Mississippi's Civil Rights CIA and FBI

Friends of Justice Moves into Winona on Murder Case; Former Employee Accused of Multiple Murders

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:38:23 PDT

(Photo: Legendary Organizer Fannie Lou Hamer by Charmain Reading)

Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi Delta civil rights leader, was frequently the target of social injustice. The town where she was once beaten, Winona, is currently the target of a murder investigation by the Friends of Justice.

Friends of Justice launches narrative-based campaigns around unfolding cases where due process has broken down, and empower affected communities to hold public officials accountable for equal justice.

Recently, representatives moved into Winona, Miss. to work on a murder case, asserting that the state’s theory of the murder crime accused of a Winona company's former worker, Curtis Flowers, "... doesn’t fit the actual evidence, and the state manufactured phoney evidence by manipulating, badgering and bribing witnesses."

Details of the Curtis Flowers case are shared at the FOJ website in a story titled, "A brief primer in wrongful conviction: the case of Curtis Flowers."

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It wouldn't be the first time the this small town has been accused of participating in social injustices ...

WINONA IS A CITY in Montgomery County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 5,482 at the 2000 census. The name of the city comes from a Sioux word meaning "first-born daughter." It is the county seat of Montgomery County[2]. Winona is known in the local area as "The Crossroads of North Mississippi" due to its central location at the intersection of U.S. Interstate 55 and U.S. Highways 51 and 82.

It is also known in the civil rights arena as the small town where Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was jailed and beaten, after attending a voting rights conference.

The Voter Registration informational meeting had been organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Hamer, a Delta sharecropper, heard from SNCC something she'd never heard before: black people had the right to vote.

Becoming a field organizer for SNCC, Hamer was returning home from a voter training workshop in June 1963, when she and two others were taken to jail in Winona, Mississippi, and mercilessly beaten. Hamer suffered permanent damage to her kidneys. After recovering from her injuries, she traveled across the U.S. telling her story and raising more money for SNCC than any other member.

Mrs. Hamer's telling account before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey on August 22, 1964 -- of what happened when she was arrested and beaten -- stunned a nation when the speech was heard on national televsion.

(Photo, The Freedom Archives)

Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights leader, was beaten in Winona, Miss.

Hamer was attending the convention with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), formed to expand black voter registration and challenge the legitimacy of the state's all-white Democratic Party.

MFDP members arrived at the 1964 Democratic National Convention intent on unseating the official Mississippi delegation or at least getting seated with them. On August 22, 1964, Hamer appeared before the convention's credentials committee and told her story about trying to register to vote in Mississippi.

Threatened by the MFDP's presence at the convention, President Lyndon Johnson quickly preempted Hamer's televised testimony with an impromptu press conference. But later that night, Hamer had fascinating so many people around the country with her partly-told story, that it was broadcast in its entirety on all the major networks.

After speaking to the Credentials Committee, acompromise was reached that gave voting and speaking rights to two delegates from the MFDP and seated the others as honored guests. The Democrats agreed that in the future no delegation would be seated from a state where anyone was illegally denied the vote. A year later, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

After years of working to make a change for people of color, Mrs. Hamer -- born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, she was the granddaughter of a slave and the youngest of 20 children -- died penniless in Ruleville, Miss. where friends paid for the funeral.
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Hamer was a frequent target of the Sovereignty Commission. Here are several of the hundreds of files still available today in the state's digital archives, where her name is listed in the following versions:

HAMER, FANIE LOU
In this file, Mrs. Hamer's campaign fundraising is tied to the Communist Party of the U.S.A.

HAMER, FANNIE L.
Here, she is listed on the SNCC Staff Directory.

HAMER, FANNIE LOU
Here, the Sovereignty Commission sends spies to a federal courthouse hearing in Oxford, where Mrs. Hamer filed an injunction against city officials to prevent an election of taking place.

HAMER, FANNIE LOUS
Mrs. Hamer leads a boycott against schools and white businesses. AP story.

HAMER, FANNY
Photos of the Mississippi Freedom Delegation to Washington, D.C. (sans Mrs. Hamer, but she was there!)

