In 1964, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the Mount Zion United Methodist Church hosted a meeting for parishioners, all African American, to discuss voter registration for local Blacks.
That night, as the congregation left they were attacked and beaten, some were left for dead. The church was burned to the ground.
Three young civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner,came to town the next day to help rebuild the church and monitor the grievous human rights violations that were a disturbing mainstay in 1960's Mississippi. While they were leaving the church, they were picked up by local police and arrested. When they were released from jail that evening they began driving down Highway 16 East, out of town towards Meridian. They were stopped once again where they were executed, the car burned and the bodies dumped, months later to be discovered buried in an earthen dam. The men who committed the crimes were members of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. They were also the Sheriff and Deputy of Neshoba County. They were charged with "Civil Rights violations" and served a nominal amount of time behind bars for the three murders. The story was later dramatized in the film, "Mississippi Burning."
The killings emboldened the already passionate commitment to Civil Rights in the South, and Mt. Zion remains a living testament to that effort as well as a remembrance for those three men who gave their lives in the struggle for justice.
When Kathleen, Carrie and I walked towards the church, services had already started. Kathleen went to go look at a plaque - Carrie was wandering around the front, and I sort of shyly meandered around the front door when I heard the first chords of the organ and "Amazing Grace" began to soar from the choir.
I waved Kathleen and Carrie over; and while Carrie and I were still sort of scuffing our shoes on the sidewalk, nervous to go in...Kathleen barreled through those doors like she'd been attending services there her whole life. After the song was finished she popped her head out the door and said, "you guys coming in or what?"
We went in, and a woman helped find us three seats in the same pew. We listened to a fiery sermon, heard two more hymns from the choir and afterwards got to speak to a man and his sister about how things have been changing over the past 45 years in Mississippi.
I mainly talked to his sister, Jennifer, who told me that when she was a child, her family would always take them to the Choctaw Summer Fair, which was held a week after the Philadelphia Summer Fair, because Blacks weren't really welcomed at the "white fair." She says that's changed now for the better and her children have come up in a different time.
Her brother Obbie says, "my wife's friend...she'll say we're just a few funerals aways from having a really good town here," he laughed in a way that wasn't bitter, but knowing. I was grateful for the ease in which we could talk about race and how far and not far we have come since those frightening times.
It was a beautiful morning, getting to spend it with those folks. I'm writing this about two weeks afterwards, so I'm not getting the freshest words down. But let me tell you that knowing a bit about the history empowered my run the next morning. I got to run 5 miles down that East 16 Road towards Meridian and it was powerful to remember those men, and all the people who sacrificed themselves in the name of equality.
I wish we weren't still fighting that fight.
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