The Mississippi Delta is full of dirt roads laid out straight as rulers across its flat landscape and disappearing into nowhere.

“I'm very thankful today for dirt roads," Civil Rights Movement veteran Hollis Watkins said with a chuckle. The dust a car kicks up acting as a shield that helped keep him safe when making an escape.

Today we entered into story, hearing the kind of details you get so powerfully when someone shares their history in conversation:
Evelyn Cole Calloway describing how her father, despite having a broken jaw and ribs, a ruptured spleen, and damage to his spine from a beating by the Klan, refused her mother's pleas to see a doctor because he couldn't be sure the doctor wasn't part of the Klan.

And James Chaney's daughter, Angela Lewis, making him come alive by telling us about the song he would sing to warn his siblings their mother was almost home and they needed to straighten up the house, and how he became so passionate about the Civil Rights Movement that he would spend nights at the community center.

Stories we won't forget and can pass along to help keep the legacy alive.

-- by Kathy Davis

Today, at the Mt. Zion Methodist Church northeast of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi, I was overwhelmed by the resilience of Jewel Rush-McDonald and Emily Cole Calloway. The parents of each of these remarkable women had been victims of Klan violence at that church in June 1964. The Klan had been searching for participants in the Freedom Summer of 1964, and specifically for white participants, whom they regarded as “outside agitators” and “communists.” Convinced that the congregants of the Mt. Zion Church would have knowledge of their whereabouts, Klan members invaded a finance meeting that was occurring at the church on Tuesday, June 16. They severely beat meeting attendees, including Ms. Cole’s father, Fred Cole, who received a broken jaw, broken ribs, and permanent damage to the nerves of one his legs. Ms. Rush-McDonald’s parents were also brutally beaten. Angered that the beatings had produced no useful information, the Klan then torched the wooden church, which was totally destroyed. (On June 20, James Chaney (who was black) and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (who were white), visited and investigated the ruins of the church. The next day, with the collusion of the sheriff’s office, the three were brutally murdered and buried by the Klan.

Ms. Cole related that some years later, her father, Fred, had said that he had already forgiven his assailants, but would never forget. Ms. Rush-McDonald’s parents were equally resilient—her mother went to work the day after the attack! Their courage is an inspiration to all of us.

-- by David Hurdis

More about what happened at Mt Zion United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, MS

As much as we pray and strive for the best, resiliency persists in the struggle of good versus evil.

Today, on the Living Legacy Pilgrimage, our group visited the grave and memorial of Fannie Lou Hamer. The daughter of a sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta, she attempted to vote at age 45 in 1962; for this, she and her family were deposed from their home and she was jailed and beaten. Two years later, this resilient woman spoke on behalf of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party for the right of African Americans to participate at the Democratic National Convention.

In 1955, when Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago, flirted with a white Mississippi woman, he was brutalized and murdered. With resilience, his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted that her son’s casket lid be open at his funeral; his shot and mutilated face and cleaved skull were viewed by 10,000 people.

In the 1960s, segregationists wanted Negroes to be shipped back to Africa. In post-election 2016, President-elect Donald Trump says he intends to ban Muslims and Mexicans from America.

Which resilient legacy will define our nation today: racist/religious hatred or inalienable human rights?

Who has greater resiliency: modern segregationists or those who wear safety pins as a symbol of support for the vulnerable? 
Which? Who?
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-- by Robert M Weir

More about Fannie Lou Hamer
More about Emmet Till

Working in many different types of schools w/ many different kids, I have always marveled @ the resilience of kids in awful circumstances to simply carry on. And some do it w/ real grace & panache. Even humor! It is a mystery how they do it!
 
Today we had examples of people who dedicated their lives to a struggle that was indeed life threatening. But courage is also contagious. And it is sustained by a powerful spiritual community. Fannie Lou had a mother who apparently modeled strong, principled behavior. And she learned it well. Fearlessness is a necessary precondition in Nonviolent Direct Action, and although their roles were a little different, she & Medgar Evers were nonetheless both lightning rods. When Fannie Lou was not allowed to vote she figured out how to work around the rules & when she was savagely beaten she went public with her story.
 
She did not quit. It was not an option. Her capacity to come back was only exceeded by her fierce sense of righteousness. It was time to STAND UP & TALK BACK. And she showed us how. This is a lesson we all need to learn & relearn!  Resilience, after all, is the willingness to get back up, to be strong in the face of daunting odds. Today we face our own daunting odds. May we emulate her strength & courage as we go forward, refusing to be a party to today's political ugliness!
 
-- by Susan Miller 

More about Fannie Lou Hamer
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