I’ve been having a really hard time writing about my experiences in Mississippi.
In fact, I don’t think I ever have, in almost four years of visiting and community organizing in Mississippi, written about what’s happened or how it affects me.
I told myself that this time I would wait and write my journal entry after I returned to Johnson City so that I could extract myself from the situation and then recreate the emotion I’d felt while in Mississippi, which I’d never tried before.
Then I got back to Johnson City, didn’t write my journal entry, and found that I haven’t been able to write anything else either.
It’s as though holding in the experiences that occurred and emotions that I felt in Mississippi is blocking any other project, paper or reading I may want or have to do. So apparently I have to get this out. Here goes .
The last few times that Jared and I have traveled to Mississippi we’ve noticed an increase in violence and racial slurs directed towards us and people that were with us.
Maybe this was occurring all along and we were just protected from it by the civil rights veterans that we work with or something, but the last few times were blatant, direct actions that couldn’t be hidden.
This recent trip with ASB was an eye-opener too. The sister of a community organizer that Jared and I work with, who was determined to show her appreciation to us for coming and working with the community in solidarity was given a warrant after 8 p.m. for something for which she had already paid.
Some may argue that a constable coming to the house of an older black woman after 8 p.m. isn’t anything to question but how many times has a constable shown up to the house of an older white woman after 8 p.m. with a false warrant?
Imagine how intimidating and frustrating it had to make our host to know that because she was participating in the organization and rehabilitation of her community, that the power structure that had been oppressing poor black people (and poor white people who just don’t recognize it yet) could still get away with harassing her in 2008.
The same week of our ASB trip, a young black woman, the daughter of the same community organizer whose sister got the warrant, wanted to feed us and hang out. After hosting us, she received an eviction notice a week before her rent was due.
While these actions are taken against community members who call for equality, honest discourse of their history in the civil rights movement, justice for those murdered in the 1960s because of their voter registration work and finally reconciliation between those that are descendants of victims of hatred and those that are descendants of victimizers, the living murderers of James E. Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman are walking Mississippi streets.
Not to mention that Olen Burrage, who owns the earthen dam in Neshoba County, Miss., where the bodies of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were found, is currently part of the racist power structure of Mississippi.
For people who say life is fair in that it provides equal opportunities for people to prosper, I direct your attention to the opportunities that these poor Mississippians get compared to a rich, white man, who has walked free despite sworn testimonies and charges and who has money to contribute to the campaigns of people like Trent Lott.
I’m sure you can imagine that one of these groups live in poverty and are arrested for giving cops dirty looks while another can live freely into his ’80s even though he was a integral participant in the murder of three people.
Upon returning to Johnson City I feel angry, frustrated and saddened. I feel encouraged by the opportunity of community organizing in Mississippi.
I feel oppressed by the fact that while I could be spending these years when I have the most time and energy to spend fighting for this cause, I am sitting in a classroom where I am primarily taught about old, white, dead men.
I’m annoyed with students, faculty, staff, administrators and community members who just don’t get that racism, sexism, homophobia, classism and many other tools of oppression intersect and none of these can be destroyed unless those of us who are oppressed join together in solidarity to defeat these oppressions.
I’m finding peace in the fact that the probability that I will ever see substantial positive social change is very low, but the dedication to continue to fight for it is very high.
I’m encouraged by the students, faculty and staff members at ETSU who are willing to sacrifice their time, money and “good” reputations to be “radical” and fight injustices.
I charge all those reading this article to join Jared and I and the students who participated in the Mississippi ASB 2008 trip to join us in an alliance that uses our privilege as collegiate folk to actively work, not just strive for, positive social change.

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