Lair of Hunterbear

COMMENTS BY HUNTER BEAR:

This note does not call for a response from anyone.  People are busy.

I've already received some fine comments about the the new version of my book, Jackson Mississippi. (Susan Klopfer, a Southern Movement writer, did a most positive review forthwith! It is on Amazon.)  One comment came from Mary Ann, an old friend and former Tougaloo student of mine and a strong and committed worker on behalf of our Jackson Boycott Movement out of which we developed the mass, non-violent Jackson Movement.  She writes:

Hi Mr. Salter, finally received your book in the mail yesterday. Was anxious to read the new introduction. Initially  I was confused as to what this had to do with Jackson, Ms. but as I continued to read , I had an aha moment . It dawned on me. These experiences made you into  the person we came to know , love and appreciate in Jackson/Tougaloo, Ms.

I and my good family have been having an interesting life these past many decades.  We'd do it all over again.  And we're not at the end of the trail by a long stretch.

But, interesting and productive as I think it's been, I very much doubt that any autobiography I did -- as per the repeated suggestions and encouragement of good friend Bill Mandel -- would ever find its way into print.  By the same token, I doubt that anyone would be interested in doing a biographical book on me.  The just now out third version of my book, Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism (Lincoln:  University of Nebraska Press, 2011), is, as I indicate in its new and substantial Introduction,  "an organizer's book."

Growing up in Northern Arizona, in a setting replete with social justice issues and committed early on to grassroots and activist community organizing, I, personally, have always been especially interested in the lives of effective activists.  Two of those, autobiographies, had a very significant and enduring impact on me back in 1955 when I was 21:  Bill Haywood's Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood (New York: International Publishers, 1929 and subsequent editions) and Ralph Chaplin's Wobbly: The Rough and Tumble Story of an American Radical (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.)  And there followed many other works, from social justice fighters of many ethnicities and cultures.

I, my family, and many friends have long felt there should be some sort of widely available account of who I and my family are, where we come from, what we stand for -- and what we've accomplished over many turbulent decades.  While my book obviously focuses very basically and heavily on the carefully organized and ultimately massive Jackson Movement of 1962-63, its original epilogue, "Reflections on an Odyssey," covers a number of my subsequent campaigns into 1978.  And now, the new Introduction -- about 9,500 words -- updates organizing and related matters to the present, has some Mississippi, provides personal and family background, motivational insight, and some of my key reflections as a life-long activist Organizer.

Taken in total, and standing alone, this book is my basic memoir. I expect it to be useful to a wide variety of social justice activists of all ages -- and very much younger and developing people of all backgrounds