HAMER, FANNY LOU
Mrs. Hamer tops a list of "five people colored people Mississippians vow they will kill in the register-to-vote battle."

HAMER, MRS.
A friend, Jane Stembridge, writes
a poem and letter of support for Mrs. Hamer.

This is only a small sample of the many files you will find on Mrs. Hamer by doing a search at the MDAH Digital Collections of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. Remember, these files are not indexed digitally. Names are spelled in many versions and often records are not fully indexed.

ACORN Misrepresented? No Change From the 70's -- Groups Trying to Help Miss. Blacks Spied On By Mississippi Sovereignty Commission

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:44:46 PDT

BY THE END of the 1960s and into the early 1970s, well over a dozen years after Brown v. the Board of Education followed by the murders of Rev. George Lee, Lamar Smith and then Emmett Till, violence was accelerating in Mississippi. More black people were being killed or turning up “missing” than had been in recent years.

Attempts to destroy organizations trying to stop the violence increased, too. Black Panthers, just coming into the Delta, and small volunteer groups, sometimes church run, were trying to help Mississippi’s blacks either change their conditions or flee the state.

Both the Panthers and the Box Project, the later aiding sharecroppers to physically escape plantations, were perceived much like ACORN in 2009 – their efforts at community organization and related activities often misunderstood or misrepresented.

Fear of northern events such as Watts’s burning in 1965 translated to attempts at halting the Panthers, who in 1969 were quietly trying to organize college students at Delta State University in Cleveland, 17miles southwest of Drew.

Isaac Henderson Shorter of Cleveland returned home from Detroit where he had led demonstrations, hoping to galvanize Delta State students through the Black Panther organization. The Sovereignty Commission was right on it – spying on Shorter, a Delta State student, and others who had “returned from Berkeley with a stack of Black Panther newspapers.”

For an agency two years away from winding down, the returning organizers brought new life to the Commission’s investigations; current archives show 25 files on Shorter, alone.

Here a some links to several of Shorter's files. Of course, you will find more records by visiting the digital archives hidden away at

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/

Trip out to Berkeley for Black Panther Materials

Draft board information, classifications, on Shorter and others shared with Sovereignty Commission

What's in a name? Check out these --

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:21:58 PDT

The Tallahatchie County Courthouse, site of the trial of Emmett Till's killers, seen from across the Cassidy Bayou. Photo by Susan Klopfer

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson has officially requested that the U.S. attorney general to investigate an incident in which residents of Sumner conducted a search for a burglary suspect.

The Jackson,Mississippi Clarion Ledger reports --

The suspect, William Pittman, was charged Aug. 20 with breaking and entering a home in Sumner. He was released on bond the same day.

There's no indication Pittman was injured.

The FBI has also said it’s looking into the incident.

"I have asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the vigilante type activities that occurred in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, last Thursday," Thompson announced today in a news release.

“Unauthorized people with guns, terrorizing citizens of this area has no place in civilized society.

“The fact that this community still (bears) the stains of racial tensions and is the area that Emmett Till was murdered weighs heavy on the conscience and fears of this community.”
+ + +

Well, well. What an interesting time for this to take place -- in the week coming up on the anniversary of young Till's kidnapping and lynching. It hasn't been that long ago, and it's certainly fascinating to search out some names (not yet mentioned as involved by news organizations) in the Sovereignty Commission files. Here's a few Who's Who searches to get started ...

By the way, here's the latest url for the archives digital collections, http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/

If any of this sticks, here are several names that might pop out (relatives of a possible main player)

U.S.Rep. Jamie Whitten

John W. Whitten, Jr.

And a nice picture of John Jr. at the Emmett Till trial --

Story of Neda has shades of Emmett Till and Jo Etha Collier, all civil rights martyrs

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:22:56 PDT

No funeral was allowed for Neda, the young woman shot by Iran's security forces. At the cemetery, security forces used tear gas to clear the area of demonstrators and mourners, according to CNN reports. A witness said riot police and Basij militia were at the scene, but the confrontations with people in the crowd involved Iran's militia.

In this Youtube Video, Neda's financee tells the harrowing story of the woman's death. She was hot and tired and got out of the car to get some rest. She was not in an areas where theyre had been any clashes, he says.

She was killed by the forces of Basij and the killer was seen by witnesses. "If that person was a police member, according to the laws of our country, he would have been wearing a uniform, and he was not."

No funeral was allowed because the government knew who shot her, her finance continues. "This is why they would not allow any funeral or services for her."

Links: Caspian Makan Neda Basij iran elections tehran elections mousavi ahmadinejad fiance iranian woman, iran elections tehran elections mousavi ahmadinejad fiance iranian woman, Caspian Makan Neda Basij iran elections tehran elections mousavi ahmadinejad fiance iranian woman

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This week, I've begun blogging the stories of Emmett Till and five other Mississippi civil rights martyrs. The blog book is free and available at http://emmett-till.org and http://whokilledemmetttill.com so please come by, read and comment.

Included are accounts of Cleve McDowell, Jo Etha Collier, Adlena Hamlett, Birdia Keglar and Joe Pullen. All have sovereignty commission files.

You are invited to leave your comments at the Till book blog to become part of the blog book.

It is sad and fascinating that two young people, Emmett Till and, years later, Jo Etha Collier were killed in the civil rights movement; both events becoming key to the movement. Like Neda, their names will be remembered.

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Sovereignty Commission Searches:

Cleve McDowell attempts to quell violence after Jo Etha Collier is murdered

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd01/005668.png&otherstuff=1|75|0|23|1|1|1|5513|

Bertha Mae Carter and McDowell lead march after Collier killed

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd08/059690.png&otherstuff=8|20|2|82|4|1|1|58889|

MBURN: Mississippi Patrolman Dies

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:02:41 PDT

Casket holding the deceased mother of James Chaney, one of three civil rights workers murdered in Meridian, Mississippi in the summer of 1964. The FBI file's name for the case is MBURN. (photo, Susan Klopfer)

Harry J. Wiggs,73, of Philadelphia,Mississippi died Thursday, July 23, 2009, at Neshoba County General Hospital. He was born and reared in Decatur, and had made his home in Philadelphia since 1963. He retired from the Mississippi Highway Patrol in 1990.

Wiggs was one of the two Mississippi Highway Patrol officers reported by some sources as having been involved in the conspiracy to murder civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerne, The Meridian Star reported.

"These sources have concluded that although the two highway patrol officers abandoned the plot shortly before the murders, they did nothing to stop them," the Star's reporter stated.

General Link to archives

Wiggs/ Mississippi Sovereignty Commission

Link 1
Link 2

Book Signing on Dr. T. R. M. Howard; author, Linda Royster Beito

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:30:30 PDT

Linda Royster Beito will appear for an author book signing and talk on the life of Mound Bayou's Dr. T.R.M. Howard: Mentor of Medgar Ever and Fannie Lou Hamer. David Beito is the book's co-author.

Time and Location: Friday, July 10, 6:00 p.m., Kemetic Institute, Mound Bayou, Historic Hwy 61, Across from the John F. Kennedy Memorial High School. For more information, call 205-292-2902.

For more photos on Howard's life, see here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=2346376&id=27435697

* * *

The Sovereignty Commission kept plenty of files on Dr. Howard.

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/

Check out

HOWARD, T. M.
HOWARD, T. R. M.
HOWARD, T. R.
HOWARD, T. R.M
HOWARD, T. R.M

Here's one to start --police arrest Dr. Howard

Location: Book Signing in Mound Bayou (July 10, 2009)

Good Ol' White Citizens Councils Still Operating in Mississippi (and Elsewhere)

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:12:47 PDT

Mississippi Senator Belongs to Uptown Klan (White Citizens Councils, Now Called Council of Conservative Citizens -- Same Folks, Same Message)

Last weekend, Sen. Lydia Chassaniol (R-Winona) was the keynote speaker at the annual convention of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization that has been classified as a white separatist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and described as having “a thinly-veiled white supremacist agenda” by The New York Times. On the CCC web site, you can buy a “white pride” T-shirt; their platform praises America’s “European” heritage and condemns “mixture of the races”; a previous incarnation of their web site described African Americans as “a retrograde species of humanity”; and so forth. The organization’s agenda is fairly transparent.

