The first time I met Ed King I was immediately captivated by his entire presence. I was a naïve 24 year-old who had just finished his first year of Divinity School at Duke University, and I was tasked to learn about the intersections of religion, race, and civil rights in Mississippi. That summer in 2008, my internship was to be a ministerial fellow at Galloway Memorial UMC; however, for much of the summer I was able to shadow Ed, hearing stories of how he was arrested and beaten up, how he was close personal friends with both Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr., and how he influenced Freedom Summer 1964.
Growing up in a small town in Mississippi, I had heard of the Civil Rights Movement, but sadly I had never learned much about it. It wasn’t until after I moved out of Mississippi that my eyes were opened to the Civil Rights movement in my home state. I read books that made me think of the marches and those who came down for Freedom Summer in a romantic way that completely dismissed the actual struggle for liberty and freedom. I also dismissed all those who were from Mississippi in the midst of the struggle from the very beginning: Fannie Lou Hamer, John Perkins, Emmitt Till, and many more.
When I met Ed King, I realized that the movement was more than a movement of peaceful, non-violent action. It was not a movement to be romanticized. The visible scars on Ed’s face made me really realize that the fight for civil rights in Mississippi was a time where people were beaten, killed, lynched, and scarred for life.
As I learned from Ed and followed him around, I was able to go to Mt. Zion Methodist Church, which was the church in Longdale, Mississippi that was burned down four days before three civil rights workers were abducted and killed in Neshoba County. Ed took me on a civil rights tour across Jackson. He showed me where he was arrested, where Medgar Evers was shot, where the sit-ins happened, where busloads of students were arrested at the Greyhound Station, and finally, the fairgrounds. As he took me to the fairgrounds, I wondered, “This is interesting, maybe we are going to talk about how the fair was segregated.” However, he pulled up to the livestock building and asked me how much I knew about the history of the fairgrounds. In my know-it-all way, I exclaimed that I knew the fair was segregated and there were only a few days where black people could come to the fair. He said, “Yes. That is right. But there is a much deeper and bleaker story.” He proceeded to tell me how the livestock center at the fairgrounds was used as an interment camp for those who struggled for Civil Rights. As he told me stories of being beaten there, and of the scare tactics the police would use to control the people, my stomach churned and I was angry. I was mad that I ever though the Civil Rights Movement was a romantic movement of only non-violent protests and singing. I was mad that there was a history that I knew nothing about. I was angry that human beings, freedom workers and African Americans, were treated like cattle as they were imprisoned in the livestock center at the Mississippi fairgrounds.
But then, we left the fairgrounds and went to Tougaloo College. It was here that Ed told me about the meetings that were held in the Woodworth chapel. He told me how Joan Baez had played the first integrated concert for college students from State, Ole Miss, Millsaps, Jackson State, Tougaloo, and more. He told me how MLK Jr. preached from the pulpit in that sacred space. He shared with me how so many freedom fighters would sing Freedom Songs, all the while fearing for their own lives in the safety of the beautiful, dark, wooden sanctuary. Where as the fairgrounds was a place of fear and abuse, Woodworth Chapel was the center of freedom, and the direct opposite of the fairgrounds. The struggle was real, it was dangerous, and yet, in the midst of all the fear and death, light and hope emerged in Woodworth Chapel. I am glad my time with Ed that day ended at Woodworth Chapel.
As my time was coming to an end in Jackson, Ed shared with me some photos and essays he had written. These musings were going to be his book that he had been writing for years, and now, his book has now been published. It is a book that sheds light on much of what Ed and others experienced during the struggle for civil rights here in Mississippi. Now, as I sit and read from Ed King’s Mississippi, I realize how blessed I was for having had that summer with him; for hearing many of these accounts first hand. Ed King is a very special man, and Ed King’s Mississippi is a must read for all people.
Written by Justin
Comments are closed.