THE WOOLWORTH SIT

Our Woolworth Sit-In, Jackson Mississippi, 5/28/63 was the most violently attacked sit-in of the '60s and the most publicized. Involving a White mob of several hundred, it went on for several hours while hostile police from Jackson's huge all-White police department stood by approvingly outside and while hostile FBI agents inside (in sun-glasses) "observed." Seated, left to right are Hunter Gray (John R. Salter, Jr.) -- Native American; Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), a White Southern student at our private Black college, Tougaloo College [one of two White students at Tougaloo]; Anne Moody, Black, from Wilkinson County, Mississippi. I, Gray [Salter] was a very young Tougaloo professor; and Joan and Anne were my students. All of us are covered with sugar, salt, mustard, and other slop. I was beaten many times -- fists, brass knuckles, and a broken glass sugar container -- and am covered with blood.

We have published -- on this page and the next -- three of the best photos of the sit-in.

This first photo is the most famous sit-in photo of the '60s -- frequently depicted over the decades in exhibits, television documentaries, books and magazines -- and has recently appeared in many "end of the Century" photo books [e.g., Life The Way We Were: Decades Of The Twentieth Century, Time Inc., 1999 -- where it is The civil rights photo in the book] and extensive narrative/photo discussions of the times [e.g., The American Century, by Harold Evans, Knopf, 1999], and many others.

COMMENT BY HUNTER GRAY/JOHN R SALTER JR ON MAY 23 2005 [TO LOUIS PROYECT AND FRIENDS OF HUNTER BEAR]

Thanks very much, Louis, for posting this and for your kind accompanying
comment. It's a well known photo, appearing regularly over the decades --
mostly in the 'States but often abroad. Here in Pocatello [and much
elsewhere as well] a well known high school history book carries it
faithfully.

This and other photos of the "situation" involve a mostly youthful group of
vigorous physical critics -- at least at that moment, thugs -- but also
adult Klan types and, wearing dark classes, what we have always been sure
were FBI agents. In the milling throng was Lucy Komisar, spending several
months with our Movement and the Mississippi Free Press [which a number of
us had launched late in '61], and now a well known journalist out of NYC.
[She is clearly seen in the background of another photo, one of several on
our large website.]

The hostile throng, inside and out, came to number several hundred at least.

I have always found it difficult to blame the kids in the mob -- at least
beyond a certain point. One of the things I consistently did was to study
Deep South history, sociology, culture. I knew where they were coming from
and that awareness, which convicts the Big Mules and their opportunistic
racist political allies, also makes it tough to be too hard on those kids.
Beba [John] in more recent times has been with me when we have had
interesting discussions in Mississippi with former adversaries. In long
time, even former Gov. Ross R Barnett used to convey his regards and
sympathy through a mutual friend to "Professor Salter" --" 'way up there in
that awful North Dakota". [Southerners of whatever ethnicity have been
consistently horrified by the N.D. winters.]

And then, of course, there are those to whom Rhett Butler's comment to
Scarlett certainly applies, "The Old Guard dies but it never surrenders."

Soon after the Brown deseg decision in '54, the white Citizens Council
movement -- middle and upper echelon class-wise -- began in Mississippi and,
quickly pervasive, captured the state with its clarion call, "States'
Rights, Racial Integrity." It spread across the South, not always
pervasively, but in consistently sinister and influential fashion. In due
course, among its many poisonous branches and leaves, was its "curriculum"
for the white grade schools. In early years, kids were taught that "blue
birds play with blue birds only" and "chickens do not mix." Quack nonsense
then explained this latter by indicating that, if one took 100 chickens, 50
of them white and the other 50 black, they would naturally segregate
themselves. In lessons designed for the later grades, kids were told that
"[White] Southerners built America," "[White] Southerners are the true
patriots", "Race-Mixers are Communists," "Race-Mixers want to destroy the
South and America."

And the products of that hideous catechism graced that Woolworth Store [and
many other battle lines] for hours on that fateful day, May 28, 1963, at
Jackson.

As Ever, H

Later [Peter Gray Salter, copy of sit-in photo enclosed]

____________________________________________________________________________________

HUNTER WRITES ON MARCH 19 2008 [EXCERPTED FROM A LARGER POST]:

Generalizations are inevitably challenging when it comes to Humanity -- and certainly to the behavioral positions of

the protagonists in a Cause as intense as the Southern Civil Rights Movement whose legacy and the issues it raised

obviously remain very vital and viable to this very moment, nationally.

In the wake of its greatest intensity and a number of highly significant victories, people -- being people -- began to

"rebuild" in the quite emotionally drained South. And they have been doing so in the context of some -- some --

new social arrangements. And, although much distance -- regionally and nationally -- remains to be traveled and the

negative ethos of "the skeleton hand of history" remains at one remove, those changes have been truly revolutionary.

And those changes will continue -- again, both regionally and nationally.

I've always felt -- and have tried to act in accordance with that feeling -- that, while we learn much from the past, it's critical

that we look to the future and the Sun. Years ago, I wrote and placed this on the frontal portion of our website:

"We cannot run away from the Winds of Challenge and Change. We have to take History and ride with it. Always ahead, always toward the Sun. And always aware that Democracy is natural and, given half a chance, it will always flourish. We have big fish to fry and we're going to have to do it in an American skillet -- over a long-burning fire from the timber of our own forests." [H.]

That leaves, at least for me -- but also for many other veterans of intense struggles of many kinds -- no room for hate. And no room for a backpack loaded with old grudges and old recriminations. Fight hard for sure -- but never forget or ignore the essential Humanity of all of us.

So, again Bob, I much appreciate your comment. That, along with the brief correspondence with the great niece of the late Chief Deputy Sheriff of Madison County, Mississippi,["Out of a Strange Past, a Human Concern"], can be found in the lower portion of this page: http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm

In Solidarity, Hunter [Hunter Bear]

AND THIS RESPONSE FROM PETER GRAY SALTER [MACK]:

I can't disagree with you, Pop. And there's probably little good carrying around a backpack of new grudges, either.

But when I was younger, I used to study the sit-in photo in the New Yorker, and fantasize about seeking revenge against the punks in the crowd converging behind you. Heading down to Mississippi and looking them up, one by one, and letting them know who I was, who you were, and why I was there. There was one in particular whose expression and posture repulsed me. (Years later, I even thought it would make a good magazine story pitch.)

But when I passed through Jackson two years ago with my 18-year-old son, we made a visit to the Woolworth site. It's a grassy lot surrounded by high-rises and parking ramps, gone like a rotten tooth. People were walking by drinking Starbucks and talking on cell phones and not for a moment realizing the gravity of the place.

And I thought: Well, shit. And then I thought: Well, this is gone, and those faces in the photos have faded into old men, but you're still here. Maybe not in Mississippi, or in 'that awful North Dakota.'

Up on an Idaho hill, now. But you're still here.

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

SEE MY COMBINED COMMUNITY ORGANIZING PIECES -- WITH MUCH NEW STUFF HUNTER GRAY/JOHN R SALTER, JR [HUNTER BEAR] SEPTEMBER 5 2004 -- AND WITH NEW INCLUSION: THE COMMUNITY ORGANIZER AS PRACTITIONER, TEACHER, WRITER AND STUDENT [HUNTER GRAY -- FEBRUARY 19 2008] ALL OF THIS MUCH REPRINTED - PLUS MANY NEW COMMENTS
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

Wobbly Mentor: http://hunterbear.org/wobbly_mentor.htm
See Forces and Faces Along the Activist Trail: http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm