A “Recurring American Affliction”

The young civil rights lawyer from Seattle who ventured to Mississippi some 60 years ago is now 90 years of age. But Henry Aronson carries vivid memories that are salient as the Trump administration seeks to rebuild components of Jim Crow in the Deep South.

“There was no trust whatsoever,” recalls Aronson. “Not even the rudiments of common courtesy. No limits were put on conduct.” The sheriff of Dallas County, one Jim Clarke, greeted Aronson’s presence with these words: “You tell that son of a bitch if he comes into the county alive he won’t be leaving.”

Aronson drove carefully to Jackson, but still was pulled over, in a remote part of the Delta. Elsewhere in the Mississippi, three young civil rights workers were slain, the bodies not recovered for a half century and only then because of a deal with their killer.

A University of Mississippi historian, James Silver, wrote it all down in his book, Mission: The Closed Society, only to be driven out of the state. He ended up teaching at Notre Dame, bringing with him fascinating reminiscences carried forward to my years at that college.

Back then, just eight African Americans were registered to vote in Dallas County. Nowadays, the Trump administration is restoring obstacles that Black citizens have to circumnavigate to gain rights of citizenship. In addition, Trump’s GOP seeks to gerrymander the state’s lone Democratic congressman from office.

In an interview, Aronson recalls that segregation had a class system. The White Citizens’ Council were respectable, while the Klan drew “buffoons.” The buffoons used the “n” word, while town gentry wrapped their tongues around “nigra.”

At the behest of Sen. James Eastland, D-Miss., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, President Kennedy named Harold Cox to the federal bench, and Cox used the n-word in his  federal courtroom. “He had a profound disrespect for black people,” recalls Aronson. Kennedy named Cox as a sop to Eastland, paying the price of moving other judicial appointments.

Faith figured in the politics of the time. Black churches baptized the civil rights movement, and Aronson has high praise for the National Council of Churches, noting “a large number of clergy came south. But,” he adds, “the Jewish community would call me in,” nervous over its standing in a closed society.

What to make of this long ago racism? It is nearby, and a recurring American affliction. The country experienced Know Nothings in the 1830s, Klansmen in the 1860s and 1920s, McCarthyism in the 1950s, and is enduring the MAGA movement today.

This article also appears in Cascadia Advocate.