TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1411965 THE MICHIGAN DAILY PAGE SEVEN- i TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1965 THE I~IICHIGAN DAILY PAGE ~EVE1~: a aa ..r w.. a.r ua 7, Belzoni, Mississipp i: Abstract of Closed Society By THOMAS R. COPI Special To The Daily BELZONI, Mississippi -- Even though it's been over a year since the passage of the federal civil rights bill of 1964, equality under the law and first class citi- zenship are still distant dreams for the Negro population of this small (pop. 4200) Southern town. Integration is a seldom-used' and often misunderstood word here, where all public accommoda- tions are divided into the in- evitable "white" and "colored" sections and two "separate but equal" school systems are main- tained, For example, Belzoni's Mayor Henry-Ganz says that the 50-bed Belzoni hospital is "integrated." But Ganz's definition of "inte- grated" doesn't necessarily jibe with that of a Belzoni Negro who has to wait to be treated at the hospital while a white patient is cared for, even though the Negro was there first. And whose defini- tion does a Belzoni doctor use when he leaves a partially-treated Negro in order to look after a white patient who has just come in? It seems to be largely a matter of one's point of view. Ganz, for instance, feels that "race-mixing is repugnant to both white and colored." In defense of segrega- tion, he says "we have our cus- toms here that have been estab- lished for God knows how many years." SUPPOSEDLY, a Negro can go into almost any store in Belzoni and be waited on. But if he fails to address the white proprietor as "sir," chances are he'll have to go elsewhere for what he wants until he can remember his "place." The restaurants, of course, are private. (The only thing one has to be a member of to be served, though, is the white race.) Even the movie theater is a "private club." As Mayor Ganz explains it, "Ne- groes buy 'club' tickets for the balcony and whites buy 'club' tickets for the main floor" The movie theater "clubs" were start- ed after local Negroes attempted to integrate the theater last year. In the year preceding the pas- sage of the 1965 voting rights bill, 13 Humphrys County Negroes came into Belzoni, the county seat, to register to vote. For nine years before that there were no Negroes registered in the county. Rev. George Lee was the last Negro to be registered prior to 1964 in "the youngest and one of the most progressive counties in Mississippi." He was found In a ditch in 1955-shot through the back, supposedly for refusing to remove his name from the regis- tration list and for working in a voter registration movement. There was no investigation of his murder. P. B. Hgdon, Humphrys county clerk and voting registrar, says "qualified Negroes could register here. I've turned down white i- lite ates just as soon as Negro illiterates." IF ONE IS to believe Higdon, the school system in Belzoni must be very poor, since it apparently graduates only illiterates. Yet Mayor Ganz says the consolidated school system in Humphrys county is very much up to date. Rural ''little red schoolhouses," as Ganz calls them, send their graduates to one of the two mod- ern public high schools in Bel- zoni. "Belzoni High School is for whites, and the, colored kids use McNair High School," Ganz says. He maintains that school inte- gration is foreign to the people in the South-it could create more harm than good." The McNair school is named for the Negro superintendent of the Negro school system. McNair also owns a large plantation and sev- eral of the better Negro homes in Belzoni. A popular story in Bel- zoni says that whites call him "superintendent McNair" to avoid calling him "Mister." The teachers in the Negro schools are all Negroes, and most of them are from the Belzoni area. According to some of their students, the teachers never say anything about Negro history, seg- regation, integration or the civil rights movement. When asked about these "taboo" subjects, the teachers decline to answer and simply change the subject. SEVERAL years ago there was a single public swimming pool in Belzoni. Then, as Ganz puts it, "believing in integration, the people decided that the Negroes should have a pool too." So the city built a pool for Negroes. When asked if the two pools are "equal," Ganz readily replies that "they're certainly not-the 'colored' pool is much nicer." The Belzoni police force consists of eight men-six white and twi, Negro, although neither of the Negroes carries agun. Police chief M. L. Nichols says he'll "arrest a white person just as soon as a Negro if a law is broken." Nichols also says his men only have,juris- diction inside the city limits. But the two police cars seem to find the time to patrol the Negro ghetto, just across the city line, quite regularly. A Negro youth who is a resi- dent of the Negro ghetto which Belzonians have dubbed "Hog- town" claims he was threatened by a Belzoni policeman last year for growing a beard. It seems one of the civil rights workers in Belzon had a beard, and for the Negro to wear one was apparently taken as a sign of rebellion. " Also, it is a common occdrence "I OWN MY OWN HOME, but damn the house-I'm getting out of here before I get killed," says this Belzoni resident. Neverthe- less, he did try to register to votet and, though he was refused, says he'll try again. THESE TWINS, unused to seeing white people visit their farm home near Belzoni, warily eye the integrated Movement group which has come to discuss, voter registration and the Belzoni Freedom School with their parents. THE WOMAN talking with a Movement worker is nearly 70 years old. She has never voted in any election and now does not at- tempt to register because she thinks she is "too old." She was not aware that there is no upper age limit on voting. MAYOR GANZ for the car which belongs to the Belzonicivil rights workers to be stopped by the police for no ap- parent reason and all its passen- gers searched and questioned. HUMPHRYS IS an agricultural county, and Belzoni, as the county seat