The Civil Rights & Social Justice News

Definitive History Book on Emmett Till Set for August Publication -- 60th Anniversary of Till's Death in Mississippi

2015-02-24T21:12:00.001-06:00

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(NOTE -- Devery Anderson's fascinating notes on the family and major players involved in the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, and of those involved in the trial of his murderers, appear at the end of The Emmett Till Book, by Susan Klopfer.)

Author Devery Anderson: Photo by Emily Hatch

Author Devery S. Anderson has announced that his newest book, Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement, is set for publication in August 2015 by the University Press of Mississippi, and features a forward by civil rights icon, Julian Bond.

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[My new Emmett Till book] is based on hundreds of hours of archival research, sifting through dozens of newspaper stories, as well as original interviews with those who witnessed the case unfold, including Emmett Till’s family members who were with him in Mississippi, trial witnesses, and newspaper reporters who covered the story in 1955. It also brings the case up to the present, including the recent FBI investigation. Julian Bond, civil rights legend and former chair of the NAACP, has written the foreword.

(Quote From Anderson's website,http://www.emmetttillmurder.com)

***

CIVIL RIGHTS AUTHOR DEVERY ANDERSON TELLS website followers that he first became acquainted with Emmett Till in the fall of 1994, as a student at the University of Utah, after watching the first segment of the PBS documentary series on the Civil Rights Movement, Eyes on the Prize.

"Emmett’s murder and the subsequent acquittal of his killers left me full of questions. What happened to the killers after their acquittal? What happened to Emmett’s mother? Was she alive, or had she died somewhere in obscurity? Why was I not already familiar with this case?" Anderson was soon asking himself.

It was several months later, that Anderson discovered at least one book on the subject in print, "and so I purchased Stephen Whitfield’s A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till."'

BUT THEN, CLENORA HUDSON-WEEMS, professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia, soon came to speak at the University of Utah in May 1995. Her lecture was on another topic, yet the school newspaper noted that she was the author of the book,Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Right’s Movement, Anderson tells his followers on his Emmett Till website at http://www.emmetttillmurder.com/.

Anderson attended Hudson-Weems' lecture, purchased her book and soon was full of questions. "I read both of these books and wanted to learn more. Both were written at a time when research, writing, and a renewed interest in the Till case was in its infancy, and I eventually discovered that they contained many factual errors, but they did whet my appetite for more."

OVER THE ENSURING YEARS, the Utah resident found that this case consumed him "... in ways I could not quite explain."

In 1996, while still a student at the University of Utah, Anderson took a class on racism. Students were given a major assignment, due at the end of the quarter, "that we would each present to the class. I decided that I would put together a scrapbook on the Emmett Till case and include an original interview with Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mother."

Surprisingly, Anderson found it was not difficult to locate Till-Mobley in the Chicago telephone directory and he wrote her a letter and arranged a time for a telephone interview. Their two-hour conversation took place on December 3, 1996 and was followed by "dozens" more, over the next six years up until a month before her January 2003 death.

***

Anderson's fact-filled website allows him a way to contribute to the spread of knowledge about the Emmett Till murder. The author researched and wrote his new book between 2004 and 2014; he lives in Salt Lake City, and is the father of three children, Amanda, Tyler, and Jordan. Anderson holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Utah.

***

From reviewers

"The manuscript is balanced, clearly organized, exhaustively researched, and well written. The narrative flows logically and will hold the attention of readers who are otherwise unfamiliar with the case. Right now, and probably for decades to come, it will be the definitive work on this subject. The manuscript will not only be of interest to a general readership but historians in such fields as civil rights history, the history of the South, and legal history. It offers much that is entirely new to our understanding of this topic and/or sheds an original light on old questions. This book will deserve a place in any good library."

—David T. Beito, co,author, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power

"Much has been written about the Till case in the past decade, but what has been missing is a definitive history of the case. This book provides that definitive history. The author gives a thorough account of the case from almost every angle. I am very familiar with the scholarship on Emmett Till, and the author has left no stone unturned. ...A reader coming to the case for the first time will get the best account we have of the case; scholars familiar with it will learn new details from new sources, and will be persuaded by how well the author settles long debated controversies about what happened and when. The author knows where the historical record is murky or contradictory, and he never rushes to judgment. When he does settle a controversy, he marshals the requisite evidence. When he is not able to settle a controversy, he presents the contradictory evidence and leaves it unresolved. Anyone interested in this case will find this book a valuable guide to the full story of Emmett Till."

—Christopher Metress, ed., The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative

***

ONE FINAL NOTE: I am really looking forward to reading this new book. From time to time I have been in contact with Devery throughout his research process. I know that he has traveled to Europe and elsewhere in search of latest information on this civil rights crime that helped spark the modern civil rights movement. In the future, I will ask him to answer some of my questions, and to tell us more about the book. sk

MLK's Mother Was Assassinated, Too: The Forgotten Women Of Black History Month

2015-02-09T09:11:00.002-06:00

(Editor's note: On June 30th, 1974, Alberta Williams King was gunned down while she played the organ for the “Lord’s Prayer” at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As a Christian civil rights activist, she was assassinated...just like her son, Martin Luther King, Jr. But most people remember only one I certainly DID NOT KNOW this story, until I read an article by Aurin Squire. I've put up a link so that you can read his article, too. He makes a number of interesting statements about his acquisition of black history. It's a wonderful article to read during Black History Month. Read it, and share your comments, please.)

Alberta Williams King, victim of assassination

On June 30th, 1974, Alberta Williams King was gunned down while she played the organ for the “Lord’s Prayer” at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As a Christian civil rights activist, she was assassinated...just like her son, Martin Luther King, Jr. But most people remember only one. Until a month ago, I was one of those people.
When a friend told me about Alberta Williams King, my first reaction was “who?” This question was followed by a wave of shame. It was the same feeling I had a few years ago when I first heard about Fannie Lou Hamer. Then later came Ida B. Wells and other leaders who seemed to appear in the discussion of American history to my confused, uninformed silence. I started to suspect that I had half an education and that I had been leaving out the role of women and feminism in Black History.

LINK TO AURIN SQUIRE'S IMPORTANT ARTICLE:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/mlk-mother-was-assassinated-forgotten-women-black-history-month

Anne Moody's Former College Professor Recalls This 'Gifted Mississippi Activist and Writer'

2015-02-07T12:52:00.000-06:00

* * *

(Editor's note: Sociologist John R. Salter, Jr. is a well-known civil rights and labor activist. I am proud to publish this following piece he has written on Anne Moody, his former student at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. On a personal note, I never met her, but Moody's book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, gave me powerful insight into the civil rights struggles of her times. It is a wonderful book, and a "must read." Moody died at the age of 74 on Thursday, Feb.5, 2015. Susan Klopfer)

* * *

Mississippi author and civil rights activist, Anne Moody

... we shall always remember a brave and plucky and committed

human being who, despite the many and various vicissitudes,

continued toward the Sun.

John R. Salter, Jr.

I and my good spouse, Eldri, knew Anne Moody from the point that we and Anne arrived at Tougaloo Southern Christian College in late summer, 1961, myself as a professor and she as a student. We were in contact with her from about that point until late summer, 1994.

She was a fine student of mine in a number of courses, and became a close friend of Eldri and myself. Passionately committed to social justice, Anne was a strong supporter of our Jackson civil rights movement which began very actively in latter 1962 as the economic boycott of the downtown Jackson area and which feathered out into our massive Jackson Movement in the spring of 1963.

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If Anne often distrusted some components of government, she was an essentially trusting person when it came to human beings.

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Her role in our historic Woolworth Sit-In at Jackson Mississippi on May 28, 1963, is very well known. After the active demonstration phase of the Jackson Movement, she lent her valuable efforts as a CORE representative in other most challenging Magnolia [Mississippi state flower] situations. Her fine writing abilities are very well exemplified in her classic work, Coming of Age in Mississippi, and in a number of other pieces.

Moody's Coming of Agein Mississippi, a "must read."

In addition to being a very good friend, she was also, as a great many of my students and former students often are, an advisee of mine, and I her advocate, at many points. (From that perspective, I am ethically constrained from discussing any details in any personal challenges she may have faced. I maintain confidences. There is no chronological statute of limitations for me on those.)

But I will broadly mention two matters. If Anne often distrusted some components of government, she was an essentially trusting person when it came to human beings. In almost all of those cases, that trust was eminently justified.

But not all. In 1991, she was significantly enmeshed – through no fault of her own –- in a bureaucratic/medical situation in New York City where she resided. She was able to contact me. I extricated her from that mess pronto.

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Her book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, guarantees her immortality.

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In the earlier part of 1994, and not of her making, "something" tangibly occurred in which she had very good reason to fear for her personal liberty in New York City. A faithful neighbor of hers, an elderly Jewish man, worked with me (I was in North Dakota) to put her on a fast track to our university town of Grand Forks in that rather remote state. For about three months, in the spring of 1994, she and her son, Sasha, lived in a motel quite near our home. We assisted her in a number of ways, as we had on earlier occasions, and continued that for a time into the summer after she and Sasha moved on back East and contact with other writers. Then, we lost touch with her.

Her book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, guarantees her immortality. But more than that, we shall always remember a brave and plucky and committed human being who, despite the many and various vicissitudes, continued toward the Sun.

Hunter Gray/ John R Salter Jr. / Hunter Bear, Pocatello, Idaho, February 6 2015

... at the Mississippi lunch counter

* * *

(From Jerry Mitchell of The Clarion Ledger, Feb. 7, 2015):

Born in 1940 in Wilkinson County, she attended segregated schools and worked to help her poor family.

While attending Natchez Junior College, she became involved with the civil rights movement. She then attended Tougaloo College, where her involvement grew deeper.

On May 28, 1963, she took part in the sit-in at Woolworth's in downtown Jackson. A mob attacked her, Joan Trumpauer and Tougaloo professor John Salter Jr. and others, hitting them and pouring flour, salt, sugar and mustard on top of them.

It was the most violent response to a sit-in in the 1960s in the U.S.)

Link: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/journeytojustice/2015/02/06/anne-moody-has-died/23016675/

* * *

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 massive social justice website:
www.hunterbear.org

Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Core dimensions of my Community Organizing course:
http://www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbear.htm

Some early personal activist history / good people and issues:

http://civilrightsnewsreleases.blogspot.com/2015/01/hinter-bear-maintaining-normally-high.html

My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000
word introduction by me. Covers much of my
confrontational social justice organizing life to
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing
methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

See this for mini-bio, efforts to prevent JM’s appearance in
Mississippi, a wide range of its many reviews, and some
photos: http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001KMEHWY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)

Hunter Bear -- Maintaining 'Normally High' Optimism: Notes From a Street-Smart Activist

2015-01-27T12:00:00.000-06:00

(Editor’s note: Hunter Gray (Hunter Bear, John R. Salter, Jr.) is a well-known and successful civil rights and labor advocate. He is a retired professor who enjoys sharing his stories with those who strive for equality. He recently sent out this note, and has given his permission to share it with others. Be sure to read his Organizer's Book, JACKSON MISSISSIPPI! Hunter has been an inspiration to me, and so many others, and I hope you enjoy the following. Susan Klopfer, author, Who Killed Emmett Till)

'Maintaining My Normally High Optimism'

This is a kind of selective mini-memoir, reaching back into the latter 1950s and the earlier part of the 1960s – embracing a number of diverse and good people of strong social justice feelings, much of this in the Red Scare epoch. I could write much more on that and comparable periods but am keeping this within the limits stirred by a very recent letter from a long ago student of mine at a small college, Wisconsin State at Superior, in northern Wisconsin.

