JACKSON

1979 and 1987 -- Krieger edition By John R. Salter, Jr. [Hunter Gray] UPDATED 11/13/06

Depicted on the cover of this 1987 (Krieger) edition of my book, is our Woolworth Sit-In, May 28 1963, at Jackson. This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. [Recently, many "end-of-the-Century" photo collections have carried large renditions of it.] A huge mob gathered, with open police support and, while the three of us sat there for three hours, I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things. Seated, left to right, are myself, Ms. Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and Ms. Anne Moody. Other sit-ins -- some in a split-off section and some briefly with our heavily targeted part -- were Mr. Memphis Norman (himself brutally struck and kicked unconscious), Ms. Pearlena Lewis, Ms. Lois Chaffee, Mr. James Beard, Mr. George Raymond, and Mr. Walter Williams. Dr. A.D. Beittel, President of Tougaloo College, and himself a much older man, joined us at the conclusion of the affair.

My book first appeared in 1979 and was later reissued as a slightly expanded paper edition in 1987. All told, it drew over three dozen very positive reviews. A few excerpts:

Jessica Mitford called it "An excellent book about Jackson...A thrilling first-hand account."

James W. Silver [author of Mississippi: The Closed Society]: "I was so impressed with his book, Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism, that I purchased copies for my three children born in Mississippi . . .Of course I knew about his courageous course at Tougaloo College long before that. . .He is unquestionably a rare find who combines dedication with an exceedingly purposeful life."

UMOJA: A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES -- J.S. Himes: "Jackson, Mississippi is a gold-mine of raw data..."

Anne Braden in Southern Fight-Back (Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice) termed it "...an invaluable study in how community movements are built and how they can be thwarted -- in this case, by, among other forces, the federal government."

Jim Woodward, Socialist Monthly Changes (International Socialists): "Salter explains how the Jackson movement was built. . .and how it was derailed. He blames the demise of the movement on the national office of the NAACP and the Kennedy administration. . . The point is not that no gains were made in Jackson in 1962-63. While the actual settlement with the city was meager, cracking the barrier of fear in the Black community was a substantial accomplishment. The point is that the Jackson movement was prevented from reaching its potential -- by people who were supposedly its friends and allies. Jackson, of course, was not the first place in history this has occurred -- and it won't be the last. But if we are to learn from the past, we had better understand what has happened. Salter's book is an excellent place to start in studying the civil rights movement, for it tells us not only what went wrong, but also what was right. That part of the story is as inspiring as it is fascinating."

". . .a fascinating account of the Jackson movement of 1962-63 by its chief strategist and organizer." John Dittmer in The Civil Rights Movement in America [Charles W. Eagles, editor, Jackson and London: The University Press of Mississippi, 1986.]

In Win Magazine, Clyde R. Appleton wrote: "This book should be read. It should be studied. There are lessons here for everyone who has been, is, or will be taking part in the people's struggle for peace and justice."

"Salter's Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism, is a peerless account of the Jackson movement and its inner workings." Reed Massengill in Portrait of a Racist: A Revelatory Biography of Byron de la Beckwith, Written By His Own Nephew [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.]

Perk Perkins in Sojourners said, "Salter's closeness to the struggle and his demythologizing impulse give the book its power and drama...paints a graphic picture of the struggle for freedom."

Neil McMillen (History, University of Southern Mississippi), said in The Journal of Mississippi History, "No other study yet in print so carefully details the inner life of a local protest movement...written by a thoughtful activist who recognizes the value of reasoned discourse."

Joseph R. Hacala, S.J., writing in Best Sellers said, "A moving and contemporary account...vivid, stirring."

Alene Jones [Texas Christian University] in Explorations in Sights and Sounds : "...fascinating book...excellent...written in a thorough and logical manner...this book will be profitable to students in a variety of professions...I strongly recommend that this book be read by people in general and by blacks in particular."

James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Sundown Towns: "Your book is splendid."

Jay Weinstein, in Social Forces: "In Jackson, Mississippi, John Salter provides a sympathetic, carefully reasoned, and highly readable first-person sociological account of the events surrounding Evers' murder and its actual and symbolic connections with this transition in the Civil Rights Movement. Salter skillfully details the roles played by key actors and organizations -- including his own role as a participant and observer."

Sarah Cooper, in Wisconsin Magazine of History: "Activist and sociologist John R. Salter, Jr., has written a first-rate, firsthand account of one of the major grass-roots struggles of the southern Civil Rights Era: the Jackson movement of 1961-1963, which undertook to desegregate public facilities and win decent treatment for the city's black residents...Salter suggests, however, that it is not the vacillation of the Jackson moderates, but the insidious pressure of the national NAACP leadership in New York and the shadow of the Kennedy Administration that ultimately accounts for the dissolution of the movement after Evers' death...."

Vinton Prince, Jr. in The Journal of Southern History: "Scholars interested in the Civil Rights Movement during the early sixties will find John R. Salter, Jr.'s, Jackson, Mississippi esssential reading. He conveys the courage of the demonstrators, the fury of the mob, and the pervasive sense of hate in Jackson extremely well. Less exciting, but more valuable for historians, are his comments on the internal workings and strains of the Jackson movement."

