The most sweeping anti-Movement injunction handed down in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. (I was Chair of the Strategy Committee of the Jackson Movement. ) The several page injunction sought to prohibit us from organizing and carrying out demonstrations, from conspiring to do so, and "from doing anything to consumate conspiracies" to do so. It was served on me on June 6, 1963 by a large retinue of heavily armed deputy sheriffs, wide-brim hatted, who appeared to feel they were handing me Writ from God (and not just from the Chancery Court.) We defied the injunction, of course, and did so massively.
The injunction was prepared by the late Thomas Watkins, one of Mississippi's most brilliant (if utterly twisted on race) attorneys -- used by the State as a special consultant in key civil rights cases. Here is the basic text of Watkins' piece of strange art:
"Now, therefore, you are hereby commanded and temporarily enjoined, until further order of this court, from engaging in, sponsoring, inciting or encouraging mass street parades or mass processions, or like demonstrations without a permit, unlawful blocking of the public streets or sidewalks, trespassing on private property after being warned to leave the premises by the owners or person in possession of said private property, congregating on the streets or public places as mobs, and unlawfully picketing business establishments or public buildings in the City of Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, and from performing acts calculated to cause breaches of the peace in the City of Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, and from conspiring to engage in unlawful street parades, unlawful processions, unlawful demonstrations, unlawful boycotts, unlawful trespassing, and unlawful picketing, and from doing any acts designed to consumate conspiracies to engage in said unlawful acts of parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing or other unlawful acts and from engaging in acts and conduct customarily known as "kneel-in's" (sic) in churches in violation of the wishes and desires of said churches.
You will refrain from doing any of the foregoing acts until the further notice of this Court, upon penalty of contempt."
The first hearing on City of Jackson v. John R. Salter, Jr. was scheduled for mid-September -- 90 days away. As I say, we defied the damn thing massively.
Please use right arrow to see full photo and caption.
Bad beatings at Jackson. These occurred at the Rose Street March on June 13, 1963 -- two days after Medgar Evers was shot and killed. I was badly bruised all over and cut up in several places. [One head cut took eight stitches.} It helps to have a thick skull and tough hide. The FBI said, not surprisingly, that it just couldn't quite identify the Jackson police who clubbed me and others -- even though all major news networks carried the episode clearly. In his excellent book, "RACIAL MATTERS: THE FBI'S SECRET FILE ON BLACK AMERICA, 1960-1972, (Free Press, 1989), Professor Ken O'Reilly, discussing this beating, quotes from my FBI files: "The FBI described Salter as a"chronic complaintant," a "determined, belligerent, and confused young man...(who) obviously does not like the FBI, having without a doubt been influenced by the writings of LOWENTHAL" -- referring to the only critical book on the FBI written during the depths of the domestic cold war."