Hunter Bear (Hunter Gray, John Salter, Jr.), accomplished activist and professor

Many in Eastern Idaho, including our family, have been hit by the nationally notorious flu. We all weathered that, some with anti-biotics, but in my case a troubling cough persisted. My domestic responsibilities considerably increased of late, and thus not inclined to take chances, I went to a medical outpost where I was given a chest X Ray. The doc told me I had pneumonia and, when I asked -- was there anything more serious, such as COPD which had taken one my best friends some years ago, I was looked at like I was a high school kid and told pneumonia was very serious. In the end, with an array of medicines, I threw that off handily. I may have had it for some time.

The letter came from Mark, now retired from a long and successful teaching career. It said, in part, “You inspired me then and although I could never be as strong and as tough as you, I have done a few good things in a life filled with luck. The memory of you inspires me still.”

Drinking black coffee and smoking my tobacco pipe for several hours very early this morning, I traveled back into time. I wrote Mark later this morning, saying in part:

I very much appreciate your good words – and glad to know my role at Superior, as activist and teacher, was encouraging in those challenging days and circumstances.

It’s been a hell of a challenging period for literally everyone we know. One of my major struggles these days is to maintain my normally high optimism and faith in most of Humanity. So far, I think I’ve been successful.

The fact is, in that ‘way back time that doesn’t seem that long ago, it was “you students” who certainly inspired me! I have always remembered you all – with the greatest appreciation and Eldri feels exactly the same way. We handled some very tough challenges effectively and well. You, yourself, were certainly a major figure in that struggle.

The age difference between myself and you all was obviously pretty minimal. (I note you are 78 and I am virtually 81.) At Superior, as at my one year of high school teaching in the Nebraska Sandhills country a couple of years before I got to Wisconsin, I felt no social distance between myself as a teacher -- and my students – from whom I always learn much whatever the setting and times.

In fact, that’s been basically my ethos everywhere I have gone as a “professor.” I’ve often told classes, “I’m not really a professor, just pretending to be one.”

+ + +

I wrote a long letter to the paper attacking HUAC, the film, and praising the student activists.

+ + +

I arrived at Superior State College as it was often known, as an instructor, in late summer, 1960, fresh from a few months on super isolated Bear Mountain Fire Lookout in extreme eastern Arizona and armed with a fresh M.A. from Arizona State, Tempe. I had been hired at the last minute. I was already a reasonably experienced organizer, militant labor and student rights, and my own kind of radical, but its president, Jim Dan Hill knew nothing personal of my background, save that I was a good part Indian, a veteran and an Arizonian.

No sooner at that college, I learned it was the super authoritarian fiefdom of its president, General Jim Dan Hill, best described as a Texas Bircher. My sociology teaching load was very heavy, fine with me. Hill and I clashed early on when, in his weekly newspaper column, “Let’s Look At The Record” he praised the witch hunting House Un-American Activities Committee, and the purely awful red-baiting film, “Operation Abolition, which attacked the student protestors and their militant organization – SLATE – who had challenged HUAC during its hearings in the Bay Area early in 1960 via very vigorous demonstrations.

(Decades later, I met the good Bill Mandel, then about 90, on our discussion lists He had played a very constructive and centrally activist ant-HUAC role in those very events. We found we had crossed trails many times in our lives. I was about the last person interviewed by Bill on his weekly radio program at Berkeley – KPFA – on Native concerns in late 2005. Shortly after that, Bill was struck by a car, badly injured, and became inactive. He remains much missed.)

I wrote a long letter to the paper attacking HUAC, the film, and praising the student activists. It was published.

And I found I was an instant celebrity in Superior where few, and certainly virtually no faculty, ever criticized General Hill openly. I also learned there was a long extant movement against Hill out in the community – but it had lost a good deal of steam.

Early on, the college Ski Club, all male, saw me and recognized the kind of faculty sponsor they’d like – not a fussy professorial and intrusive type. Though no ski buff – I am a snowshoes guy – I agreed to be their faculty cover. Soon thereafter, the Ski Club had one of its big parties – no females and pretty tame by today’s standards. But, perhaps because of my role as sponsor – I wasn’t at the affair – the Dean of Students, a classic Hill sycophant, officially abolished the Club. We talked to Student Government which protested the Dean’s action. The Dean and General Hill then abolished Student Government in total.

I and a good number of students, some Ski and many others, then had a large mass protest meeting in the college auditorium.

And the War against Hill was on. Mark, my good and very recent correspondent, was among the first to join the effort. It was then that I learned that Mark’s uncle, a resident of Superior, was a national VP of the American Federation of Teachers – and an old friend of Bill Karnes, also a national VP of AFT, and president of Phoenix Local 1010 of AFT. Among my several active union affiliations was my at-large membership in 1010.

+ + +

We began systematically contacting potential allies – e.g., political, labor, and general community members.

+ + +

Bill was one of a great many AFL-CIO unionists in Arizona and elsewhere who politely and firmly ignored the flow of attempted mandates from the Federation’s top level – most generated by the predatory Steel Union – seeking to prevent contact with the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, widely seen by its critics as “Communist.” My own relations with Mine Mill were very close indeed. Bill Karnes and other teacher unionists had always appreciated Mine Mill’s considerable assistance in organizing AFT locals in the mining towns. AFL-CIO craft unions were much involved with Mine Mill in fighting the copper companies. And, in any case, Mine Mill, with 10,000 plus members in Arizona – the largest union in the state which, in 1956 and 1957, had won bargaining rights at two major Magma Copper properties – could hardly be ignored.

One of Bill’s best high school students, Rodney, eventually went to UC at Berkeley where he immediately connected with under-grad and grad students who were forming the radical campus political party, SLATE. One of the latter was the older economics student Clinton Jencks, always a widespread and beneficial influence, and late of Mine Mill, Salt of the Earth, the Jencks Case. They were all involved together in the anti-HUAC fight.

Back at Superior, our student movement, mostly Anglo but some Native, mushroomed fast. We put out a regularly issued and fiery but rational mimeographed protest journal, focused on many education issues and certainly student and faculty academic freedom – and, too, faculty and staff salary discrimination. We began systematically contacting potential allies – e.g., political, labor, and general community members. The somewhat dormant, broad and very diverse anti-Hill community movement began to stir – then came vigorously alive.

But the students, Mark and many others indeed, who often didn’t see themselves as activists, were the consistent spear-point. General Hill attacked me as an atheist and an advocate of free love (the latter for my support, voiced in my Marriage and Family course, of the Swedish system of trial marriage.) Only a little more surreptitiously did he and his cohorts attack me consistently as a Communist. FBI documents of concerning me, secured many years later via FOIA/PA, indicate Hill brought the willing FBI into it all as an ally very early on.

The fight went through the entire spring semester of 1961.

+ + +

Thus I met Eldri, and we were married a few months later at a very well attended wedding.

+ + +

Mark’s AFT uncle introduced me, at an AFT conference, to Governor Gaylord Nelson (later U.S. Senator). We had a short but very productive discussion. Soon after that, the Gov appointed a member of the Board of Regents as a kind of college overseer. At the end of that spring term, Hill was given only three or so more years and his powers were sharply limited. He was required to get Regents’ approval for any significant policy and fiscal appropriations decisions.

Eldri, then employed on campus by several Lutheran churches as their student counselor, had come to my attention when a member of the still functioning Ski Club (however unofficial its status) and an Irish Catholic, told me that “a Lutheran girl” had a phonograph record of SLATE’s anti-HUAC protests. Thus I met Eldri and we were married a few months later at a very well attended wedding. We left Superior in the summer of 1961 for Mississippi teaching and organizing -- and my later organizing with the leftist Southern Conference Educational Fund in the Northeastern North Carolina Black Belt. We finally left the South in 1967 and went on to many other tough campaigns, and college/university teaching – often an activist endeavor in its own right.

Eldri

Over the years, Eldri and I kept in touch with as many of our old friends and fellow combatants as we could. In the fall of 1965, I carefully wrote the basic draft of what became the first edition of my book on our massive Jackson Movement of 1961-63. When that was finally published in 1979, it did OK sales-wise – but I also sent over 100 copies as gifts to as many of our old fighting friends I could locate.

During the civil rights period, I went on a few speaking junkets. Bill Karnes, in Arizona, played a key role, along with Harry Stamler, a veteran radical, in setting up speaking engagements for me in Phoenix metro. Aware that my only life insurance was my GI/VA policy which I had continued, and that I couldn’t get one in Dixie, Local 1010 quickly provided a good one for me.

+ + +

The Arizona Mine Mill Council was as pleased to have me as its major speaker on the civil rights movement as I was to appear before that very large gathering of its many Arizona local unions.

General Hill returned to Texas. In 1981, a good friend, Duane Hale, Creek Indian and an academic historian, ran across Hill at the West Texas Historical Conference. He reported that the Old Dragon was old and frail.

Many years after all of this, I learned from our good friend, Stephen Zunes, who we have known since he was a precocious seven year old, that Bill Karnes was his cousin on his mother’s side. Not surprised at all.

In the old days – going back in time a good ways – it has always seemed to me that friends and foes alike were much more candidly open in their positions, often duking it out, mostly nonviolently but sometimes not. Nowadays, all sorts of disingenuous stuff, often covert back-biting and back-knifing, seem much more common on the part of our adversaries, and occasionally even a few of our ostensible allies.

The people I have mentioned fondly and well were, and those who remain still, are very fine people. I wouldn’t try ideological analysis on any of them and their productive contributions -- or their multitude of interesting inter-connections. As my old cowboy/artist and radical mentor, Frank Dolphin, was sometimes prone to trenchantly note:

“Like pulls to like.”

Hunter Bear

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 massive social justice website:

www.hunterbear.org

Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Core dimensions of my Community Organizing course:

http://www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbear.htm

My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word introduction by me. Covers much of my confrontational social justice organizing life to date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

See this for mini-bio, efforts to prevent JM’s appearance in Mississippi, a wide range of its many reviews, and some photos: http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001KMEHWY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)

Internationally Acclaimed JFK Assassination Researcher, John Judge, Dies

2014-04-21T11:52:00.000-05:00

From: TOM BLACKWELL [mailto:decision@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2014 10:14 PM
Subject: Official release - Renowned Researcher John Judge Dies in Washington, DC

=====

Official release - Renowned Researcher John Judge Dies in Washington, DC

John Patrick Judge, assassination researcher

Washington, DC --- John Patrick Judge passed at the age of 66, just as he had lived – with courage in the midst of pain. An internationally acclaimed researcher, writer and speaker, as well as a lifelong anti-militarist anti-racist activist, and community organizer, Judge died on April 15 due to complications from a stroke suffered in early March.