and largest city in the county, is an agriculturally-oriented city. In ifact, fewer than 400 people are employed by Belzoni's various light industries. The city is in "the heart of the Delta," and the main crop of the surrounding area is, of course, cotton. The Negroes who do not own their own farms work for the plantation owners picking and chopping cotton. For this back- breaking work they receive about three dollars per 10-hour day. But the cotton-picking season lasts for only six to eight weeks and for the remainder of the year there is no work for the cotton- pickers. As, one Belzoni Negro says, "there just ain't nothing to do here. And when there ain't no work I just got to go without." One of the Movement workers, a local Negro, says, "The people have to chop cotton or they'll starve. They can't 'strike' for higher wages because they have to eat." BELZONI NEGROES - most of whom are unemployed simply ;be- cause there is no work--are kept within the ghetto by fear of vio- lence from the white-controlled "outside" and simply because they do not have the means to leave. Those few Negroes who do not' depend directly on agriculture for their livelihood : find themselves constantly under the thumb of the white - controlled economic power structure. A middle-aged Negro woman who has worked as a cleaning lady for whites since she was 12 fears that if she participates in the Freedom Movement there will be no more work for her. She says, however, that she's "not afraid," although "there's no telling what the white folks will do now." An elderly Negro man who works as a custodian at McNair High School says that he's afraid to io down to register to vote be- cause he's sure such a move would cost him his job "and everything else." He feels that the only solu- tion to the problem of segregation in Mississippi is enforcement of the laws by federal marshals. But a suggestion like this brings to mind the statement of a CHIEF NICHOLS Mississippi University s t u d e n t quoted in James Silver's "Missis- sippi: The Closed Society." The student said "we hate violence, but we are determined to keep our way of life. Nobody can take it away from us, and I would die for it. I expect there'll have to be an occupation before there'll be in- tegration in Mississippi. . . It would probably be the most tragic thing that could happen to our beloved state. But afterward, when the troops leave, . .. every- thing would be just like before, only the poor Nigras would lose all the friendship and goodwill they had." IN BELZONI, shop-keepers buy- ing the same goods from the same dealers as white merchants us- ually pay more. In this way their margin of profit is kept small and they, too, are kept in "their place." When the proprietor of the Ne- gro grocery store in Hogtownx tried to register to vote earlier this summer, she was told that she had failed the test, but not where she had made her mistake. As- it turns out, her mistake may have been in going down to reg- ister at all. Shortly afterward she was fined $365.71 for selling beer without a license. She had been selling beer for years with just a city license, but now, it seems, she must also have a county license. Also, she was told that if she didn't get the civil rights workers to leave Bel- zoni, she would be run out of bus- 'iness. The grocery wholesaler she used to trade with has "gone into an- other business," and the other wholesaler in Belzoni is "with them," thereby compounding her troubles. Her dwindling grocery stock barely half-fills the shelves of her store, and she doesn't know what she'll do when it's gone. EVEN TO the casual observer of the Belzoni scene, it is obvious that most of the Negroes exist in living conditions far inferior to the whites of the area. This is a result of their low, shaky eco- nomic status and a network of laws and ordinances which serve to make their plight even more helpless. Hogtown, the worst of the Ne- gro neighborhoods, lies just across the city line from Belzoni proper. Since it is legally outside of the city, it cannot receive the serv- ices of the fire department. Also, none of the streets in Hogtown are paved, and trash and gar- bage often collect in the deep ruts in the dirt roads that serve the area. There are practically no sew- age systems and practically no indoor plumbing in Hogtown. Most of the people get their water from outdoor "community" faucets. The city cannot provide the needed public services because Hogtown is not inside the city. And a recently-drawn-up annexa- tion code prevents an area like Hogtown from becoming part of the city by stating that all sub- divisions to be annexed into the city must already have such things as a sewer system and naved streets. So the people of Hog- town live in unbelievable slum conditions which they are unable an equal standing with the white neighborhoods is now pending in federal district court. The Move- ment workers, who asked for the injunction, feel that perhaps the federal government can force the city to give Negroes equal facili- ties. Mayor Ganz doesn't feel such an injunction will be granted, but he is nevertheless concerned over the possibility that it might. He feels the injunction would be un- just, especially since Belzoni was refused Accelerated Federal Works project funds several years ago, allegedly because of its racial poli- cies. The project for which the fed- eral funds were requested would have greatly expanded Belzoni's city water system. The city gets its water from two deep wells through two large storage tanks, the second of which was built solely with city funds when the. federal aid was refused. Ganz blames the Movement for the re- fusal of the federal government to come to the city's aid. THE DIFFICULT situation of the Belzoni Negroes and the ap- parent lack of any remedy for it lead to tremendous apathy on the part of Negro Belzonans, and this is one of the major uroblems the civil rights Movement faces in the area. Although -most of the Negroes say that they are not afraid, fear plays a very real part in the every- day lives of these people. For