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Hattiesburg is the 5th most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, located primarily in Forrest County and extending west into Lamar County. The city population was 45,989 at the 2010 census, with the population now being 48,730 in 2020. Hattiesburg is the principal city of the Hattiesburg Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses Covington, Forrest, Lamar, and Perry counties. The city is the anchor of the Pine Belt region.
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was a state agency in Mississippi active from 1956 to 1973 and tasked with fighting integration and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi. The stated objective of the commission was to "[...] protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi, and her sister states" from "encroachment thereon by the Federal Government". It coordinated activities to portray the state and racial segregation in a more positive light. Serving governors and lieutenant governors of Mississippi were ex officio members of the commission. The Sovereignty Commission spied on and conspired against civil rights activists and organized pressure and economic retaliation against those who supported the civil rights movement in Mississippi.
Clyde Kennard was an American Korean War veteran and civil rights leader from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the 1950s, he attempted several times to enroll at the all-white Mississippi Southern College to complete his undergraduate degree started at the University of Chicago. Although the United States Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, the college rejected him. Kennard was among the thousands of local activists in the 1940s and 1950s who pressed for their rights.
Vivian Juanita Malone Jones was one of the first two black students to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963, and in 1965 became the university's first black graduate. She was made famous when George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, attempted to block her and James Hood from enrolling at the all-white university.
Percy Greene (1897–1977) was an American newspaper editor, and journalist. Greene created the Jackson Advocate, Mississippi's first and oldest black-owned newspaper. In the 1940s and 1950s, Greene had been a staunch civil rights activist; but by the 1960s, Green supported segregation. He worked for the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a state agency tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism.
Jack Minnis (1926-2005) was an American activist, and the founder and director of opposition research for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the Civil Rights Movement era. Minnis researched federal expenditures and state and local subversion of racial equality. Minnis was white, but remained affiliated with SNCC even after it adopted a "blacks only" personnel policy, its only white employee for a long time. He helped to train such workers as Stokely Carmichael, Marion Barry, and John Lewis.
Walter Sillers Jr. was an American lawyer, politician, landowner, and white supremacist. A legislative leader from Mississippi, he served as the 56th Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives. An outspoken white nationalist, Sillers has been referred to as one of the most racist political leaders in Mississippi's history. He was one of the wealthiest people to have ever served in the Mississippi legislature. He served on the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state agency established to combat integration and civil rights organizing.
Rex Armistead was a private detective, Mississippi Highway Patrol officer, and the leading operative for the since disbanded Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Later, he was heavily involved as an investigator for the Arkansas Project, a co-ordinated attempt in the 1990s to investigate then U.S. President Bill Clinton. The project was funded by conservative media billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) is a state agency founded in 1902. It is the official archive of the Mississippi Government.
The 1978 United States Senate election in Mississippi was held on November 7, 1978. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator James Eastland decided to retire.
Horace Hammerton Harned Jr. was an American politician in the state of Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and Mississippi State Senate. A Democrat, he was one of seven legislators who sat on the segregationist Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission in the 1960s. He served in the Senate from 1952 to 1956, and in the House from 1960 to 1980.
Homer Vernon Cooper was an American politician who served as a State Senator from the 12th District which had represented the area of Warren and Hinds Counties in Mississippi. He was a Democrat who served from 1960 to 1964. By profession, Cooper was a longtime school administrator well known on the state and national levels.
Herman Brister DeCell (1924–1986) was a lawyer and politician in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi Senate from 1959 to 1979.
The Message from Mississippi is a state-sponsored 1960 segregationist propaganda film produced by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state government agency established to promote and defend segregation in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision desegregating public schools. In the film, Mississippi governor Ross Barnett says that Blacks in Mississippi preferred the state's segregated way of life.
The Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission was a government agency of the Louisiana state government established to combat desegregation, which operated from June 1960 to 1967 in the capital city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The group warned of "creeping federalism", and opposed school racial integration. It allied with the Louisiana Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities, and coordinated with the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission.
Ney McKinley Gore Jr. was a lawyer and state legislator in Mississippi and a director of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. He represented Quitman County in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Erle Ennis Johnston Jr. was an American public official, newspaperman, author, and mayor in Mississippi. He was campaign associate for Ross Barnett and wrote a biography of the segregationist governor. In 1960, Barnett appointed him public relations director of the pro-segregation Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Johnston became its executive director and continued to hold the public relations duties. He held the position under Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. before resigning in 1968. He worked at The Scott County Times newspaper, before buying it. Johnston was mayor of Forest, Mississippi, from 1981 to 1985.
Henry Jay Kirksey Sr. was a state legislator and civil rights leader in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi Senate. He was born on the outskirts of Tupelo, Mississippi. He advocated and protested for the release of Mississippi Sovereignty Commission records. He also advocated for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from the upper left corner of the Mississippi's state flag.
Earl Evans Jr. was an American Democratic politician and public official in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi Senate including as President Pro Tempore.
Jesse E. Stockstill was a lawyer, city attorney, and state legislator in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.
References
- 1 2 "Malone, Maurice L. - Civil Rights Digital Library". crdl.usg.edu.
- ↑ "MS Digital Archives". MS Digital Archives.
- ↑ Robert E. Luckett Jr. (2015). Joe T. Patterson and the White South's Dilemma: Evolving Resistance to Black Advancement. University Press of Mississippi. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-4968-0270-5.
- ↑ "MS Digital Archives". MS Digital Archives.
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