"EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT MISSISSIPPI"

 “EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT MISSISSIPPI”

I continue to sort through my files and papers to send them on to the Presbyterian Historical Society for archiving.  One would think that I would have finished by now, but you know how preachers are.  One of my good friends, Inez Giles, once gave a painted rock to her dad, an AME Presiding bishop, and the same one to me.  It said:  “Preachers never die – they just go on and on and on and on…..” I’ve had that feeling in continuing to sort through all my files!

This week I came across a program from the Ole Miss/Kentucky football game of Saturday, September 29, 1962.  Growing up as a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, I had sports memorabilia from them (including the aforementioned autographed photo of Stan Musial), but I have given most of that to our son David.  I found the Ole Miss program in a different folder – a political one.  I had saved that program because I had attended that football game with my cousin Brown (and, yes the same Brown of the Stan Musial story) and his dad in Jackson, Mississippi.  It was the game where Governor Ross Barnett made an impassioned defense of his refusing to allow a Mississippi citizen to attend the University of Mississippi.  

That citizen was named James Meredith, born and bred in Mississippi, and he was an Air Force veteran who had finally been accepted into Ole Miss.  This week marks the 60th anniversary of that series of events, including a white race riot on the campus.  At the football game on September 29, Governor Barnett vowed never to yield to the “integrationists” of the federal government, and he demanded that the crowd stand and sing “Go, Mississippi.”  Brown and I were segregationists at this point in our lives, but to teenagers – we were starting our junior years in high school – this seemed like an embarrassing thing to do.  Yet, when the entire white crowd at the football game stood and belted out the song, we did too.

James Meredith had started applying to enter the University of Mississippi in Oxford on the day after JFK was inaugurated as President in 1961.  The Board of Directors twice rejected his application.  Meredith decided to take his case to federal court, and it worked its way up to the Fifth Circuit, which ordered the University of Mississippi to accept James Meredith to the college.  The state appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court, and in an emergency order, SCOTUS ordered that Meredith be admitted.  The state legislature met quickly to pass a law to try to manufacture a criminal charge against Meredith to keep him from being accepted as a student at Ole Miss.  Again, the federal courts threw that out, and Meredith was on track to enter Ole Miss in September, 1962.  

Governor Barnett twice refused to admit him, but in secret phone deals with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, he agreed to allow Meredith to enroll if Barnett could save face by continuing to rant against “integrationists.”  Even as he cajoled us to sing “Go, Mississippi” at the football game and proclaiming that he would never allow Meredith to enter, he had already made the deal.  The white supremacists gathering at Oxford, however, thought that Barnett was sincere. On that same football weekend, they began a riot on the Ole Miss campus, and after three days, it was finally brought under control by federal marshals, the National Guard, and US Army troops.  Two people were killed in the riot, and three hundred people were arrested, but Meredith was admitted.  He was guarded 24 hours a day by federal marshals and reserve troops, and he graduated in August, 1963.

It would be convenient to blame this on the state of Mississippi, because as Nina Simone sang, “everybody knows about Mississippi.”  The inconvenient truth, however, is that this story is part of a much larger stream in American history.  One of the fundamental truths of our history is that racism and white supremacy have been part of the narrative since the European beginnings of the country.  Neo-slavery ended only in 1965, and we have continued to struggle with this powerful force in the 57 years since then.  The rising tide of white supremacy, called out by Trumpism, is not a new thing in our history.  It seems to always be with us, sometimes overt and menacing and oppressive, sometimes driven underground by the power of the idea of equality, but always lurking nearby, awaiting the call from the likes of Ross Barnett and Donald Trump.  Each of us - and all of us – are called to find our place and make our stand in this historic struggle between equality and white supremacy.  Where’s my place? Where’s yours?

. 

"NICKEL AND DIMED"

 “NICKEL AND DIMED”

Barbara Ehrenreich died earlier this month at the age of 80.  She was a prolific and profound writer, and I read several of her books.  The most famous of her books – and the one that stuck the most with me – was “Nickel and Dimed,” published in 2001.  In it she went undercover to work in low wage jobs in America to expose the self-interest of the wealthy in indoctrinating people in this country to work in such jobs.  She did her research in the “boom” years of the late 1990’s, and her work proved to be prescient, being as contemporary as possible in a re-reading here in late 2022.

Having grown up in the South, I was very familiar with the subjects and outline of her research, but what I remembered the most from “Nickel and Dimed” was her description of her attending a tent revival not in the South but in Maine.  In the chapter entitled “Scrubbing in Maine,” she indicated that in Maine, it would be easy to go undercover, because most of the low-wage workers were classified as “white,” as she was.  One Saturday night, boredom drove her to a tent revival in a small town there, I’ll turn over the rest of the story to her, in these quotes from that narrative.

“The marquee  in front of the church is advertising a Saturday night “tent revival,” which sounds like the perfect entertainment for an atheist out on her own. Unfortunately, from an entertainment point of view, only about 60 of the approximately 300 folding chairs are populated.  I count three or four people of color – African and, I would guess, Mexican Americans; everyone else is a tragic-looking hillbilly type, my very own people, genetically speaking (Ehrenreich is a name acquired through marriage; my birth name, Alexander, derives directly from Kentucky).

