Book Reveals Spy’s Infiltration Into MLK & The Movement

MEMPHIS, TN

(GLOBE NEWSWIRE)

In the famous photograph of the assassination of King on the balcony of Memphis’s Lorraine Motel, one man kneeled down beside King, trying to staunch the blood from his fatal head wound with a borrowed towel.

This kneeling man was a member of the Invaders, an activist group that was in talks with King in the days leading up to the murder. But he also had another identity: an undercover Memphis police officer reporting on the activities of this group, which was thought to be possibly dangerous and potentially violent. This kneeling man is Leta McCollough Seletzky’s father.

The National Civil Rights Museum recently opened its season’s Book and Author Series with a new book by Leta McCollough Seletzky titled The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

In The Kneeling Man, journalist and litigator Leta McCullough Seletzky discloses her father’s infiltration into the Civil Rights Movement and the MLK assassination.

Marrell McCollough was a Black man working secretly with the white power structure as a spy. This was so far from Leta McCollough Seletzky’s understanding of what it meant to be Black in America, of everything she eventually devoted her life and career to, that she set out to learn what she could about his life, actions, and motivations. But with that decision came risk. What would she uncover about her father, who went on to a career at the CIA, and did she want to bear the weight of knowing?

The Kneeling Man reveals a new perspective on the FBI Counterintelligence Program’s (COINTELPRO) stronghold on civil rights activists and how it influenced local law enforcement and Black life in cities like Memphis in the 1960s.

An autographed copy of The Kneeling Man is available in the museum’s online store. For more information, visit civilrightsmuseum.org.

The museum’s book talk series continues on September 20 with The 5th Little Girl by Sarah Collins Rudolph, who survived the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

On October 4, the museum brings A Few Days of Trouble by co-authors

Arkansas Education Department Withdraws

Brenda H. Andrews CHIEF

Leonard E. Colvin ASSISTANT TO

In The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., journalist and litigator Leta McCullough Seletzky

Christopher Benson and Rev. Wheeler Parker, Jr., the cousin of Emmett Till.

The museum’s Book & Author Series began in 2015 and has included appearances by historians and nonfiction authors including Ibram X. Kendi, Keisha Blain, Kellie Carter, William Pepper, and Candacy Taylor.

About the National Civil Rights Museum

The NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM, located at the historic Lorraine Motel where civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, gives a comprehensive overview of the American Civil Rights Movement from slavery to the present. Since the Museum opened in 1991, millions of visitors worldwide have come, including more than 90,000 students annually.

Serving as the new public square, the Museum is steadfast in its mission to honor and preserve the site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. It chronicles the American civil rights movement and tells the story of the ongoing struggle for human rights, serving as a catalyst to inspire action to create positive social change.

It is a TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Top 5 percent U.S. Museum, USA Today’s Top 10 Best American Iconic Attractions; Top 10 Best Historical Spots in the U.S. by TLC’s Family Travel; Must See by the Age of 15 by Budget Travel and Kids; Top 10, American Treasures by USA Today; and Best Memphis Attraction by The Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Business Journal. – civilrightsmuseum.org

By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia

The Arkansas Education Department has opted to strip course credit from the Advanced Placement (AP) African-American Studies course.

The AP African-American Studies course, a beacon of educational diversity and cultural enlightenment, will not be eligible for early college credit during the upcoming school year.

“The department encourages the teaching of all American history and supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination,” Kimberly Mundell, the Education Department’s communications director, said in a statement.

“Arkansas law contains provisions regarding prohibited topics,” Mundell told local

From The Guide’s Archives

July 18, 1931

An Institution Once In The Hands of Receiver Stages Grand Comeback. NORFOLK

Approximately $10,000 was deposited and not a single withdrawal was made as Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company reclaimed its place in the uptown business structure Tuesday, the first day of activity since receivership was formally vacated Friday by decree of Judge Allan R. Hanckel of City Circuit Court.