Judge’s primary areas of research were the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as totally unique research which he conducted on-the-ground about the massacre in Jonestown, Guyana. He is a co-founder of the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA), and organized COPA's annual conference in Dallas.

The 2013 COPA conference drew more than 300 researchers and activists to Dallas on the 50th anniversary of John Kennedy’s death. Amidst the national furor when the feature film "JFK" came out in 1992, Judge was one of the key public proponents behind the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board. One of his last efforts was to press for release of some of the thousands of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination records still kept classified by the CIA and the FBI.

As co-founder of 9/11 Citizens Watch, Judge also did investigative research on the background and details of the attacks of September 11, 2001. He worked with family members of the victims to push for a federal investigation and closely monitored the work of the 9/11 Commission.

Judge was also a co-founder of CHOICES, an organization engaged since 1985 in countering military recruitment in DC area high schools and educating young people about their options with regard to the military. Beginning with the war in Viet Nam, Judge was a life-long anti-war activist and supporter of active-duty soldiers and veterans.

From 2005 to 2007, Judge served as Special Projects Assistant to Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. One of his many undertakings in Congress was to advocate on behalf of active-duty soldiers who received harsh sentences for declaring themselves conscientious objectors and others who claimed to have been tortured in military brigs. He helped write the Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush which Representative McKinney introduced in December 2006, before leaving office.

At the time of his death, John Judge was working on creation of a Hidden History Museum and Research Center in Washington, DC, to educate a new generation about covert operations, and to support the work of investigative journalists and researchers looking into the National Security State and the rise of secrecy, government plans for extra-Constitutional jurisdiction during emergencies, and threats to civil liberties and international relations. Some of his writings can be found at judgeforyourself.org.

Acclaimed nationally and internationally for his vast store of historical knowledge, Judge wrote: "Under the evil genius of Allen Dulles, whose espionage attacks on the Soviet Union date back to the 1920's, $200 million in Rockefeller and Mellon funds was directed into the hands of Hitler's spymaster Reinhard Gehlen and his 350 Nazi spies, who formed and founded our Central Intelligence Agency in 1947."

An avid public speaker, Judge never spoke about himself but rather, humbly retained a tireless devotion to the search for truth beyond the official government or mainstream media record. Until his final days, Judge was a seeker of truth and justice of the first order. He is irreplaceable in the annals of serious research and documentation.

John Judge is survived by his long-time companion and life partner, Marilyn Tenenoff and thousands of friends and admirers across the country and around the world. A celebration of his life will be held in late May. In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible donations can be made to support the preservation of Judge's books and archives in a new Museum of Hidden History, P.O. Box 772, Washington, DC, 20044.

There's usually a nasty plot behind what seems so decent.

It's often greed or selfish hate, in ancient times and recent.

John Judge's aim is just to find the truth and then to show it.

So we can change the world by letting all the people know it."

from a poem by Susan McLucas

NEWS RELEASE UPDATE: ALTERNATIVE FICTION BOOK AVAILABLE FREE, THRU MARCH 7

2013-11-05T13:43:00.001-06:00

UPDATE: NOW THRU MARCH 7, 2015, THE PLAN IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD FROM SMASHWORDS.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW, THEN USE SPECIAL CODE RW100 (ON PAGE) AFTER SELECTION "BUY" OPTION.

LINK -- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/370902

***

New Book Announcement: The Plan

Contact Susan Klopfer

Cuenca, Ecuador

Email sklopfer@gmail.com

Words: 68,380 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9780982604977

Book Trailer Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiVN7YAvfUw

Distribution: Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, major online book distributors

The Plan: Murder Mystery Historical Fiction Novel Based on Actual Civil Rights People, Places and Events; JFK Assassination Explored

A young Cleveland McDowell enters the University of Mississippi as the first black law student; later he was kicked out. Students, he said, had chased with with guns. When he carried a firearm to class, out of self protection, he was expelled. He lost a legal bid to reenter. McDowell was a close friend of James Meredith and Medgar Evers. (Photo, U of M files)

Short Summary of The Plan: The tight bond between Clinton and Joe, two gay, black lawyers (one of them, married) is broken when Joe is reportedly found hanged. A suicide seems impossible to Clint, and Joe’s widow is acting cagey. Clinton Moore believes Joe Means was tortured and murdered because of his and Joe’s shared obsession—investigating and fact gathering about civil rights cold case murders and assassinations.

***

The Plan is based on a real event that took place in the Mississippi Delta, where author Susan Klopfer and her psychologist husband lived for two years on the grounds of Parchman Penitentiary, where Fred Klopfer worked.

The former award-winning Missouri news reporter and Prentice Hall book editor, asked around about a murder that had taken place in the Delta—a fact she’d picked up from a new friend.

But all that “Ella’ could say was that “he was a bad man—a gay lawyer. And he was murdered.”

“Of course, I wanted to hear more. I always like a good story. But I had to learn who, what, when, where and why on my own.”

Klopfer began digging to learn the full story, starting with a telephone call to a local minister’s wife she’d met through a local restaurant owner. “That would be Cleve McDowell, the first black law student to enter Ole Miss. He got kicked out!” the wife told her.

“I quickly learned some of this man’s story, but it took months to put everything together, so that I could make sense of what I’d heard. I had a feeling that I was the first person to uncover the whole story, as much of it that was possible to track. Of course I had to search old records, lie it to a courthouse clerk, and track down several older people who’d known this man. I eventually got a copy of his autopsy and with the help of a physician and forensic researcher, I learned that two shooters were probably involved. I also learned that the autopsy was sloppy and quick. One person went to prison for this murder, but it looked to me as if the person who shot the fatal bullet got away.”

Klopfer believes that she has the only existing copy of McDowell’s autopsy. “The state said it was no longer available, when I asked for a copy.”

Cleve McDowell became the main character—Clinton Moore—in The Plan. “I changed names, dates and locations, moving the story from Drew to Clarksdale, but did not change much else, at least in the beginning of the book. I wanted to remain true to Delta history.”

For instance, The Plan details the murder of a young woman, Jo Etha Collier, who was brutally killed on the night of her high school graduation in Drew. More is written about the murder of Mississippi civil rights icon, Medgar Evers. The Emmett Till lynching is further explored. But the book finally takes a paranormal turn, Klopfer admits.

The writer, who currently resides as an expat in Cuenca, Ecuador, said that she picked up a piece of “interesting Mississippi Delta JFK assassination history” which she weaves into The Plan. “I learned of a Delta man, a private detective named John D. Sullivan, who ended up working in New Orleans with key figures named by well-known JFK assassination conspiracy researchers.” The names, she said, include former FBI agent Guy Banister and pilot David Ferrie, along with Carlos Marcello, boss of the New Orleans crime family.

Sullivan died from a suspicious gun accident at home, after returning to the Delta from the Big Easy. “Even Sullivan’s children said they didn’t believe the story they were told about how their father died. Apparently Sullivan spent a lot of time with a family friend, a well-known judge, after coming home before he died. I would love to see the judge’s notes.”

Klopfer believes that “the real Cleve McDowell” easily would have had contact with Sullivan. “They would not have liked each other. Sullivan was a right-wing, former FBI agent who was a racist for at least most of his professional life. The state’s Sovereignty Commission records attest to this, as do those who gave me interviews. Who knows? Maybe McDowell researched Sullivan’s strange death and got in over his head.”

The Delta attorney, she says, could have learned something about the Kennedy or Dr. Martin Luther King assassination. “Or the Emmett Till lynching. I certainly could not leave out this possibility. He kept in frequent contact with Emmett Till’s mother, working on this cold case for most of his professional life. His office was filled with investigation records when he was killed. Later, many were burned in a dramatic fire,” Klopfer said.

"I learned through all of this that Cleve McDowell was a compassionate man who deserves to be remembered. I want this message to come out of this book. I am surprsed at how difficult it was to find records and stories about him."

The Plan starts in New York City, with a history professor who intends on contacting Moore to congratulate him on his seventy-second birthday. But the professor gets interrupted by the sister of a colleague at Penn State University who disappeared in South America—in the Chilean Andes—in 1985. Trying to assist Boris Weisfeiler’s kin, the professor forgets to call his Mississippi friend.

The Plan moves to the Mississippi Delta. “A murder takes place, and Clinton Moore narrates the rest of the story. It is his journey to find the murderer of his best friend, Joe Means. And his own killer, as well,” Klopfer said.

Klopfer notes that character “Joe Means” is also based on a true person who she believes also was murdered in Montgomery Alabama. “Henry S. Mims was a friend of Cleve McDowell’s. They went to school together. It is said he committed suicide, but after listening to whispers over the phone from a Huntsville law clerk (where he worked), I don’t believe that story, either.”

Mims also was a lawyer who worked on civil rights cold cases in his spare time.

The Plan has a gay subtheme. “The Plan is historical fiction. I took liberties to make it more interesting to readers. But I believe that was not a big stretch to make. I spoke to various friends and scoured the state’s Sovereignty Commission files to make this decision.”

Is a sequel in the works? “Definitely,” Klopfer says.

The Plan, as it moves from the Delta to Ecuador, has a strong link to Chile, where recent trials have taken place over a Chilean and German-run terrorist/torture camp, by the name of Colonia Dignidad.

“Look this up on the Internet. Colonia Dignidad exists,” Klopfer says.

“And it is where the sequel begins.”

The Plan

Words: 68,380 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9780982604977

Book Trailer Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiVN7YAvfUw

Distribution: Smashwords

More information at http://ebooksfromsusan.com

2013-06-12T13:08:00.002-05:00

Susan Klopfer, author

The Plan

Scheduled for July, 2013 Publication

http://ebooksfromsusan.com

Medgar Evers, WW II veteran and former coordinator of the Mississippi NAACP who was murdered on June 12, 1963 at his Jackson home.

June 12 (Cuenca, Ecuador) -- An excerpted chapter from The Plan was released today by the eBook's author, Susan Klopfer. "This chapter was written honoring the life and death of civil rights hero, Medgar Evers, who was killed in the early hours of June 12, 1963, in Jackson, Mississippi.

The Plan, set for publication in July, is based on the murders of two gay, black lawyers and a white supremacist, former FBI agent turned private detective, Klopfer says.

"One lawyer was killed in Alabama, while the other two men were murdered in Mississippi. What secrets did they hold that got them killed? Focusing on the assassinations of Medgar Evers, President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Plan moves from Mississippi to Ecuador, as friends of these three men try to save one more life – a spouse of the murdered Montgomery lawyer."

In the chapter released today, lawyer Clinton Moore of Clarksdale is the last of these three men left standing. He recalls earlier years when his friend Joe Means was still alive:

"They had worked together and separately, trying to solve selected cold cases from the 1950s through the 1970s. Moore narrows the list of murders they'd studied, trying to determine if either he or Means had come across potentially dangerous information in their work, asking what might have triggered the murder of his friend."