Sen. Chassaniol has refused to disavow the organization, praising it as a group of “lone wolves crying in the wilderness” during her keynote and stating that its presence “gives [her] hope.” When she was later asked about her membership in the group, she replied that “a person’s membership in any organization is a private matter.”

Why should we care?

More Reading

Link to Mississippi Council of Conservative Citizens
http://msccc.wordpress.com/about/

Trent Lott was a member ..
http://www.anusha.com/lottties.htm

And of course, Mississippi's Governor, soon to be Republican Presidential Hopeful, Haley Barbour, hangs with this group, too ..

From Sovereignty Commission Files ...

Search on Robert "Tut" Patterson, and Robert Patterson, founder of this group, from Indianola.
http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/

Civil Rights Lawyer William Kunstler Liked to Shake Up Mississippi

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:55:56 PST

Attorney Kunstler, Wickipedia

Daughters of the late civil rights attorney, William Kunstler, Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler, have recently completed a documentary about their father entitled William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe which will have its world premiere screening as part of the Documentary Competition of the upcoming 2009 Sundance Film Festival in January.

Mississippi's Sovereignty Commission had great interest in Kunstler, who fought for civil righs with Dr. King., and judging by the hundreds of files still available to peruse, the civil rights lawyer loved stirring it up Mississippi. Here are several:

Kunstler name makes it on Senator Eastland's "index of names"

Kunstler helped Fannie Lou Hamer open voting rights in Sunflower County

Lawyer for Freedom Democrats -- editorial written by the Sovereignty Commission for the Jackson Daily News

A Kunstler "spotting" by Sovereignty Commission spy Tom Scarbrough is reported to the Jackson office

Kunstler defends a Freedom Rider in Biloxi

Sending a "Peace Corps of lawyers" into Mississippi

Warning to the governor -- "Expect Anything" -- People's Coalition For Peace and Justice Coming to Jackson

Report Biased Judge Harold Cox in Kunstler case before Federal Court

Transcript -- State of Mississippi vs. Henry J. Thomas

Be sure to check all versions of Kunstler's name -- i.e. "Kuntsler" in the files

"Kuntsler" and the RNA

Remembering Martin Luther King -- in Mississippi

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:46:07 PST

by Susan Klopfer

Mississippi was one of the most potentially deadly spots for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to appear during the civil rights years, yet he often did so – and not without tremendous personal risk.

Tougaloo College sociology professor, Hunter Bear, (Hunter Gray/Dr. John R Salter, Jr.) left his teaching job, was accused of being a Communist, and almost his life in the mid 1960s for his civil rights activities; he confirms the pressure put on King whenver he came into Mississippi.

Hunter Bear remembers telephoning King and asking him to come to Jackson in June of 1963 shortly after Medgar Evers was killed in front of his home. The state’s well-known NAACP leader’s wife and children were waiting for him to leave his car and come inside the house, after a late night planning meeting at his church.

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Some MLK links in Sovereignty Commission files

Communist/Highlander Folk School

Charges of Communism in Laurel

Investigating King Meetings in the Delta
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“The rapidly growing protest demonstrations were being bloodily suppressed and I asked him to come to Jackson for Medgar's funeral on June 15. He readily agreed to do so. We picked him up and several key staff of his – Ralph Abernathy, Wyatt Walker and others – at the police-drenched Jackson airport.

“It was already very hot and the temperature was to go, that day, to 102 super-humid degrees. Martin King and Dr Abernathy rode in my car – along with Bill Kunstler – and the others were brought by Ed King (a Mississippi civil rights activist and Tougaloo chaplain, not related to Martin Luther King).

