Читать книгу Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement - Rick Bowers - Страница 11

As the tension between the races simmered, Governor Coleman assumed the chairmanship of the board that would oversee the Sovereignty Commission. The 12 board members—including the powerful president of the Mississippi Senate, the speaker of the Mississippi House, and the state attorney general—would provide political cover for the agency’s hidden operations. Once the board was in place, Coleman set up a propaganda unit to wage a war of words against the NAACP. The unit would produce and distribute pro-segregation messages, ultimately compiling a package of press releases, films, speeches, and testimonials that would become known as the “Bible.”

Coleman appointed his former campaign publicity chief Hal DeCell to head up the unit. DeCell, editor of the weekly Deer Creek Pilot in the tiny delta town of Rolling Fork, had lobbied for a big public relations job with the state. He promised to repute the “vicious falsehoods” and “slanderous misrepresentation” coming from “antagonistic pressure groups,” the federal government, and the “poisoned pens” of the elite Yankee press. As public relations chief, DeCell began crafting the story line that segregation was good for both whites and blacks, and that most “Negroes” in the Magnolia State actually preferred it. He started sending pro-segregation editorials to newspapers across the country, developing a pro-segregation film, and distributing pamphlets that painted a glowing portrait of race relations in the state. DeCell escorted northern newspaper editors on tours of the Mississippi River and excursions to the tourist towns on the Gulf Coast in an effort to show that whites and blacks lived and worked in carefully controlled harmony in segregated Mississippi.

As would be expected, DeCell’s public relations package did not mention the state’s long history of maintaining white dominance over blacks, which dated to the earliest days of slavery. At that time the state established rigid “slave codes” that defined African Americans as property, dictated the conditions of their captivity, and prescribed brutal punishments for the slightest infractions. Even after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the ruling class in Mississippi—and throughout the South—retained power by establishing new laws, customs, and punishments that bore a striking resemblance to the old slave codes.

The new “black codes” restricted freedoms of speech, travel, voting, owning land, and choosing an occupation. White supremacy—the concept that white people are naturally superior to blacks—was written into law, taught in schools, praised in churches, and reinforced in the media. The laws and customs that propped up white power were commonly referred to as Jim Crow, after an old, crippled black character portrayed by white minstrel show performers. With their faces blackened by charcoal or burned cork, the minstrel showmen danced a ridiculous jig and sang a mocking song titled “Jump Jim Crow,” inadvertently putting a name to the degrading conditions that dominated the lives of African Americans.

The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission had a plan to preserve Jim Crow. Its agents were going undercover.