I never thought I'd see the day that I would see white folks as frightened, or more so, than black folks was during the civil rights movement when we was in Mississippi.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Anyone who said he wasn't afraid during the civil rights movement was either a liar or without imagination. I was scared all the time. My hands didn't shake but inside I was shaking.
The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way.
I come from a family of Mississippi sharecroppers just a few generations away from slavery, and I experienced a lot of racism growing up - you can't avoid that if you're a person of color in this country.
We've begun to put fear into those whites who think they can do anything they want to a black person and get away with it.
Growing up in Mississippi - a state that historically was a place of racial injustice, inequality and oppression - gave me the unique opportunity to experience first-hand the evolution of the civil rights movement through the eyes of my parents, grandparents, and the black elders of our community.
During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.
Nobody black had learned anything from the 'Letter from the Birmingham Jail' or from the 'I Have a Dream' speech. That was a revelation of white people.
White people scare the crap out of me.
I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.
We do not deride the fears of prospering white America. A nation of violence and private property has every reason to dread the violated and the deprived.
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