some there is the fear of physical harm that can come so easily to Negro Mississippians. Even Mayor Ganz, who has to be classified as a racial moderate in Missi sippi's white su- premacist society, 'acknowledges the possibility of harm coming to Negroes who speak up for their rights: "My biggest fear now is that someone will be victimized by the 'rednecks' who feel they are only a little better than the Ne- groes and must preserve what status they do have," he says. According to Ganz, the Ku Klux Klan does not operate in Hum- phrys County, and the Citizens' Council, although it has a chap- ter in Belzoni, is a dormant if not dead organization in the area. BUT THE REAL FEAR of the Negroes here is that they will lose what small economic status they do have if they participate in the Movement. For although real fi- nancial security is unknown to most Negroes here, they do not want to jeopardize what they do have, especially when they can see nothing better coming as a result. This is why many Belzoni Ne- groes feel that food, clothing and money from the outside will help them. Such things would suppos- edly make them less dependent on Ithe white - controlled economic power structure and more free to work for their civil rights. Ac- cording to one woman, "outside help is good, but there has to be a better distribution system for the goods that do come here. The 'grab' system just doesn't work, and actually serves to divide the community." One of. the civil rights workers in Belzoni, a member of the. Southern Christian Leadership Conference, disagrees. He feels that "the people in Belzoni ex- pect something for nothing from the Movement. There's nothing for these people to do but beg- it takes promises to get them to participate in the Movement pro- grams. What we have to do is make them come down to the Movement because they under- stand the situation and then want to come down." HE SAYS he "doesn't think it's right to give the Negro things to make him work for his own rights. It won't work. If you promise him food and clothing tomorrow, he'll come to the Freedom School-un- til tomorrow." This Negro civil rights worker who quit his job as a salesman in Chicago in order to "work for Freedom" also maintains that some of the other civil rights workers aren't well enough ac- quainted with the Belzoni-Missis- sippi situation to know exactly what is needed. He says they come in and want to do things like go on voter registration forays into the outlying areas of the county without knowing how dangerous such projects can be. And the lo- cal Negroes who are involved in the Movement usually go along rather than disagree with the "outsiders. He explains that the Belzoni Negroes can expect no help or cooperation in any way from local whites who, "while they are not actively hostile toward the Move- ment, are certainly against the Negroes voting - simply because they're against Negroes." Mayor Ganz admits he is not opposed to the operation of a Free- dom School here and that he thinks similar schools should be set up for the poor whites. The part of the Movement he does oppose, he says, is "the white peopleiving right there with the niggers." SOME of the local Negroes who were opposed to the Movement at first because they feared that it would cause trouble in the community, have been won over to the side of the Movement aft- er witnessing its activities. The civil rights workers were responsible for having "school zone" signs put up on the high- way that the Negro children have to cross on their way to school, and they instituted a clean-up program to make Hogtown more livable. They also had street lights installed. Their voter registration drive has resulted in many Hum- phrys County Negroes registering to vote, especially since the pass- age of the voting rights bill this year.' And most of the Negroes in Belzoni feel that if they are able to vote, they will finally be able to change their situation. Even though most of them are unable to explain how the vote would help, they are sure it will. But the Freedom school is the Movement's main selling point in Belzoni. Classes for pre-schoolers, tutorials for students and reading and political action study classes for adults make up the program. It has gotten a "good" respopse,- according to one of the "outside" Movement workers. THE MAIN . concern of the Movement workers is that when; they leave to return to college and the Freedom school closes for lack of personnel, the Belzoni and Humphrys county Negroes will lose whatever feeling of unity they gained through the school. The SCLC worker says the SCLC will provide many of the needed school supplies for the Belzoni Freedom School as long' as there is enough personnel there to make use of them. A major project of the "out- side" Movement workers is, then, to train enough local Negroes so they will be able to maintain what cohesiveness within the Negro community has been built over the summer. But this is very' difficult, because many of the people who reluctantly participate' in the Movement gain the courage to do so from the presence of the "out- siders? And when the "outsiders" leave, these people drift away from the Movement. THIS IS why white Mississip- pians very often don't take the civil rights Movement and the "summer projects" seriously - they know that once the "out- siders" leave, the situation will return to "normal." So the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, under whose banner most of the civil rights organizations have rallied this year, is fighting a severe uphill, battle in Belzoni. If solutions to the problems of the Belzoni Ne- groes are to be found, the MFDP will need all the help it can get, mainly in the form of permanent personnel to help run its Freedom schools and other; Freedom pro- jects throughout Mississippi. THIS YOUNG (NEGRO man is employed by the city of Belzoni as a trash collector. Garbage is collected in the Negro neighborhoods inside the city limits but not in "Hogtown," a Negro ghetto just across the city line. REGISTRAR HIGDON .....: .:.... '' } k .ms s *,