In Southern Exposure, Frank Adams said, "Salter offers a blow-by-blow account of a movement and its destruction which will be difficult to refute. In the final analysis we learn that when the politics of civil rights took precedence over civil action, then Evers, Salter, King, and, tragically, Jackson's black community's struggle for freedom became expendable. As a book for organizers, Salter's book deserves a place beside Alinsky's more publicized Rules for Radicals or the lesser-known classics Tin Horns and Calico by Henry Christian, Heroes and Heretics by Barrows Dunham, or the recent novel by John Nichols, The Milagro Beanfield War..."

David Ranney, in Monthly Review: "Salter lets the story unfold for the reader in a distinctively low-keyed and insightful way. He lets us in on his thoughts and feelings concerning the hopeful/terrible events exploding around him...In many ways, Jackson, Mississippi offers us hope through its demonstration of the ever present potential of a blossoming of a movement of oppressed peoples. Nothing could be quite as dismal as the picture Salter paints of Jackson in the fall of 1961. "Mississippi," he says, "was functioning in the purest and most cold-blooded sense of the word as a garrison state that viewed itself not only as being prepared for war, but as already fighting a war." ...Salter's story suggests a path...The left today would do well to consider this path very carefully..."

And in Social Development Issues (University of Iowa), Gary Lowe: "Salter's book is not splashy. He quietly tells of the evolution of a very vital and dangerous effort to create social change. As a text/case book for community organization, Salter's book is of great value. . .After all is said and done, Salter emerges with hope, and so might we all."

AND FROM AMAZON: [Professor Samuel Friedman, author of Teamster Rank and File: Power, Bureaucracy, and Rebellion at Work and in a Union -- followed by David Fields, a union organizer.]

Note by Hunter Bear: [once John R Salter, Jr]

There are many folks getting this -- individually and various list wise --
who have had for years the 1979 hardback edition of my Jackson, Mississippi. If you do, it's doing a whole lot better than the Market these days. [Not, of course, that I would ever be into anything as sinful as THAT.]

It's time for me to write another book -- and that's kind of what I'm doing.
Personal social justice stuff. I have, however, lived long enough to see the
now very rare First Edition of this one and only book of mine so far,
Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism, today
selling via ABE for $99.87. [How they came up with that price intrigues me
slightly.] An illegal "bootleg" copy of JM, itself very rare -- claiming
First Edition status -- is going on ABE for fifty bucks. The Krieger 1987
big paperback reprint went out-of-print a couple of years ago -- but a copy
or two of those are on ABE for about $12 bucks if you're ever interested and don't want to fork over a century note. Here's the data on the $99.87
hardback -- which initially went for ten bucks.

JM has gotten damn good reviews. Here's a link to those [recently
expanded]: http://www.hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

3. Salter, John R.
        Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism
        Hicksville: Exposition, 1979. Full Cloth. 1st Edition/1st Printing.
Signed by Author. 8vo. Completely clean, tight text; author has signed the
ffep; beautiful burgandy cloth binding stamped with gold lettering; paper
clip impression (no stain) on 1st few leaves. This impression is also on VG+
publishers promo flyer which is included with book; sticker on flyer states
that the book went out of print 6/84. Jacket has a tiny tear at head of
spine; slight rubbing. Scarce as signed First Edition hardcover.
ISBN:0682493538 Bookseller Inventory #hb403
        Price: US$ 99.87 (Convert Currency)
        Bookseller: Meadowlark Books, Hawley, MN, U.S.A. (Search this
Seller's Books) (Ask Bookseller a Question)

The Krieger firm has completely exhausted its supply of the large paperback edition of Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism. [Long out of print, the first, hardback edition continues to be quite pricey.] On the other hand, some copies of each edition can sometimes be found on the Net [often via ABE and comparable enterprises] and, when available, the paperback edition remains fairly reasonable. The book is also pretty easily secured via Interlibrary Loan.

I hold, of course, the full U.S. Copyright to the book -- and all attendant dimensions of such.

I continue to receive positive affirmations of Jackson, Mississippi. Here, from a post I made this November 6th, is one such welcome missive:

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

Scott Winter is an old friend -- who took several of my classes [including Honors courses] at the University of North Dakota. He is now on the Journalism/Mass Communications faculty at the University of Nebraska. He has kindly passed on some good words from Adam Nossiter, New York Times, and author of the excellent book, Of Long Memory: Mississippi And The Murder of Medgar Evers. [ Nice to see kind words on a rather cold and rainy Idaho morn -- with some snow coming.] My long website page on Medgar and our historic Jackson Movement is one of the most consistently visited pages on our Hunterbear website. In case you missed it: http://hunterbear.org/medgar_w.htm

Hunterbear:

I forgot to send you a note earlier this semester. I had Adam Nossiter speak in my Journalism 101 class in September. Do you remember him? He researched and wrote a Medgar Evers book. He's with the New York Times again, working as a correspondent in New Orleans. He wrote great stuff during hurricane Katrina. I was really impressed by him. I mentioned your name to him in front of the class and he said "Sure, I know of John Salter. He's a great man who did great things in Jackson, and wrote an amazing book about it." He clearly used the book as a key resource, along with his interviews and courtdocuments. Anyway, 120 journalism freshmen got a dose of facts about poverty in the Deep South and it was empirically the best day of class all year.

Take care of yourself,
Scott

(photo of Adam in my class attached.)
-----
Scott Winter
Lecturer and Recruiter
College of Journalism and Mass Comm
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the
game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the
high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own
inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down
on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then
it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and
remembering way. [Hunter Bear