But before anything interesting can happen, the preaching commences.  A man in shirtsleeves tells us what a marvelous book the Bible is and bemoans the fact that people buy so many inferior books when you really need just one……Next a Mexican American fellow takes over the mike, shuts his eyes tight, and delivers a rapid fire summary of our debt to the crucified Christ..  Then it’s an older white guy attacking “this wicked city” for its heretically inadequate contribution of souls to the revival – which costs money you know, this tent didn’t just put itself up……

The preaching goes on, interrupted with dutiful “amens.” It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the minimum wage.  But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse -the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say.  Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again, so that he can never get a word out of his mouth.

I would like to stay around for the speaking in tongues, should it occur, but the mosquitoes, worked into a frenzy by all this talk of His blood, are launching a full scale attack.  I get up to leave, timing my exit for when the preacher’s metronomic head movements have him looking the other way, and walk out to search for my car, half expecting to find Jesus out there in the dark, gagged and tethered to a tent pole.”

So, thanks Barbara Ehrenreich for your life and witness, for all your work, and especially for this pithy and precise insight to 400 years of white American Christianity.  An angry, death-dealing God whose only interest in human life is the corpse of Jesus. A powerful summary of how American Christianity - imbibed by slavery, neo-slavery, white supremacy, patriarchy, and consumer capitalism – is seeking to make its comeback in a narcissist like Donald Trump and crass power mongers like Mitch McConnell and Ron DiSantis.  

"SUSAN STROUPE!"

 “SUSAN STROUPE!”

Caroline and I were  playing balloon ball with 2 year old David  in our duplex in Nashville in the late evening of September 11, 1982 – years before that date became one of infamy in American history.  Caroline said:  “I think that my water broke – I believe that the baby is coming.”  It was a few days early, and I was skeptical, but I’ve learned that Caroline (and other women) may know more than I do on this subject.  We went to the birthing room at Vanderbilt Hospital, and Mary Susan came out a couple of hours later early in the morning of September 12.  We have been celebrating her ever since.  

We moved from Nashville to Decatur five months later, so baby Susan was a hit at Oakhurst Presbyterian for many reasons, including the fact that she was the only infant there.  She grew up there, and it was a great blessing to her and to us – many grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles.  She also learned how to be a good listener there – hearing many different cultural approaches and voices.  With so many African-Americans at Oakhurst and so much African-American music there, she learned to clap on the back beat!  

Though we are her parents, she has been (and continues to be) our teacher on so many levels.  She took us up into the cold north when she went to Macalaster College in Minnesota.  She majored in English and drama, and we were introduced to the world of theater in a way that I never thought possible.  We took a trip to the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca one year when she was there.  I was amazed that I could walk across the beginnings of the River that swirls and eddies and flows fast in its mile wide crossing at my hometown of Helena, Arkansas.

        She worked for Americorps for two years in Albuquerque, and we learned a whole new world of the Southwest.  Given her compassionate heart, she worked in Albuquerque with adults with developmental disabilities.  She made lifelong friends there among the artists in that Americorps Center, and they helped their students do a play by Shakespeare.

She moved to Baltimore in 2009 to work on her MFA in theater at Towson University, and she has been thriving and growing in Baltimore ever since.  We have enjoyed getting to see her develop her personality and leadership.  She joined the church choir at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church.  Soon after that she called me to ask if I knew who Taylor Branch was.  When I replied that of course I knew who he was because I had read and used his great trilogy on MLK, she said:  “Well, he sings with me in the Brown Memorial Choir!”  She later joined the church as a member (with some sadness about transferring from Oakhurst), later chaired the Worship Committee there and now is an elder on the Session.

As an artist in American culture, Susan has to cobble “day jobs” together for income, but she has been blessed to find theater-related jobs in order to do this, for which we are grateful.  She is one of the founders of Submersive Theater, a group of colleagues who approach works of art in an “immersive” way.  Yes, another learning for us – “immersive theater” invites the audience to be participants in the performance of the play itself.  For those such as I who like linear plots, I’ve had a learning curve on this.  But, it is great and pleasing to watch Susan develop and perform so well in these contexts.  As Susan put it to me, “There’s a lot of similarities between worship and theater, and I learned a lot of this in worship at Oakhurst: the willingness to not rely so much on script; the belief that the congregation/audience are integral parts of the performances; the necessity of recognizing and learning to cross cultural boundaries without colonizing the other.”

Susan is deeply passionate for justice and has a deeply compassionate heart, a combination that makes her so impressive and such a good theater (and church) leader and performer.  She has been a gift to us ever since she popped out of Caroline’s womb in 1982. We had not done amniocentesis during the pregnancy to determine the gender identity or anything else about the baby whom Caroline was carrying in 1982, and we were expecting a boy.  We even had a mild disagreement on the way to the hospital about what name we would give a boy, but we were agreed that if we were blessed to have a girl, we would name her “Mary Susan.”  When Dr. Betty Neff helped to slide Susan out of Caroline, she said: “Welcome to the world, Mary Susan!”  And Caroline almost leaped up from the birthing table in joy – the girl that we so wanted.  Susan has been blessing us and teaching us ever since, and we give so many thanks for her on her birthday today!