The retired sociologist remembers King’s calmness in the face of “..a very grudging police escort from the city's all-White police department. The Jackson setting could not have been more lethally dangerous for all of us – but Dr. King visited easily and casually with me, and I with him, as we traveled the very dangerous several miles to the Negro Masonic Temple on Lynch Street.”
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Salter"s", Evers and Threats

Tougalou Informant

Salter Under FBI Surveillance
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Evers’ funeral was huge – “several thousand people, inside and out” – and afterwards, “…six thousand of us marched the two miles or so from the Temple to the Collins Funeral Home on Farish Street. It was the first "legal" civil rights demonstration in Mississippi's hate-filled, sanguinary history.”

King came into Mississippi early on and was there during some of the state's most critical times. In 1966, a state chapter of the Deacons of Defense, a black group concerned with protection of the lives of African Americans, worried for King’s safety and provided him with armed security during events in Jackson and McComb, and for the James Meredith March held that summer.

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More King Links

Spying ...

List of Civil Rights Disorders in Mississippi (probably SNCC or COFO)
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It was a good call by the Deacons, since Meredith was shot June 6 near Hernando, a day before the primary election, while walking from Memphis to Jackson to encourage black people to register and vote.

Meredith, four years earlier the first black student to enroll and attend the University of Mississippi, undertook his 220-mile March Against Fear to challenge white supremacy and inspire black Mississippians to vote. This was an unusual move for Meredith, who was home from his first year at Columbia University’s law school; he rarely involved himself publicly in civil rights demonstrations.

After Meredith was wounded, and taken to a Memphis hospital, King and other civil rights leaders continued the protest. The march moved on southward through the Delta to Belzoni, where Rev. George Lee had been violently killed by a shotgun blast to his face eleven years earlier, and on through several other small cotton towns.

Then King split off and left for Philadelphia to hold a service on the anniversary of the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner; King and others were attacked with clubs while police and Justice Department observers and FBI agents looked on, reported civil rights marchers who were also beaten.
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Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner

Autopsies
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Meanwhile in Canton, a small town north of Jackson, officials refused to allow marchers to pitch tents on the town's black school ground. The crowd numbered about 3,500 people and was faced off by sixty-one state troopers lined up in full battle gear, carrying a mass of weapons. The troopers fired tear gas into the crowd and then waded in with guns and nightsticks.

One journalist on the scene observed, "They came stomping in behind the gas, gun-butting and kicking the men, women, and children."

"This is the very state patrol that President Johnson said today would protect us. Anyone who will use gas bombs on women and children can't and won't protect anybody," Rev. King told reporters.

The riot in Canton would equal in violence and bloodshed the assault on Selma, Alabama marchers one year earlier. After Selma President Lyndon Johnson had federalized the National Guard to protect the demonstrators marching to Montgomery, but his administration's response to Canton was different. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach explained to reporters he “regretted” the use of tear gas against the marchers, for “it always makes the situation more difficult.”

But Katzenbach refused to condemn the police action and asserted the whole matter was under investigation.

Meredith’s March ended quietly as Dr. King rejoined marchers and led a group to Tougaloo College, where 9,000 supporters attended a mass rally. On Sunday, June 26, the march came to close at the capital grounds in Jackson as nearly 15,000 people drew together to hear the civil rights leader declare the march and rally to go down in history "as the greatest demonstration for freedom ever held in the state of Mississippi."

Just four days after the Meredith incident, Klansmen had tried to lure King back into Mississippi by kidnapping and murdering a black farmer. Members of an Adams County White Knights cell known as the Cottonmouth Moccasin gang murdered Ben Chester White, described by Mississippi journalist Jerry Mitchell as "a quiet man with a shiny gold tooth, a humble man who could hardly read but could still quote long passages from the Bible."

White was neither a civil rights worker nor was he registered to vote.

Believing they could lure Rev. King to Natchez, the cell members on June 10 shot White who had worked most of his life as a caretaker on a Natchez plantation and had no involvement in civil rights work. (FBI agents arrested Ernest Fuller, Ernest Avants and James Jones four days later. FBI documents indicated that O'Dell Adams, the Adams Sheriff who led the local investigation of the White murder, was also a Klansmen.)