Will he discover this in time to save his own life? Klopfer said Chapter 19 -- The List has been posted to Twitter and Facebook where readers will link up to "find new information about the murder of this civil rights hero."

She also has placed the chapter on her blog, The Emmett Till Blog at http://emmett-till.blogspot.com/2013/06/ebook-author-posts-free-chapter-of-plan.html "where it will remain posted."

The chapter is also posted on Klopfer's official book blog at http://ebooksfromsusan.com/.

Three Mississippi Stories "This Week"

2013-06-07T19:58:00.000-05:00

By Alan Bean

Three Mississippi stories grabbed my attention this week. Will Campbell, the white civil rights activist and renegade Baptist preacher from Mississippi, died this week after a long and painful decline. Chockwe Lumumba, the erstwhile Black nationalist attorney, was elected as mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. Finally, Paul Alexander, the former TIME reporter who has written for The New York Times, the Nation, Salon, the Daily Beast, Paris Match and the Guardian, will soon be releasingMistried an eBook on the bizarre railroading of Curtis Flowers in Winona, Mississippi.

Continued-- http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/three-amazing-stories-reveal-the-rich-contradictions-of-mississippi/

Leutrell Osborne, 'Black Man in the CIA' calls for 'More Cloak and Less Dagger'

2013-05-30T09:13:00.003-05:00

Gary Revel

254 207-0955

JONGLEUR MUSIC PICTURES

1017 N. 3RD STREET

TEMPLE, TEXAS 76501

Music/Movies/Books

CIA agent offers advice

Leutrell Osborne, 'Black Man in the CIA' calls for 'More Cloak and Less Dagger'

Leutrell Mike Osborne, Sr. the author of the "Black Man In The CIA" (BMCIA), said that the recent statements by President Barack Obama about the USA now planning to do more "spying" and less "Counterterrorism" is compatible with his own strategy of 'More Cloak and Less Dagger'.

Osborne is a former Case Manager for the CIA who spent 26 years with the Agency. His experience in vital areas of CIA activities around the world have made him an expert on the mission and strategy necessary to accomplish that mission.

CIA is a maze of acronyms that mystify the uninitiated. The real culture of CIA is as difficult to capture as the intelligence it seeks. The chain of command makes it difficult to place blame, when even a George Tenet can be bullied by a President into doctoring the analysis of his own intelligence for a war agenda. There are many hierarchical levels from the deep insiders of Skull & Bones to the Case Officers, translators, analysts, the man in the street, assets, and pawns. They surveille one another as well as the enemy. They are The Watched as well as The Watchers.

Leutrell “Mike” Osborne joined the CIA in 1957, and became one of the first African American Case Officers (C/O). He directed CIA agents and assets in over 24 countries on three continents. Mr. Osborne is the only C/O to also serve as a Communications Security Officer (COMSEC Officer) for over six years. Mr. Osborne resigned his post at CIA in 1984 to pursue private sector opportunities. He returned to government service in 1989, where he oversaw Small Business Administration contracting programs for the Office of Personnel Management.

In 1994, Mr. Osborne retired from Federal Government after 31 years of service. He then returned to private sector advising small businesses on the acquisition of government contracts. In addition, he began an active schedule of personal appearances, radio interviews and television commentary. He and his wife, Rose, have been married for more than 50 years and have five children. Mr. Osborne lives in Annapolis, Maryland and spends his time working on his memoirs and providing inspirational and transformational leadership speeches to audiences throughout the country.

He is now undertaking a motion picture project, THE OSBORNE EFFECT: BLACK MAN IN THE CIA. The movie will explore one man’s dream to join the Intelligence Community and desegregate various aspects of Agency culture, while maintaining a rich and rewarding home life as well as keep close to his own spiritual integrity.

His book, 'Black Man in the CIA' can be found at Amazon.com and other book sellers.

For more information contact:

Leutrell Osborne

"Leutrell Osborne, Sr" <leutrellone@gmail.com>

Telephone 301 858-8455

*******

--------------

Gary Revel

254 207-0955

JONGLEUR MUSIC PICTURES

1017 N. 3RD STREET

TEMPLE, TEXAS 76501

Music/Movies/Books

Public Pressure Works; Drone Attacks In Decline

2013-05-24T09:55:00.002-05:00

Public protest, critical media coverage and Congressional hearings are contributing to what theNew York Times calls a “sharp decline” in US drone attacks during recent weeks. (New York Times, April 7, 2013)

In Pakistan, the attacks have dropped from 117 in 2010, to 64 in 2011, 46 in 2012, and eleven so far this year. In Yemen there were 42 in 2012, but none since January of this year.

A negotiated settlement over Afghanistan is likely to include a de facto cessation of drone strikes on Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, assuming the US gives up its hope of bombing the Taliban into submission.

A majority of Americans continue to favor the use of drones, because they reduce US casualties and costs, signaling the need for greater public outreach efforts by peace activists. A forthcoming movie from Brave New Foundation will prove useful as an educational tool, but nothing will turn the tide more rapidly than Congressional hearings tied to specific proposals linking any funding to greater scrutiny, transparency, accountability, and a shift of the drone policy from the CIA where it is protected by a cloak of secrecy.

For more, please see also by Tom Hayden, “Bug Splat,” and “The Path to Curbing the Use of Drones.”

Dick Gregory on W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Thursday - Live

2013-05-15T09:48:00.003-05:00

Dick Gregory, civil rights icon

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio:"Bro. Dick Gregory Make It Plain 2013 LIVE!!!"

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Resurrecting Black Radio one podcast at a time!!!

Date: Thursday May 16, 2013

Showtime:

3pm Eastern/2pm Central/12pm Pacific

This is a 2 hour show/discussion

Listen Live!!!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2013/05/16/we-all-be-radio-bro-dick-gregory-makes-it-plain-2013

Call-In & Participate!!!

646-652-4593

Featured Guests...

1.) The Honorable Bro. Dick Gregory

A meeting of 2 artivists: The Honorable Bro. Dick Gregory & Bro. Ron aka r2c2h2 tha artivist (6/14/2012)

2.) You!!!

The call in Phone Number: (646) 652-4593

**The show will be archived and available for listens/downloads 24/7 after live airing @ same link...**

Dick Gregory Gone Wild I Mean Viral…

'Nigger' Happened!!!~Bro. Dick Gregory

In January 2013, an interview W.E. A.L.L. B.E. did with venerable comic legend, author, nutritional guru and civil rights activist Bro. Dick Gregory went viral…The interview, which was uploaded on theW.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV YouTube channel deals with his endorsement of the controversial award winning film “Django Unchained” and his criticisms of Spike Lee as ‘a punk’ and ‘a thug’ for offering a negative review of the film without even seeing it…My video has caused a firestorm of controversy, debate and was even picked up by respected and popular national media outlets such as The Huffington Post, Bossip, NewsOne, The Root, and Black Enterprise magazine just to name a few…The comments made on the YouTube video range from the profane to the profound…I also enjoy reading the insightful comments and blog posts it has generated on social media forums and other internet outlets…I have also received phone calls from folks all over the USA thanking me for the video and sharing their own insights on why hearing the interview was such an affirming learning experience for them…The literally tens of thousands of responses it generated could actually probably make for a great foundation for a decent dissertation on the topic…I was glad that the moment W.E. A.L.L. B.E. captured and shared for posterity also became a true teaching moment for the rest of the world too…

You can view the actual interview and video that I created at the following link:

W.E. A.L.L. B.E.: Bro. Dick Gregory On 'Django Unchained': "Spike Lee Is A Thug & A Punk." (1/13/2013)

http://youtu.be/CS34OiuNmG0

As a matter of fact the first 4 full interviews the master teacher did with W.E. A.L.L. B.E. this year have gone viral!!! Please listen and/or view at your leisure via the following links...And remember to share with your networks:

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 1 (1/13/2013)

http://youtu.be/PuQQSsSpYPE

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 2 (1/16/2013)

http://youtu.be/jCpmwm8TmFY

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 3 (2/22/2013)

http://youtu.be/c165Gj_rGgQ

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 4 (4/14/2013)

http://youtu.be/KCEtvgglFiw

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 1 (1/13/2013)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2013/03/20/bro-dick-gregory-unchained-part-1-1132013

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 2 (1/16/2013)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2013/03/20/bro-dick-gregory-unchained-part-2-1162013

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 3 (2/22/2013)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2013/03/20/bro-dick-gregory-unchained-part-3-2222013

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained Part 4 (4/14/2013)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2013/04/14/we-all-be-radio

For more Bro. Dick Gregory Unchained episodes please visit W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV(http://www.youtube.com/weallbetv)!!!

And The Best Is Yet To Come!!!

Support The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Movement!!!

Stunning Presentationn on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2013-05-11T19:15:00.000-05:00

50 Years Ago Today in Birmingham, AL Negotiations Begin Ending Jim Crow: Update

2013-05-07T15:03:00.000-05:00

Freedom Lifted
News Release

Civil Rights Spotlight: Birmingham, AL

Birmingham, Alabama was the site of some the Civil Rights Era's most iconic and most contentious struggles. In the early 1960s, Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the country. Black citizens faced economic exploitation, political repression, and violence. Between 1948 and 1957, there were 48 unsolved, racially motivated bombings, garnering the nickname "Bombingham" for the city.

Who was "Bull Connor?"

Birmingham was also home to the notorious Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, a strong proponent of segregation. In 1961, when a group of Freedom Riders was being attacked by a local mob, Bull Connor's police force offered them very little protection. Connor was quoted as saying, "If the North keeps trying to shove this thing [desegregation] down our throats, there's going to be bloodshed."

Leading with courage and conviction: Fred Shuttlesworth

It was in this context that Black citizens of Birmingham began to organize. When Alabama banned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1956, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, a local Civil Rights leader, formed the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). In 1962, he invited Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., to come to Birmingham, telling him, "If you come to Birmingham, you will not only gain prestige, but really shake thecountry. If you win in Birmingham, as Birmingham goes, so goes the nation."

What was "Project C?"

In April 1963, Shuttlesworth and King joined together the ACMHR and King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to launch "Project C." Project C (for confrontation) was a massive series of direct actions directed at the government and businesses in Birmingham. It launched on April 3 with a number of mass meetings, lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall, and boycotts of downtown merchants. These actions continued until April 10 when the City obtained a court-ordered injunction to stop the protests. Shuttlesworth, King, and the other leaders of Project C debated whether to continue the protests and risk arrest, despite the fact that they had depleted their funds for bail money. The decision was made to continue the actions, and on April 12, King and 50 other protestors were arrested and taken to Birmingham Jail. It was while in solitary confinement there that King wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He was released April 20.

How did young children make a difference?