"WASHERWOMAN'S STRIKE, 1881"

  “WASHERWOMAN’S STRIKE, 1881”

            As we approach Labor Day in an acrimonious time, I want to note a little-known labor action in Atlanta in the early union days of 1881.  I’ll be using a condensed version of an article that I wrote for Hospitality – the longer version is found at  http://opendoorcommunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/July-2020-web.pdf.  After the Civil War ended, many rural Black women in the South, previously held as slaves, moved to the urban areas to seek employment and to seek to get away from the neo-slavery that was rapidly redeveloping.

    Many of these newly arrived Black women took in laundry as a way to make money.  Known as “laundresses” or “washerwomen,” more Black women did this kind of work in 1881 in the South than in any other occupation.  It was back-breaking work, with long hours and very low pay.  Picking up dirty clothes at white peoples’ homes on Monday, making their own soap from lye, hauling water from wells or pumps to washtubs made from old beer barrels, scrubbing the clothes on washboards, wringing out the clothes, then hanging or draping them to dry, then ironing the clothes with hot, heavy irons, then delivering the clothes on Saturday -  all for the pay of $4-8 a month.  Still, the women were glad that their “domestic” work enabled them to stay home, rather than have to move to the white peoples’ homes as “almost slaves.” As Sarah Hill put it: “I could clean my hearth good and nice and set my irons in front of the fire and iron all day without stopping…I cooked and ironed at the same time.”  They made a way out of no way. 

    Making a way out of no way did not mean, however, that they were content with it.  In 1881, some 20 of these washerwomen began to meet and to organize to seek better wages.  They also went door to door in their neighborhoods, seeking other washerwomen to support the effort and join in the strike.  Their efforts built on the efforts of others, but it was still early in the labor union movement.  The first labor union in the state of Mississippi was a washerwoman’s union in 1866 in Jackson.  The Knights of Labor was formed in 1869, but the American Federation of Labor was not formed until 1886, so these washerwomen were in the forefront of this developing movement to support workers in their demands for better wages and working conditions.

       The washerwomen of Atlanta named themselves “The Washing Society,” and we have the names of six of them:   Matilda Crawford, Sallie Bell, Carrie Jones, Dora Jones, Orphelia Turner, and Sarah Collier.   They began to organize, and soon their numbers had grown from 20 to 3,000.  They went on strike in late July, 1881, letting their white employers know that unless their wages were raised, no more laundry would be done.  It caused a furor in the white community.  The Atlanta Constitution (AJC) covered the strike almost daily, and its coverage – which is the only written records that we have of the strike – was filled with both contempt and amazement at the temerity of these black washerwomen.  The AC called them the “Washing Amazons,” and in using what it deemed a derisive term, it revealed the fear which these women struck in the heart of privileged, white society.  The idea of “Amazons” originated in ancient Greece and referred to a fierce band of women warriors – indeed “Diana” of the recent movie “Wonder Woman” was living among and trained by Amazons. 

    The AJC had these words about the Washing Society:  “The laundry ladies’ efforts to control the prices for washing are still prevalent and no small amount of talk is occasioned hereby.  The women have a thoroughly organized association and additions to the membership are being made each day……The washerwomen of Atlanta having ‘struck’ for very unreasonably high prices.”   Even more ominous for white society was that talk began among other domestic workers about going on strike.  As the Washing Society strike held out, the City Council went into action to end the strike.  Strikers were arrested for disorderly conduct ; white businessmen proposed building an expensive steam laundry to end the black women’s “monopoly,” and the Council levied an exorbitant tax of $25 on each Washing Society member.  In response to the tax, the Washing Society met at Wheat Street Baptist Church and voted to send this letter to the Mayor – they are the only words that we have from the Washing Society:

 “We the members of our society, are determined to stand to our pledge and make extra charges for washing, and we have agreed, and are willing to pay $25 or $50 for licenses as a protection, so that we can control the washing for the city.  We can afford to pay these licenses, and will do it before we will be defeated, and then we will have full control of the city’s washing at our own prices, as the city has control of our husbands’ work at their prices.  Don’t forget this. We hope to hear from your council meeting Tuesday morning.  We mean business this week or no washing.”

            The city council voted to rescind its action, and the strike proceeded.  Yet, we do not know the resolution of the strike.  The articles in the Constitution eventually faded out, and since we have no other sources, the conclusion of historians is that the Washing Society only got a few of its demands.

     But, on this Labor Day,  it reminds us that the struggle for justice and equity is long and difficult, but so essential.  The economic forces that shaped racism and slavery are deep and powerful, and the only way to bend the arc of history towards justice is to engage in the struggle for such bending.  We are now in a crucial period.  Significant changes will be made in these times.  Let us be inspired by the Washing Society, and let us take up their dirty but cleansing work in order to bend these times toward justice.  Let us too find some labor unions to strengthen and affirm.