Mississippi could not let go of its hate and harassment of the civil rights leader. And its unique State Sovereignty Commission, opened in 1956 in reaction to federal enforcement of the US Supreme Court ruling on integrating schools, Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the murder of Emmett Till (1955), often used former FBI agents to spy on and harass Dr. King.

After the Sovereignty Commission was shut down, state lawmakers ordered the files sealed until 2027 (50 years later). In 1989, a federal judge ordered the records opened, with some exceptions for still-living people but legal challenges delayed the records' availability to the public until March 1998.

Still more records were released in 2002. It would turn out that over twenty years the agency amassed files on 87,000 people making it the largest state-level spying effort in the nation's history, though some other states had lesser efforts of the same sort.

Hundreds of files on King alone confirm the state’s dedication to spying on and harassing him. Perhaps the most damaging Sovereignty Commission files will never see the light of day; records that were either destroyed, hidden, moved to other state offices or simply never released. But here is one small example of Sovereignty Commission confirming the early-on targeting of King:

Back on September 18, 1959, former FBI agent Zack J. Van Landingham, a Sovereignty Commission investigator, officially reported that A. J. Simmons, a white Citizens Councils administrator, had contacted him about an upcoming Southern Christian Ministers Conference of Mississippi that included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. along with other speakers from around the country.

Simmons wanted "these speakers coming here from out of the state ... harassed as much as possible” and specifically wanted Dr. King "arrested by the police, taken down, fingerprinted and photographed ... [and] had already conferred with Chief of Detectives Pierce about such procedures."

Van Landingham reported he spoke with Sam Ivy, director of the Bureau of Identification and that "Arrangements were made whereby we could use the recording instrument of the Mississippi Highway Patrol.... I will take some steps to see what pressure can be brought to bear on any of [the speakers] and possibly get the meeting cancelled."

Mississippi government was not alone in their targeting of King who also was a major focus of the FBI’s COINTELPRO secret operation that also targeted the Mississippi Freedom Democrats, a group led by activists Fannie Lou Hamer and Aaron Henry that ultimately questioned the seating of Mississippi’s all-white delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1964.

Ironically, most of the Sovereignty Commission’s agents had ties to the FBI as well as other intelligence agencies, and as records show, maintained those relationships when going to work for Mississippi. Clearly they were in good position to help out the federal government in its continued, vicious attack on Rev. Martin Luther King.

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MLK "I Have a Dream"

*****

Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler have recently completed a documentary about their father entitled William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe which will have its world premiere screening as part of the Documentary Competition of the upcoming 2009 Sundance Film Festival in January.

The Sovereignty Commission had great interest in Kunstler, who fought for civil righs with Dr. King., hundreds of files are still available to peruse. Here are several:

Senator Eastland's "index of names"

Kunstler helped Fannie Lou Hamer open voting rights in Sunflower County

Lawyer for Freedom Democrats -- editorial written by the Sovereignty Commission for the Jackson Daily News

Searching for Information on John D. Sullivan

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:33:00 PST

Cold weather is great for reading books. And I've been holed up for the past week doing just that while trying to learn more about John D. Sullivan, a Vicksburg, Miss. private detective and former FBI agent, who "committed suicide" Oct. 23, 1966, three years after the assassination of JFK.

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El tiempo frío es grande para los libros de la lectura. Y para la última semana intenta aprender más sobre Juan D. Sullivan, un Vicksburg, Mississippi detective privado y agente anterior de FBI, que “suicidio confiado” Oct. 23, 1966, tres años después del asesinato de JFK.Por coincidencia, el Sr. Sullivan fue un empleado de Guy Banister de Nueva Orleans y Banister fue un empleado de FBI
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Sullivan, who often performed contract work for the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound following a hunting accident -- shooting himself in the groin with a rifle and then bleeding to death(no kidding).

By coincidence, Mr. Sullivan had been working under contract for Guy Banister of New Orleans.

For those who do not recall Banister, this former FBI agent in 1963 began working for Mafia criminal defense lawyer G. Wray Gill and Gill's client, Carlos Marcello.

