loaf. The other editorial, entitled “That’s a Lot of Free Food,” dealt in a quite jocular vein with the fact that upwards of 50 per cent of the people in several surrounding counties were recipie...