With fewer people willing to risk arrests, the Birmingham Campaign was beginning to lose steam.James Bevel, the Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education at SCLC, came up with the idea of involving children and youth in the campaign. He recruited and trained hundreds of young people, from elementary school to college, to be part of the "Children's Crusade." On May 2, over 1,000 students gathered around the 16th Street Baptist Church and began to march through Kelly Ingram Park. Bull Connor was overwhelmed by the size of the protests and had hundreds of students arrested. When the protests continued the next day, Bull Connor ordered the protesters to be attacked by dogs, sprayed with fire hoses, and beaten with police batons. During the protest, Shuttlesworth was injured by a fire hose and hospitalized. The photos and news reports of the brutal treatment of young people at the protests caused international outrage. Over the next several days, protests continued, and the leaders struggled to keep them from becoming violent. Attorney General Robert Kennedy prepared to send the Alabama National Guard into Birmingham.

50 Years Ago Today.

On May 7th, with the city in chaos, white business leaders and the leaders of Birmingham campaign began negotiations. The business leaders asked that the protests be suspended while the negotiations took place. King agreed to call off the protests, which enraged Shuttlesworth, who was still in the hospital. On May 10th, an agreement was reached that promised the removal of "White Only" and "Black Only" signs from public facilities, desegregation of lunch counters, an ongoing program of "upgrading negro employment," the formation of a bi-racial committee to monitor the agreement, and a release of the jailed protestors.

We remember four little girls.

These promises slowly began to be realized in Birmingham. By July, most of the segregation ordinances had been overturned, but some businesses moved slowly in desegregating their facilities. There were also a number of violent responses from segregationists. In the weeks after the agreement, the hotel where King had stayed as well as King's brother's home were bombed. On September 15, the16th Street Baptist Church was bombed, and four young girls were killed. King gave the eulogy at their memorial.

What Birmingham taught the world.

Some felt the leaders of the Birmingham Campaign had offered too many concessions and not demanded enough of the government and business leaders. However, Shuttlesworth believed the true impact of the Birmingham Campaign was not only local, but in the way it exposed the conditions of black people in the South to the whole nation.

Birmingham Today

Many people and organizations are working in Birmingham today to continue the city's legacy of activism. Check out these great organizations:

Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice

The Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ACIJ) is working to protect and promote civil and human rights in Alabama by exposing rights violations, educating the public and the media, supporting leadership development in immigrant communities, strengthening alliances with communities of faith and concerned citizens, and fighting anti-immigrant legislation.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) is an interpretive museum that showcases Birmingham's role in the Civil Rights Movement. In addition, the BCRI hosts educational events including workshops for teachers, commemorations of social movement history, conferences on the role of youth activism, and more.

National Conference for Community and Justice

The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) seeks to fight bias, bigotry and racism and to promote respect and understanding among all races, religions and cultures through education, conflict resolution and advocacy. NCCJ hosts leadership programs for youth and adults, interfaith dialogues, and diversity training and consulting.

New Emmett Till Video Posted on YouTube; Mississippi, Conspiracies, Assassinations, Colonia Dignidad All Featured

2013-05-07T09:43:00.002-05:00

Susan Klopfer, author

The Plan
http://susanklopfer.com

Publication Date: June 2013

The author of a new fiction book due out in June focused on the multiple murders of two black, gay lawyers and a straight, white FBI agent, today released a Mississippi-based video on YouTube.

"The Plan is based on actual and fictional characters. It starts out in the Mississippi Delta during the modern civil rights movement and moves into South America, as the truth about a torture colony there is coming to light."

Susan Klopfer, the author, once lived in the Delta, on the grounds of Parchman Penitentiary, before moving to Ecuador, where she currently resides.

I wrote The Plan after spending a number of years living and doing research in the Delta, and wanted to share these photos with readers before the book actually comes out in June," Klopfer said.

"I especially hope that students will find this video on the Internet helpful, because it features dozens of photographs ranging from a civil war era, popular steamboat on the Mississippi River, to burial markers often found around the cotton fields, homes of early civil rights pioneers, as well as the faces of people who helped make a difference in the Modern Civil Rights Movement.

“In Mississippi, this movement was initiated by returning WWII veterans including Amzie Moore, Aaron Henry and Medgar Evers."

Delta Blues lovers will find photographs of The Crossroads sign in Clarksdale, a bluesman wall mural, a famous rail crossing, Robert Johnson, the Dockery Plantation and more.

"The video also features photos relating to Emmett Till’s murder as well as Mississippi Burning, and I plan to add more photos as I go through my collection."

Klopfer said she included pictures of an early service station owned and operated by Moore, "who had one of the few bathrooms in the Delta that black people were allowed to use in Jim Crow times," as well as photos of the "burned out interior” of Henry's home in Clarksdale.

What’s The Plan about?

“In a nutshell, The Plan is a digital novel about two murdered gay, black lawyers (from Mississippi and Alabama) who probably knew too much about the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and President John F. Kennedy – and a murdered white, Vicksburg detective, formerly an FBI agent, who got in over his head in New Orleans, working for one of the alleged JFK assassination planners – with a quick sidetrip to Ecuador.”

Klopfer said she wrote The Plan with the Fiftieth Anniversary of the JFK assassination in mind. “We just cannot let this date pass by without asking questions. Few people, except for government officials, actually believe the Warren Commission Report was valid. It was even invalidated by a later House Select Committee on Assassinations that concluded the killing of the president was a conspiracy.

“Since only two reporters actually covered the civil trial relating to the murder of Dr. King, we understand well why the national media has continued to stick with its basically flawed reports on this death. In the words of Tommy Smothers -- "I feel nothing [for the national media] but total embarrassment"

Klopfer said she believes it is imperative that armchair historians and lesser known authors keep pushing for truth. “I personally look forward to the release of classified CIA documents on Colonia Dignidad in Chile, showing the agency's involvement in this torture chamber and its use of the facility as a training camp.

“For anyone asking what THIS is about, start googling – because most likely readers in the United States will be kept from the complete truth on this emerging news story, as well.”

The author said The Plan actually revolves around recent reports from Chile on a lawsuit filed against the that government by victims and relatives of people killed in the Southern Andes “Nazi torture chamber.”

“Will the U.S. government be embarrassed when it all comes out? I hope so. It’s our tax dollars at work, so at least anger is a possible response. But first the whole story is required."

The Plan is set for June publication and will be available on all major online bookstores in digital format.

“

John Grisham's New Book Revisits Mississippi; The Land of Emmett Till

2013-05-04T09:17:00.001-05:00

NEWS RELEASE

(Editor's Note: This is such good news for avid readers of John Grisham books. It will be hard to wait for this newest novel. Meanwhile, The Plan, is set for June release. More to come. sk)

MAY 3, 2013 12:00 PM

John Grisham set to release 'Sycamore Row,' sequel to 'A Time to Kill,' in October

BY ILIA BLINDERMAN

What Billy Mays did for OxiClean, John Grisham has been doing for the legal thriller since his first book, “A Time To Kill,” came out in 1988. It was therefore — to put it mildly — kind of a big deal when Grisham’s publisher Knopf Doubleday announced that the former jurist would be publishing a sequel later this year.

Grisham, then a lawyer and member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, had witnessed the testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim a quarter-century ago; the shock spurred him to spend the next three years rising at 5 a.m. and working on the novel before work.

Although the book was initially rejected by numerous publishers (and first paled in comparison to his second release, “The Firm”), Grisham’s story of Jake Brigance — a white lawyer defending a black man charged with murdering his daughter’s rapists — was later adapted into the widely successful Joel Schumacher film starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock (fun fact: Grisham’s first-ever reading for “A Time To Kill” was in Oxford, Miss’ Square Books, which recently won the Publishers Weekly Bookstore of the Year award).

In Grisham’s latest, titled "Sycamore Row" and set for release on October 22, the author returns Brigance to his “Time to Kill” stomping ground. The sequel, according to Grisham, “will have [Brigance fighting] for justice in a trial that could tear the small town of Clanton apart.”

Whoa, man..

Still Need More Proof JFK Assassination a Conspiracy: Video Gives Unique Perspective

2013-05-02T22:32:00.000-05:00

What do you think?? Quite fascinating, as far as I'm concerned. sk

Author of Mississippi Murder Novel Set For Cuenca, Ecuador Reading; An Evening With Writers In Transition

2013-04-27T06:26:00.000-05:00

Three Mississippi Murders and a Chase Through Ecuador: The Plan, by Susan Klopfer. Set for publication in May.

*****

WIT

(Writers in Transition)

presents

An Evening of the Spoken Word

California Kitchen Restaurante

02 May 2013 . Thursday . 7pm

Free Admission . Cash Bar

Authors

A piece of a chapter from "Once a Sleuth", by Bob Ray, author of Broken

It's a clue from a mystery novel, but to find out which clue, you have to buy and read the book.

"Learn From My Mistakes: A Real Estate Tale of Woe", by Michele DeWolfe

It is about buying an apartment in Cuenca, and everything we should have done differently.

"Red Creeper", by Frances Augusta Hogg

A writer learns the importance of discipline.

" The Moores of Coahoma County", Chapter 2 of The Plan,

by Susan Klopfer

Clinton Moore, a recently murdered Mississippi Delta lawyer, is visiting the site of the home he would have finished building, if it weren't for his tragic end. He listens in on a conversation between one of the town's social elites and a newcomer, a woman from Iowa who would have been his neighbor. They're planning a social event for the town's Culture Club.

"Driving in Cuenca - Anecdotes and Advice" by Lawrence Hamilton

The author relates some experiences of driving in Cuenca, and some advice

regarding his thoughts of avoiding pedestrians and other drivers.

Chapter 7 of "Methuselah's Promise", by Chris Petersen

author of Methuselah's Secret

Continuation of the novel as the story of the quest for the long life drug unfolds.

For more information, please email writersintransition@yahoo.com or visit www.facebook.com/witcuenca

Women Who Could Tell Us More About JFK Assassination -- Perhaps?

2013-04-24T09:20:00.001-05:00

Judyth Vary Baker. What did she know?

(Editor's Note: Do you have names to contribute to ths list? Please add your comments. I'VE ADDED MY OWN NAMES, BELOW!)

by GLORIA CAMPOS
Guest Contributor

DALLAS — November 22 will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

All year long, we'll be examining that November day and the fifty Novembers that followed — the issues... the progress.

November 22 had an impact on the lives of a few people we rarely talk about — the women who were thrust into the spotlight.

Five women, five lives, forever connected through tragedy.

Just moments after the Kennedys basked in the glow of adoring crowds, darkness enveloped Jaqueline Kennedy as she sat alone outside the Parkland Hospital operating room.

Lady Bird Johnson described it in her diaries:

"She was quite alone. I don't think I ever saw anybody so much alone in my life. I went up to her, put my arms around her, and said something to her. I'm sure it was quite banal like, 'God help us all.'"

After consoling Mrs. Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson rushed to comfort her old friend, Nellie Connally, first lady of Texas.

"I hugged her tight and we both cried, and I said, 'Nellie, it's going to be all right.' And Nellie said, 'Yes, John is going to be all right.'"