Receiver Willis V. Fentress (who is) white turned over the keys of the bank to William M. Rich, President, Tuesday morning, and the institution which has been closed since early January reopened in a proverbial blaze of glory.

Hundreds of Colored and White citizens visited the bank on Tuesday and participated in the auspicious reopening. Although it officially began business at 10 a.m., Secretary-Treasurer Abner E. Lee reports that he was obliged to accept over $3,000 in deposits before 9:30 a.m.

Numerous floral tributes, telegrams, and letters of congratulations were received on Tuesday.

The three women Vice Presidents A.B. Ward, Emma V. Kelley, and Beulah Dodson were present in the lobby all day and assisted customers in filling out deposit slips.

Metropolitan is the first bank in Norfolk to reopen after having been closed, Rich, the President, said Tuesday.

“I feel the success of the bank is assured, although it has gone through a temporary receivership and reorganization. It has been put on a much stronger foundation by reason of the fact there is an addition of new capital and a board of directors made up of leading men and women of the community. Metropolitan Bank has 4,500 stockholders, who have paid up in cash $100,00 in capital. It has a surplus of $10,000 and more than $200,000 on deposits and a total of $310,000.

August 15, 1942

Edition of the Guide

Health clinics Opened by Sorors in Mississippi JACKSON, MISS Health workers, including physicians, nurses, dentists, nutritionists, social workers, and teachers from various parts of the United States last month opened in Holmes, County Mississippi the eighth annual health clinic sponsored by the Alpha Kappa Alpha sonority.

The staff is assisted by Dr. D. Miner, resident physician of the Delta Cooperative; L. Cox, resident nurse of Providence Cooperative; Sam Franklin Jr., resident manager of Providence; and Mr. Cox, bookkeeper of Delta and Providence Farms.

The medical clinic this year is conducted by Dr. Edna Griffin of Pasadena, California. Dr. Griffin, a member of the Alpha Gamma Omega chapter of the sorority, has offices and a large practice in Pasadena and Los Angeles. She is active in civic, religious, and social affairs and is widely known for her active work with the NAACP.

One of the most popular and sought-after services of the clinics is the Dental Department, conducted by Dr. James H. Bell of Canton, Mississippi. With a population of over 40,000 in Holmes County, 70 percent of whom are Negroes, there is no Negro physician or dentist.

The one white dentist in the entire county has a practice that does not allow him much time for Negro patients.

How to get the most value from the meager variety of food provided in the area for most of the sharecroppers and tenant farmers is being taught with demonstrations and lectures by Mrs. Mary Andersson, a specialist in dietary science and a graduate of the home economics Department of Iowa State College and Leona Wright, who teaches home economics at Kennard Junior High School in Cleveland.

687 Feet Down Gives

The Reporter A Scare

By J. Andrew Bowler

CARETTA, W. VA

It is understood that we will all look forward to someday being lowered six feet into Mother Earth. But in my wildest dreams, the idea of being lowered 687 feet into the bowels of the earth never occurred.

Just goes to show we never know what’s in store for us for here I am in one of the “cages” at Olga Number Two mine descending at the breath-taking speed of thirty miles per to the mine level to get a few camera shots of Negro miners actually digging and loading coal from the bituminous coal mines of McDowell County.

Olga Number Two, in fact, provides conditions very unsatisfactory for camera use due to vapor and gases. The vapor forming a coating and the if contact is made with the high-powered flash bulbs.

Upon receiving this information, I was pleased to hear the suggestion from William Norris, Jr., fire boss, and one superintendent who was selected by general manager G.R. Jennis of Carter Coal Company to personally conduct me through the company’s mines.

“Let’s return to the surface,” not that I was nervous because I was scared stiff, and my mind was not on picture taking at all but “what was my mama doing and “Now I lay me...”

Norris’ conversation on mines and the caution exerted by all mine workers had a tendency to ease and reassure me as I readily acquiesced to try for pictures in Caretta Number Five Mine, a slope mine where the entrance is similar to a cave or tunnel. Here we boarded the electric tram with dinky coal cars attached to make a three-and-a-half-mile trip into the earth’s interior.