Marcello was the New Orleans-based Godfather of the American Mafia Family whose operations were centered in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas.

Bannister's involvement with Marcello centered on attempts to block Marcello's deportation, ordered by Robert F. Kennedy.

"Upon being named Attorney General by his brother, RFK had his agents arrest Carlos Marcello and deport the Godfather to the country of his alleged birth, Guatemala. Literally dumped into the jungles of South America, Marcello somehow fought his way out of this dilemma, possibly with the help of pilot David Ferrie, and soon returned to the United States. Once back home in the swamps of Louisiana, the Godfather reportedly vowed Vengeance against the Kennedys, uttering the following Sicilian curse: "LIVARSI NA PIETRA DI LA SCARPA!" (rough translation: "Take the stone from my shoe!")."

Did Sullivan know too much? Some who were close to the Mississippian believe this is so.

Anyone out there with information on Sullivan? Pictures?

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Early Sov Comm report on Clarksdale filed by Zack J. VanLandingham

Landingham was a retired FBI agent.

Sullivan running for Cohoma County Sheriff

Sullivan had frequent contact with U.S. Senator James O. Eastland

Soon after the Kennedy assassination, Sullivan suggested the Sovereignty Commission hire Guy Bannister [sic] to beef up the commission's work.

When Sullivan died, the Sovereignty Commission wanted his records ...

Oops, Mrs. Sullivan "burned" his files ...

Spying on the Mennonites for the state's General Legislative Investigative Committee

Who Planned JFK's Assassination?

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:00:42 PST

In his fascinating book on the JFK assassination, Michael Collins Piper writes in Final Judgment that Carlos Marcello "has become a favorite target for JFK assassination researchers who like to claim that 'The Mafia Killed JFK'."

But Piper asserts that Marcello was only "one cog" in the Meyer Lansky Syndicate. "[Marcello's] key placement in New Orleans -- scene of much of the pre-assassination planning -- makes him the perfect fall guy...There's a lot more to the Marcello story that meets the eye."
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Here's an interesting Marcello link in the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission Files.

*Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy

Who Killed President John F. Kennedy? Civil Rights Activists Blamed Segregationists

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:50:04 PST

o

Who killed President John F. Kennedy? In Mississippi, members of the Jackson Movement, an organization constantly spied on by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, put out a report after the death of JFK listing segregationists and "Communist Hate Team" as part of the "long list of murderers."

Here is a link to the Commission's record -- a copy of the Jackson Movement Report ...

The Jackson Movement also wrote of the murder of Medgar Evers, Mississippi's first NAACP Field Secretary. Sovereignty Commission spies frequently spied on and harassed Evers.

In this Sovereignty Commission 1959 record, agent Zack Van Landingham informs his boss on the current activities of Evers and others.

Here is a link to the above picture/flyer written about President Kennedy the San Diego Patriotic Society (blaming communists and the ACLU for Kennedy's murder.) Or click directly on the picture to bring up the record.

JFK. Parkland. Trauma Room One.

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:40:37 PST

Chief anesthesiologist for 33 years at Parkland Hospital, M. T. Jenkins, M.D., led the medical efforts to revive President John F. Kennedy. Jenkins' daughter, Christie Jenkins, shares the story told by her father -- a version that contradicts that of Dr. Charles Crenshaw, a gunshot expert, also a member of the treatment team on that fateful day, Nov. 22, 1963.

Crenshaw tells his own version in Trauma Room One: The JFK Medical Coverup Exposed

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Ready to look at the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission's Kennedy records?

Go to the Mississippi Sovereignty Site and search for
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald
Also John F., John, Jack
Also Jacquie and Jacqueline

Here is one record, under Jack Kennedy, to get started. A minister has written to the Sovereignty Commission complaining about the president.

The letter, written to director Erle Johnston, is dated Nov. 21, 1963

JFK Assassination Tour: Where Lee Harvey Oswald Was Shot By Jack Ruby

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:12:00 PST

Where the trail ends?

Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed as he walked through the area behind the brown doors,across the street.Some believe Jack Ruby was acting strictly out of anger, something for which Ruby was known. Further, Ruby had left his small dogs waiting for him in his car -- pets he always took to work. Would he have brought the dogs with him if he knew he would be arrested?

But what about Ruby' documented Chicago mob affiliations?

That's one of many topics discussed by retired FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen in To Kill A President: Finally---An Ex-FBI Agent rips aside the veil of secrecy that killed JFK and in FBI Secrets: An Agents Expose

The author served in the US Navy and holds a BA from Ohio State. Swearingen received the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice President's Award for Courage, Commitment, Unswerving Faith and United Effort to overcome racism.
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Search Sovereignty Commission files for Jack Ruby files here
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Meanwhile, here's a Sovereignty Commission link on the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

JFK Assassination Conference: Where Oswald Questioned

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:32:46 PST

Old City Hall where Oswald was questioned on the third floor.
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Was Oswald ever in Mississippi?

Letter to the Sovereignty Commission by University of Mississippi professor

Follow up memo to FBI

Both documents were found in the Mary Ferrell archives.

JFK Assassination Tour: Following the Trail?

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:14:13 PST

Location and spot where this photo of Lee Harvey Oswald with his rifle; the photograph was purportedly taken by Marina Oswald of her husband and appeared on cover of LIFE Magazine Feb. 21,1964.
This spot was another Dallas residence for the Oswald family.
But where did the other shooters come from? Chicago? France?
And is this photo for real or is it just another attempt to manufacture the Oswald story?

Was there a connection between Oswald and Jack Ruby? Here's an article posted in the Sovereignty Commission files that explores this question.

A Dallas Apartment Where Oswalds Once Lived

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 12:22:10 PST

The Texas Theatre

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:05:46 PST

Theatre where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested within the hour of the shooting of JFK. Oswald's eye- witnessed killing of Officer Tippit took place about one mile away from the Texas Theatre, about 30 minutes before he was arrested.

JFKConference: Taking a Tour of Landmarks

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:35:06 PST

The Dallas rooming house where Lee Harvey Oswald lived.

What was the extent of the CIA's involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald? Why was Oswald's file tampered with before the assassination of John F. Kennedy? And why did significant documents from that file mysteriously disappear?

Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth Anout the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK

Legacy of Secrecy: New Info RFK, JFK, MLK

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:03:39 PST

Blogging from the JFK Lancer annual meeting: Author Lamar Waldron is talking about links to JFK and RFK assassinations to mobster Carlos Marcello. Says new documents to be linked to www.maryferrell.org and are on his book site at legacyofsecret.com.

Found that FBI targeted more than a dozen of Marcello associates and family members but Marcello's name is never mentioned in the Warren Commission report.

Waldron has now found evidence of Marcello involvement in MLK using Joseph Peltier of Quinton, Georgia. James Earl Ray went to Atlanta before leaving the country. Why? To ask for Peltier's help, Waldron says.

All that secrecy of 1963 and JFK assassination boomeranged against MLK.

Waldron wants all assassination records made open now. "We need hearings on the JFK Act."

Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination

Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK

Day 3 JFK Conference: RFK Assassination

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:40:14 PST

Larry Hancock, key JFK researcher and author of "Someone Would Have Talked" says in Robert Kennedy's murder, conspiracy aspects are very possible but in his research found no MKULTRA contacts. Hancock recently published a study of the RFK assassination titled "Incomplete Justice" in conjunction with the Mary Ferrell Foundation.

Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History

Jim Marrs, author of Crossfire speaks on JFK Assassination

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:29:18 PST

Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy

JFK remembered: Dallas Nov. 22, 2008

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:42:12 PST

Why JFK on a Mississippi Sovereignty Commission page? In these files are records on John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Allen Dulles, J. Edgar Hoover, Lee Harvey Oswald, Guy Bannister, John D. Sullivan, James Eastland, and others.

Take a look for yourself at http://mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents/er/sovcom

JFK: The grassy knoll

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:50:58 PST

The Overpass

susanklopfer@susanklopfer.com (Susan) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:26:46 PST

Where did the shots come from and where did they hit? How many shots were fired?