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NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: IT'S ALL ABOUT MISSISSIPPI AND ECUADOR - THE PLAN. SUSANKLOPFER.COM -- MAY PUBLICATION SET
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Waiting at the Dallas Trade Mart for an address President Kennedy would never deliver, friends Jan Sanders and Federal Judge Sarah Hughes listened to the chaos unfold on the radio.

"That's what they were hearing on the transistor radio... they were tracking when was he going to walk in the door here. Then, of course, it began to change... that news report began to change; something has happened," Sanders said.

It would be Judge Hughes who — within minutes — would deliver the oath of office to Lyndon Johnson in an impromptu and grim ceremony aboard Air Force One at Love Field.

Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson stood nearby.

Hughes later recorded her thoughts for the University of North Texas.

"I was also thinking, 'I must not keep my mind on Kennedy; I must think about the future, because the country has to go on.'"

Hughes is the only woman in U.S. history to administer the oath of office to a president.

At the same time, Marie Tippit was home with her son when she learned that her husband, Dallas police Officer J.D. Tippit, had been shot and killed, pulling her into a national tragedy that shaped her life.

"A total shock, a total shock... it's just a shocking thing, like this can't be happening," she said. "This has got to be a nightmare — which it was — but it was real."

And as she mourned the death of her husband, the nation mourned the death of a president.

"This happens in foreign countries; this doesn't happen here," Jan Sanders said. "It certainly doesn't happen in Dallas, even though there is this hateful environment.. there was this hateful environment."

Jan Sanders, wife of then-U.S. Attorney Barefoot Sanders, and Judge Hughes created the John F. Kennedy Memorial Book Fund based on their admiration for the slain president. Their goal was to enlighten Dallas school children about the presidency.

Marie Tippit has her own remembrance: A letter and framed photograph from Jacqueline Kennedy.

"We share the same bond," Mrs. Tippit said.

It's a bond only two widows could share on the same dark day in Dallas.

E-mail gcampos@wfaa.com
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(Editor's Note: I think this list is interesting, but way too short. What about Judyth Vary Baker, a fellow employee of Oswald's at the Reily Coffee Company in the summer of 1963, claims to have been Oswald girlfriend, and involved with him in a secret bioweapons. More importanty, Jean Hill, a woman who told of seeing a Grassy Knoll shooter, of seeing Jack Ruby in Dealey Plaza, and of being waylaid and intimidated by phony "Secret Service agents" in the minutes following the assassination; Beverly Oliver, who claims to have seen Oswald and Ruby together in the Carousel Club, and to have photographed the assassination in Dealey Plaza (with the FBI confiscating the film); Madeleine Brown, who claimed to have been LBJ's lover, and to have attended a very suspicious party on the eve of the assassination; Marita Lorenz who told of a "caravan" of cars driving assassins from Miami to Dallas on the eve of the assassination?????)

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NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: IT'S ALL ABOUT MISSISSIPPI AND ECUADOR - THE PLAN. SUSANKLOPFER.COM -- MAY PUBLICATION SET
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JFK Assassination Author, John Beviliqua, Thanks Colleagues For Research Efforts

2013-04-12T13:31:00.003-05:00

John Bevilaqua, authorJFK - The Final Solution (Red Scares, White Power and Blue Death)

Let's hear it for the proverbial 'Bull in the China Shop', yours truly, without whose persistence, this entire JFK Conundrum could have gone on for yet another 50 years. And let us thank John Simkin for opening up this thread again at Spartacus because he realized how important the role of Guy Banister actually was in the entire JFK proceedings, not only in New Orleans, but through the Southern US and Latin America. And let us also thank Susan Klopfer, who works with a group of Civil Rights Cold Case volunteers as well. Without her, it might not have become so abundantly clear that among other things, William 'Guy' Banister was first and foremost the private detective of choice for every single pro-Segregation, anti-Semitic, anti-Civil Rights proponent throughout the Southern States touching the Gulf of Mexico.

She also pointed out that Banister was on the payroll of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission for Senator James O. Eastland, along with Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker during both the Ole Miss Riots and the Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation crisis. Recall also that it was Walker who often visited Byron De La Beckwith in prison following the murder of Medgar Evers, Jr. and that it was none other than Jack Ruby who fingered Walker in his Warren Commission testimony.

And how long was it the Banister's role in the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean was totally ignored, almost deliberately, 40+ years, perhaps? And how many of you knew that Banister played a role with E. H. Hunt in the 1954 Guatamala coup of Arbenz run with 'Rip' Robertston and Allen Dulles, along with his United Fruit Company client which was less than a mile from his offices on Lafayette Street on St. Charles? Not many, I would venture to say.

And when the information about 'Operation Red Cross', also run by Senators Eastland and Goldwater, and NOT the CIA was painstakingly extracted from Nathaniel Weyl, how many of you said: "Wow, everyone always said that one of the main keys to the understanding of the sponsors of the JFK hit was 'Operation Red Cross', now that we know it was done by SISS, under the auspices of Senator James Eastland from Mississippi who was on Draper's payroll, for the benefit of Senator Barry Goldwater from YAF and organized by Robert Morris from SISS and The China Lobby, who was the real force behind McCarthyism, this puts the entire JFK Assassination in a much clearer, brighter light!" No one besides me.

Why does it take a Civil Rights Activist to bring us all back to our senses to realize that the JFK murder and the other 3 acts of violence done between the Summer of 1963 and the Summer of 1964 were all done by the SAME forces, paid for by the SAME person, Wickliffe Draper, for the SAME reasons using the power behind Senator James O. Eastland, the Senator from The Pioneer Fund?

Even Jackie Kennedy said something to the effect: "What a shame that he had to die at the hands of a little nobody like Oswald instead of at least for a more nobler cause like 'The Civil Rights Movement'."

Looks like Jackie was right after all, and it looks like those like Bill Baggs, Editor of The Miami News whom I had the privilege to work for at the age of 16, and Ralph McGill, Editor of the Atlanta Constitution were also right when they said the JFK murder was first and foremost perpetrated by those in the Civil Rights movement for their own sinister purposes.

Sure, it also served the purposes of the Viet Nam lobby, the MIC, the anti-Semites, the anti-Papists, the anti-Catholics, but who actually represented ALL of these interests and was in a position to reach deep down into his pockets and deep down into his hierarchy of KKK stormtroopers and the Gestapo of the Southern Civil Rights opponents?

Only Wickliffe Preston Draper, using Senator James O. Eastland from the MSC, the KKK and the Draper Genetics Committee and Robert J. Morris whose history included Rapp-Coudert, McCarranism, The China Lobby, the Liberty Lobby, McCarthyism, MacArthurism and then SISS with Eastland as well. Trust me, without my contributions, Robert Morris, Charles Willoughby, Wickliffe Draper, Edwin Walker and even James Eastland and Guy Banister would have gone totally scot free. And both Army Intel and ONI would have gotten off clean as a whistle, too.

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"I'm sorry" -- Former KKK Supporter Elwin Wilson Says Before He Dies

2013-04-02T23:25:00.000-05:00

KKK Doesn't Go Away

Who's sorry now?

Elwin Wilson has died at the age of 76, leaving behind a legacy of a man who was able to admit the error of his ways. Wilson was formerly a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, which is frequently misspelled as Klu Klux Klan. During his affiliation with the KKK, he participated in hate crimes which haunted him in his later life, so he bravely decided to apologize, according to a March 31, 2013 report by The Huffington Post.

After a lifetime that included burning crosses and assaulting African Americans, Wilson finally found peace in forgiveness. After President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009, he decided to apologize for his many hateful indiscretions, which included the 1961 beating of U.S. Rep. John Lewis at a Rock Hill bus station.

Elwin Wilson dies with a clear conscience and the blessing of forgiveness from the very man he assaulted on that day 50 years earlier. In 2009, Wilson offered Lewis an apology for the brutal beating, and Lewis graciously accepted. As a result, both men were honored on Worldwide Forgiveness Day later that year, and both men received the Common Ground Award for Reconciliation in Canada. Wilson even had the opportunity to honor his victim with an award in Maryland.

Fascinating Easter Show on Robert Mugabe - Zimbabwe

2013-03-31T05:47:00.000-05:00

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: "The Truth About Mugabe: Villain or Hero???"

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Resurrecting Black Radio one podcast at a time!!!

Date: Sunday March 31, 2013

Showtime:

4pm Eastern/3pm Central/1pm Pacific

This is a 2 hour show/discussion

Listen Live!!!

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Bro. Roy Agyemang (left) and Bro. Ron aka r2c2h2 tha artivist

2.) You!!!

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**The show will be archived and available for listens/downloads 24/7 after live airing @ same link...**

Mugabe: Villain or Hero?

Filmmaker Roy Agyemang is granted unprecedented access to President Robert Mugabe and provocatively questions whether the Zimbabwean leader is the demon that the western media portrays.

Awarded the ‘Special Recognition Jury Award’ at the Pan African Film Festival

At 89 years of age, Robert Mugabe is the second oldest head of State. He is one of the worlds longest-serving yet most reviled leaders. He has ruled Zimbabwe since Independence 1980.

In June 2013 Mugabe will contest what many people consider his last election.

Is there more to Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe than is being shown on our television screens? What’s the true extent of Mugabe’s support inside Zimbabwe? What has happened to the country that they all called the bread basket of Africa – and why?

These questions and more led British born Ghanaian filmmaker, Roy Agyemang, on a journey to Zimbabwe to make a documentary about President Robert Mugabe. What started out as a three-month mission turned into three life-changing years, culminating in unprecedented access and a rare interview with the controversial leader.

Filmed between 2007 and 2010, Mugabe: Villain or Hero? is an epic personal journey, narrated by Roy Agyemang who, together with his UK-based Zimbabwean fixer, Garikayi Mushambadope, found themselves in Mugabe’s entourage, on Colonel Gaddafi’s private jet and around a host of prominent African leaders.

At a time when western media was banned in the country, Agyemang and Mushambadope worked their way through the corridors of power, probing the cultural, economical and historical factors at the heart of the “Zimbabwean crisis”.

In his directorial debut Roy Agyemang draws on a wealth of news footage, including Bob Marley’s historic appearance at Independence celebrations in 1980. Mugabe: Villain or Hero? is a highly accessible, personal and often amusing film in which Agyemang explores the relationship between African leaders and the West, in the fight for African minerals and land. In contrast to the usual picture of the dictator we are used to seeing on our television screens amidst scenes of violence, Mugabe: Villain or Hero? is a revealing portrait of the man who was knighted by John Major and honoured with doctorates by the west.

For more information on film please visit the official website:

http://www.mugabevillainorhero.com

Support The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Movement!!!