The layman would find it much easier to get an interview with “Der Führer” (Hitler) than to get an interview with a mine worker on the job down in the mines.

Everything regarding the individual is checked and double checked and sanctions have to come from the “top” in order for a superintendent to issue a pass for clearances are not taken on the lives and safety of the men far below the earth’s surface by night and day putting the heat on Hitler.

1,000 Black College Men Work At A Tobacco Farm

By Williams E. Weaks of Johnson C.

Smith University station KHBS, referring to state education restrictions.

GLASTONBURY, CONN.

One thousand college men from the leading Negro Colleges of the country are employed on the tobacco farms of Connecticut this summer and thousands of dollars are being earned by these men during the tobacco season. Men are here from the following Colleges: Hampton, Morehouse, Virginia State, West Virginia State, North Carolina State, Johnson C. Smith, Tuskegee, Shaw, Elizabeth City State Teachers, and Lincoln Academy. The money these men earn in Tobacco Land contributes immeasurably to their educational finances during the school terms.

The men who came North this year to work on various tobacco plantations found themselves in a rather serious and difficult situation.

“Without clarity, we cannot approve a pilot that may unintentionally put a teacher at risk of violating Arkansas law.”

As several states undertake concerted efforts to circumscribe the boundaries of what educators can impart concerning race, gender, and sexuality, Arkansas has emerged as a new focal point in this ongoing dialogue.

NBC News reported that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had earlier championed limits on education in the state.

In January, the Republican governor signed an executive order banning “indoctrination and critical race theory” in schools.

The assault on critical race theory, which isn’t taught in grade schools, has been among the most controversial GOP initiatives across the country.

Archives taken from the pages of the (New) Journal and Guide

Credit For Ap Africanamerican Studies Receive Wings And Commissions

These “Hawkmen” of Tuskegee Army Flying School received their wings and commission on August 5 and are eager to play their part in the defense of America. They are from left to right: first row: Second Lts. Leon Claude Roberts, Walter I. Lawson, Newton, Virginia students of Hampton Institute. Second row: Second Lt. John Washington Rogers, Chicago, Ill; a student at Chicago Teachers’ College; Earl Eugene King, Bessemer, Ala. student at Tuskegee Institute, who had two years of ROTC; John William McClure, Koko, Indiana a student at Tuskegee Institute.

Living in a world of injustice and prejudice (down South), they were involved in past incidents which they did not have responsibility for instigating. Realizing the social and economic conditions of the community (South) as well as the presence of injustice and hate as a group of young Americans representing six or more different colleges from all parts of the South, they decided they were going to live in the community like gentlemen and take an active part in civic programs regardless of prejudice.

We decided to enjoy every right that the Constitution granted American citizens.

With the leadership of Thomas Hawkins, Assistant Dean of Men of Howard University, we moved from a summer camp that was dilapidated to a warehouse which had been converted into a dormitory for the college men.

Hawkins came to our rescue through the Connecticut Council of Churches on the same day that we moved from the camp into the city of Glastonbury.

Under this leadership, we were about to make our new home in a place with a recreation room fully equipped alone with athletic equipment, such as softball, softball gloves, boxing gloves, volleyball, etc.

There was a plea for donations from the citizens of Glastonbury for the benefit of the USO. We did our part one hundred percent as citizens of the town. We knew that the residents here were surprised. The attitude of doubt changed quickly.

We knew by the look on their faces that they felt rather badly about what they had said about us before they knew it.

On July the Fourth, a community program was given at the ark in Glastonbury. We played an outstanding part in the program. The college men’s Glee Club under the direction of Harold W. McCoo of Fisk University was formed. McCoo’s work has made him well-known in the musical world.

The men played the (white) citizens of Glastonbury a softball game and showed a wonderful spirit of good sportsmanship. There were also boxing and wrestling matches given by the college men.

The Congregational minister invited Dean Hawkins and the Glee Club to be present at a program. Dean Hawkins was the main speaker of the day and the club furnished music.