Donate online:

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Memphis, TN 38175

50th Anniversary of JFK Assassination: Author of The Plan: A Novel Speaks Out On Assassination Conspiracies, Oswald, Eastland, Banister

2013-03-29T09:14:00.002-05:00

"On the assassination of John F. Kennedy? The American media failed us. They were compromised, frightened, incompetent, greedy (pick one or all) and still fight to keep us from learning the truth -- because they screwed up. Check out what journalists around the world have reported over the years. Only American journalists keep pumping up the Oswald lone nut story. I think they've simply given up on digging up the facts and telling the story. Citizens will find truth when listening to people like Mark Lane. ('Anyone who believes the Warren Commission, hasn't read the report.' Mark Lane, attorney and my hero)." Susan Klopfer, author (The Plan: A Novel. Set for release: May 2013)

By Susan Klopfer
Author, The Plan

On Friday November 22, 1963, news bulletins hit the airwaves as rifle shots interrupted President John F. Kennedy's Dallas motorcade. While conspiracy theorists and others have kept the debate alive over what happened fifty years ago, who was involved, and why, no one ever mentions Mississippi's links.

As a journalist and writer, I became even more intrigued with the JFK assassination when coming across information linking a Mississippi icon to several people often associated with the tragic event.

Seven years before JFK was assassinated, the magnolia state's Sen. James O. Eastland met for the first time with Guy Banister, a controversial CIA operative and retired FBI agent in charge of the Chicago bureau.

"Banister was later linked to Lee Harvey Oswald and Mississippi's senator through involvement with Eastland's Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS (sometimes called "SISSY").

I bumped into this strange fact when doing research for my books Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, Who Killed Emmett Till? and The Emmett Till Book.

Mississippi and JFK’s assassination?

The "New Orleans Times-Picayune" on March 23, 1956, reported that Robert Morrison, a former chief counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy's House Unamerican Activities Committee or HUAC, and Banister traveled to Greenwood, Mississippi, to confer personally with Senator Eastland for more than three hours.

Describing the conference as "completely satisfactory," Morrison told the reporter that "Mr. Banister has complete liaison with the committee's staff which was the main object of our trip."

Apparently cozying up to Eastland and "SISSY" was Banister's goal. And it looks like it worked. Who would NOT have wanted others to know of this relationship? Think about it.

Known as a notorious political extremist who was later described as the impetus for James Garrison’s 1967-1970 Kennedy assassination probe, Banister earlier became a brief focus of Mississippi's secret spy agency, the Sovereignty Commission, when it was suggested Banister should be hired to set up an 'even tighter' domestic spying system throughout the state.

It has also been suggested that this detective was used by the Mississippi Sovereignty Comission in several of Mississippi’s “affairs” including the near ambush of James Meredith when as the first black American he entered the segregated University of Mississippi in the fall of 1962.

A second Eastland operative, private investigator John D. Sullivan of Vicksburg, suggested hiring Banister to the Commission just months after the JFK assassination, as reported in released Sovereignty Commission records.

Mississippi Detective 'Kills Himself' -- After Working For Guy Banister

Former FBI agent Sullivan had worked under Banister (both inside the FBI and privately) and as a private self-employed investigator who often did work for hire for the Commission as well as for the private white Citizens Councils, of which he was an active member; and for SISS, as had Banister and Lee Harvey Oswald.

When Sullivan reportedly committed suicide following the Kennedy assassination, Sovereignty Commission investigators tried to acquire his library and files, but most of his confidential files were either reportedly burned by his widow or they had been lent out, and she 'could not remember' who had them, Sovereignty Commission files disclose.

Sullivan died when he was cleaning his rifle while sitting on the edge of his bed. He accidentay shot himself in the groin and bled to death after a hunting accident. This happened in the same year that David Ferrie, a potential and important witness in the Garrison trial against Clay Shaw took place -- before the trial. A family member told me that he’d confided he was in over his head while working in New Orleans for Banister – and that he’d been talking to a local judge about what he knew that scared him. The judge is now deceased.

Some twenty-nine years later, in testimony before the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board during a Dallas hearing on November 18, 1994, the late Senator Eastland was directly implicated in the president’s assassination by one of the author/theorists invited to testify.

Lee Harvey Oswald Worked For Senator James O. Eastland's Security Committee

Lee Harvey Oswald was quite possibly an agent of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and he was doing the bidding of [Sen. Thomas J.] Dodd and Eastland and Morrison, author John McLaughlin swore.

It’s a shame the University of Mississippi was given Eastland’s files, and that officials allowed a friend of Eastland to scrub these files clean before release to researchers.

Still, documentation that could support or even discredit such assertions could be present in the Eastland archives kept at the University of Mississippi, but until very recently no objective scholar was allowed to search these archives since the day they arrived on campus.

Instead, Eastland's records were managed for years by a former associate and devotee who followed the papers from Washington, D.C. to Oxford where he kept an office in the law school.

University of Mississippi Scrubs Eastland Records; Dean tosses FOIA into Waste Can

Finally in 2005, after my unsuccessful Freedom of Information Act or FOIA request to the dean of the law school, a historian was hired to organize the archives based in the James O. Eastland School of Law at Ole Miss. But there was still be a lengthy waiting period before any of the files could be viewed.

The plan was to release first all press releases, according to one Ole Miss historian who also told me that many important files were probably missing -- that the files looked 'cleaned out'.

When I presented the Dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law (unofficially the James O. Eastland School of Law – they just never got brave enough to make this official), a freedom of information act request or FOIA for access to Eastland archives, he asked, while laughing, if he could “just show the rejection letter written to the last person who asked for this information."

Then he wadded up the FOIA and threw it ito his waste basket! Later, it came back to me that “people at Ole Miss were really angry” over the FOIA request.

Enter Wickliffe Draper, Eugenicist, Friend of Big Jim Eastland

All I can say is, it’s been quite a journey seeking the truth on what happened to President John F. Kennedy – and why. Plus -- I haven't even gotten started on what I think about Wickliffe Draper and his involvement -- I'm saving it for my book!

-------- Notes

Susan Klofer is the author of Who Killed Emmett Till?, The Emmett Till Book, and Where Rebels Roost;Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited. She frequently blogs on these topics and more.

[1] “Banister, FBI Chief Since February, to Leave Post Nov. 30,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov 19, 1954, Part 2, Page 12.

[2] Citation for this newspaper article (“NOTP, March 23, 1956, p. 1”) comes from the online Jerry P. Shinley Archive “Re: Jim Garrison and the SCEF Raids.”

[3] William Davy, “Let Justice Be Done,” (Jordan Publication, May 12, 1999), 1. On the weekend of the assassination, Banister pistol-whipped his employee Jack Martin, after Martin accused him of killing Kennedy. Martin eventually spoke to authorities. [4] Sovereignty Commission documents SCR ID 7-0-8-89-1-1-1 and SCR ID 2-56-1-20-1-1-1.

[5] Sovereignty Commission documents SCR ID 99-36-0-2-1-1-1 SCR ID 1-16-1-21-1-1-1, SCR ID 1-26-0-5-2-1-1, SCR ID 2-2-0-19-1-1-1, SCR ID 1-24-0-11-1-1-1

[6] After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, A. J. Weberman, a “Dylanologist,” “garbologist” and Kennedy conspiracist wrote that he received this communication from Sullivan's grandson, Jeremy Sullivan: "I was told that he committed suicide but my dad didn't think so. He told me there was an investigation and the FBI was involved. They deemed it suicide. The story I heard had changed depending on who told it, I believe that they had been out fishing all day and John Daniel had been drinking. After they got home, he was alone in his room and there was a gunshot, and he was found dead." Also, Weberman stated that Jim Garrison had an undisclosed case against Sullivan in 1961. Per a “Memo for the Director” by Betsy Palmer on April 19, 1978, regarding the “HSCA.” From A.J. Ajweberman and Michael Canfield, “Coup D'Etat in America, The CIA and the Assassination of John Kennedy,” (New York City, The Third Press, 1975) Nodule II.

[7] Online minutes of testimony before the Assassination Records Review Board, November 18, 1994. Dallas, Texas. Testimony of John McLaughlin aka John Bevilaqua, Harvard University graduate and systems analyst, also a Kennedy assassination theorist. McLaughlin was testifying why he needed to see documents from HUAC and SISS. He had also requested military records of Wycliff P. Draper, head of the Draper Committees and Pioneer Fund. Mississippi had been the benefactor of Draper money in its fight against the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and in funding of private white academies per Sovereignty Commission reports.

[8] Eastland’s name has also been associated with the murder of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King, U. S. Senator Robert Kennedy and with the mass murder at a U. S. Army base located in Mississippi of potentially 1,000 black soldiers during World War II.

[9] The former Eastland aid has since retired.

###

New Information On Who Killed JFK; 50th Anniversary of Assassination

2013-03-24T20:11:00.000-05:00

WHY WAS JFK ASSASSINATED?

by Tim KellyMarch 1, 2013

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has joined the ranks of skeptics and “conspiracy theorists” who believe that a lone gunman was not solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy said his father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, believed the Warren Commission Report was a “shoddy piece of craftsmanship”

“The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman,” he said, but he did not elaborate on what he believed may have happened.

John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade through Dallas.

Robert F. Kennedy, while celebrating his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary, was shot and killed on June 5, 1968, at a Los Angeles hotel. He was supposedly the victim of another “lone nut.”

RFK’s assassination and the circumstances surrounding it have spawned almost as many conspiracy theories as his brother’s murder five years earlier.

And RFK Jr.’s remarks, coming early in a year that will mark the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, will no doubt provide rhetorical fodder for the legions of critics of the Warren Commission Report.

That report concluded that the 35th president of the United States was hit from the rear by two of three shots fired by a deranged 24-year-old former Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald. According to the report, the first bullet hit JFK in the back, exited through his neck, and went on to inflict multiple injuries on Texas Governor John Connally. The second bullet missed the presidential limousine, ricocheted off the curb and grazed a bystander. The third bullet hit the president in the head, killing him.

What has made many question the Warren Commission’s credibility is the fact that it was largely controlled by former CIA director Allen Dulles. President Kennedy had ousted Dulles as director of the CIA in 1961, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Kennedy had also reportedly voiced his intention “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

From the moment of its release in 1964, the Warren Report became a target of criticism, owing largely to such difficulties as its “single-bullet theory,” which appeared to twist the laws of physics.

As Mark Lane, a pioneer in JFK assassination research, noted, “The only way you can believe the Report is not to have read it.”

Another reason to doubt the report’s conclusions is Oswald’s apparent connections to the U.S. intelligence community, an important detail not mentioned in the report’s 889 pages. After all, if Oswald was a low-level intelligence agent, as a large body of evidence suggests, is it reasonable to believe he was the “lone-nut” assassin of Warren Commission legend?

But even if Oswald was the gunman and was able to get off two miraculously accurate shots, he did not have the power to withdraw the police motorcycle escorts, or to order the Secret Service to stand down, or to alter the testimony of funeral-home staff who received the body. The Warren Commission never explained these systemic breakdowns that left the president vulnerable and the chain of evidence questionable.

And it should also be mentioned that a U.S. House of Representatives select committee concluded in 1978, after a two-year investigation, that JFK was probably a victim of an elaborate conspiracy (not a “lone nut).

Who could have been part of such a conspiracy?

Theories abound. Some finger the Mafia, while others blame rogue anti-Castro Cubans, or the CIA, or the FBI, or the Pentagon, or Asian drug lords, or eccentric Texas oil barons, or even then-vice-president Lyndon Johnson. Others have posited scenarios involving a combination of some or all of these groups.

The Kennedy administration had certainly ruffled a lot of feathers in its thousand days. Indeed, JFK’s apparent turn to peace may have been the reason why he was gunned down.

At first glance, JFK was an unlikely candidate for peacenik martyrdom.

In 1960, Kennedy campaigned to the right of Richard Nixon, warning of “a missile gap” that had left the nation vulnerable to a Russian nuclear attack.

He entered the White House a committed cold warrior, declaring the time to be an “hour of maximum danger” for freedom. America, he said, would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” A primary beneficiary of the Kennedy administration was the military-industrial complex, as spending on both conventional and nuclear forces increased sharply from 1961 to 1963.

However, after clashing with his Joint Chiefs over a number of issues and witnessing the apparent treachery of the CIA regarding the Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy developed a mistrust of his national-security managers.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war, had a profound effect on JFK, and he emerged from it a changed man, determined to end the Cold War peacefully.

In June 1963, JFK delivered a speech at American University in which he called for the total abolishment of nuclear weapons. A few months later, his administration signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets.

He also began having private correspondences with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, which enraged the CIA, and he was seeking a rapprochement with Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro, which further incensed the agency.

But perhaps his National Security Action Memorandum 263 calling for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam by the end of 1965 was the final straw for the national security state.

That order, if implemented, would have disrupted many “national-security” operations that had been going on in Southeast Asia since the end of the Second World War. Interestingly, just days after JFK’s death, Lyndon Johnson signed National Security Action Memorandum 273 reversing JFK’s withdrawal plan. The rest, as they say, is history.

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Civil Rights Announcement: We All Be Radio Show Is Back!

2013-03-16T07:25:00.002-05:00

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Is B(l)ack!!!

This is W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio's first show since January 2012 so help us celebrate by participating!!!

Date: Sunday March 17, 2013

Showtime:

4pm Eastern/3pm Central/1pm Pacific

This is a 2 hour show/discussion

Listen Live!!!

Online link to the show:

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/125369

Participate!!!

The call in Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 125369 #

Guests...

1.) Cleo Manago

Social Architect & Same Gender Loving Activist

& founder of 2 national organizations:
AmASSI Health and Cultural Centers

http://www.amassigroup.com/

Black Men's Xchange

The nation's oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to promoting healthy self-concept and behavior among same gender loving (SGL), gay-identifying and bisexual African-descended males.

http://bmxnational.org/

Cleo Manago: The Most Dangerous Black Gay Man?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-monroe/cleo-manago_b_1280272.html

Where In The World is Hunter Gray (John Salter)?

2013-03-10T22:39:00.002-05:00

A special post by Hunter Gray ...

3:45 PM (6 hours ago)

Posted widely. I have always believed in hitting issues openly.

I posted the following piece, On Being A Militant And Radical Organizer -- And An Effective One, almost four months ago. It's increasingly obvious that, at the events commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the great Jackson Movement, I will be "the man who isn't there." No meaningful invitation focused on that Movement and its full sweep has come to me from any quarter in that Jackson setting. No surprise. The sentiments expressed by me in my aforementioned Organizer piece continue to stand in total -- and very strongly so.

But my book, Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism, can and will represent me very well indeed at Jackson and elsewhere.

We have picked up indications of a surreptitious and defamatory "whispering campaign" in certain Jackson, Mississippi circles directed against me personally -- including even some hostile radical-baiting! Well, I was a member for some years of the old-time Industrial Workers of the World (IWW Wobblies) -- and I'm a life long supporter of militant industrial unionism, and left democratic socialism with libertarian trimmings. Usually non-violent in the tactical sense, the IWW was once described in semi-jocular/semi-serious fashion as a "cross between Henry David Thoreau and Wyatt Earp." In any event, there's never been any secret about any social justice doings of mine.

In addition, my book, Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism, (now newly out via the University Press of Nebraska, and with a very substantive -- 10,000 word -- new introduction by me), has been the target of the same hostile whispering campaign. Its quite sound quality is attested by many very positive reviews from its earlier incarnations, among them, the Journal of Mississippi History, Social Forces, The Journal of Southern History, UMOJA -- A Scholarly Journal of Black Studies, Socialist Monthly Changes, Monthly Review Press, Social Development Issues, Sojourners. You can see these and others via our website book link --http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm -- and some via University of Nebraska Press http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Jackson-Mississippi,674910.aspx There are other solid reviews of JM at Amazon. It's a 272 page paperback, and it won't cost you an arm and a leg.

I pull no punches. There's no pussy-footing. My book provides a very candid, detailed and insider's view of the rise and development of the Jackson Boycott Movement/Jackson Movement of 1962-63 at every step -- AND what very sadly and tragically happened to it. One reviewer referred very favorably to my "demythologizing impulse."

You won't find my book at the Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson. But Square Books at Oxford does carry it.

If so inclined, you can help immensely by forwarding this entire message widely indeed -- to the very Four Directions. And I am quite certain that any purchaser of my book will find it and its lessons aplenty extremely interesting and most worthwhile.

ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (HUNTER GRAY/JOHN OR. SALTER, JR. (NOVEMBER 25, 2012)

If you're a militant and radical organizer -- and an effective one who is strong on both tangible grassroots gains and a worthy long range vision of a better world over the mountains yonder -- you do your thing and move on to the next social justice crucible. As you go along, you are remembered fondly and well for a good while by the people for and with whom you've earlier worked. The power structure, of course, will "never forgive and never forget". But, as time passes and those grassroots people and friends fade from the scene, and if -- if -- you continue as a militant and radical activist, you aren't going to be broadly welcome in your earlier battlefields by very many of the newly arrived contemporary people. This is certainly true if you're an independent rebel. And all of this is especially true if you're an "outside agitator" who came from afar.

Quite often, in contrast to the openly repressive and brutal and blatantly defamatory Old Guard of yore, contemporary enemies in the old combat fields tend to be covert and surreptitious, frequently hypocritical, and of notably limited courage.

If you morph, as time passes, into a kind of respectable and non-challenging brand of "liberal," well -- you might be brought back to various old battlefields to talk superficially about the old days of struggle.

A conventional academic who writes about the old civil rights wars and, as many academics do, does so cautiously, may be welcome. And that person might even get an award of some kind.

What brings all of this to my mind is the fact that, in the 50th anniversary of the great Jackson, Mississippi Movement, no one has asked me to return to discuss the movement of which I was the basic and principal organizer, working with a growing number of young people in our NAACP Youth Council and Tougaloo College. I was their Adult Advisor. They were valiantly involved in developing that worthy struggle and, in doing so, running great risks. The State of Mississippi is helping fund and organize a number of celebrations -- climaxing in June 2013 -- -- focused mostly on NAACP Field Secretary Medgar W. Evers who was murdered in the course of the massive campaign. Planning for these has been underway for months and agendas are relatively fixed. I learned this belatedly. Somewhere in the mix of motives for these events, and there are certainly some strains of altruism, may be the wish to somehow assuage the collective guilt for a very long and sanguinary and hideously racist past -- and the raw brutality of a garrison police state. OK -- and redemption can occur in the context of honest admission and tangible and significant redress.

Medgar, a good friend and colleague who I knew well, would likely be the first person to disclaim sainthood. And many things -- including the Jackson Airport and a college in Brooklyn, N.Y. as well as a U.S. Naval ship -- have been named for him. I would be among the very last to deny honorable and courageous Medgar any honors of any kind. But it's very clear that any discussion of the Movement itself, and the depth of the cruel and repressive realities of Mississippi that really weren't that long ago, will very likely be handled gingerly and, if mentioned much at all, in very sanitized fashion.

Am I surprised, shattered by this omission of any meaningful invitation? Not at all. In the half century that has elapsed since the rise and climax of the Jackson Movement, I have not received one invitation to come there and speak at length. (I have given several impromptu talks when down there over the years.) In 1979, I was asked to come to Jackson, expenses paid, for a relatively small part on a panel at a large civil rights retrospective. I came, with about fifty copies of a 35 page (single spaced) paper on the Jackson Movement, and broadened my small space of time into a short but trenchant speech which, with reference to the National Office of the NAACP and the deepening shadow of the Kennedy administration back then, I concluded with a denunciation of "the subversion by the corporate liberals of New York and the self-styled "pragmatism" of those splendid scoundrels residing in Camelot on the Potomac." That drew a thundering and standing ovation from about one thousand people.

I know, personally and experientially, a great deal about what happened Movement-wise in those critical years of 1961-63 in Mississippi's capital. I'm one of the very, very few persons who does -- and one of a now tiny number who know the innards. (I was chair of the Jackson Movement's Strategy Committee.) In fact, I wrote a book -- Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism -- devoted mainly to an inside view of the Jackson Movement -- the only detailed account of the massive struggle and likely the most detailed book about any local grassroots movement of the '60s. It pulls no punches. It was very well received when it appeared in 1979 -- especially by those grassroots people in Jackson who actually participated in that crusade and/or who knew first hand what had happened. Outside of Mississippi, it was well received broadly -- drawing a large number of most positive reviews. (It was reissued late in 2011 by the University of Nebraska Press in expanded form with a new and substantial introduction by myself.)

As Jim Loewen, a sociologist and professor and writer, very familiar indeed with Mississippi recently wrote:

"Classic account . . .Jackson, Mississippi presents a vivid insider's view of the Jackson boycott movement, the demonstrations that led to mass arrests, the actions of courageous young people, and the murder of Medgar Evers and the incredible tension of his funeral march. As you would expect, given that Salter was and is a sociologist and a radical, it also contains penetrating analyses of the role of each acting group, including the national office of the NAACP, black ministers, the city government and police force, White Citizens Council, etc. And it shows the important role played by Tougaloo, some of its students and faculty members (including Prof. Salter), and its president, A. D. Beittel."

Despite the extremely repressive odds, we all -- and I emphasize all -- accomplished a great deal in the sanguinary travail of the Jackson Movement of 1962-63. That stands forever as a shining mountain.

When you're done with your work in a particular setting, you can justifiably look back for awhile, garner lessons and secure appreciation. But it's dangerous to your life's organizing mission to look back too long and too much. Time-lock can be deadly to critically needed activism. There have been many campaigns for me after Jackson -- some large, some smaller, all of them important to people of the fewest alternatives. A truly effective organizer rides over the mountains and crosses the rivers into new horizons of meaningful struggle. That's the true joy, the ultimate satisfaction, and the great and enduring lure.

(This piece is also found on the Our Thoughts section of Civil Rights Movement Veterans.)

IN THE MOUNTAINS OF EASTERN IDAHO

HUNTER GRAY (HUNTER BEAR)

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org
(much social justice material)

I have always lived and worked in the Borderlands.

See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded in Fall 2012. Photos. Material on our Native
background.)

See the new and expanded/updated edition of my very well-reviewed
"Organizer's Book" -- the inside story of the massive Jackson
Mississippi Movement, the murder of Medgar Evers, and more.
And with my new and very substantial introduction:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm