THE
S TUDENT PRINTZ SERVING SOUTHERN MISS SINCE 1927
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Volume 98 Issue 29
LOCAL
We remember ‘64: Hattiesburg hosts Freedom Day March Crystal Garner Printz Reporter
Old negro spirituals rang from the intersection of Seventh and Mobile Street as marching supporters of Hattiesburg reignited the legacy of local civil rights veterans Wednesday morning. The event recognized courageous activists who fought for voter registration among blacks with a re-enactment of the 1964 march around Hattiesburg’s court house. More than 150 participants attended the event, marking its 50th anniversary. According to Don Holmes, vice president of the The University of Southern Mississippi student group Remembering ‘64, said the march was a bold statement.
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Kate Dearman/Printz
Supporters took to the streets Jan. 22 to re-enact the 50th anniversary of the Freedom March in Downtown Hattiesburg. The march began at the intersection of Seventh and Mobile Street and concluded at the Forrest County Courthouse.
LOCAL
Faces of Freedom Summer Ardan Thornhill Printz Reporter
“Twelve clubs, a physician, a pharmacy, a taxi service, a dentist, cleaners, houses for all your eyes could see,” said Eddie Holloway, USM Dean of Students. He also served as city council president for 12 years. “It was a mecca of business, like Memphis’ Beale Street and Atlanta’s Auburn Street.” In 2014, one can see Mobile Street is not in quite the shape it was a half-century ago, when African-Americans were
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fighting for their right to vote. Jan. 22, 2014 commemorated 50 years since the 1964 Freedom March, starting on the corner of Seventh and Mobile Street and continuing to the Forrest County Courthouse on Main Street. Peggy Connor, who served as executive secretary of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1965, owned a beauty salon on Mobile Street during the time of the march. “It started at the Copher office,” Connor said. “It was a three story building, now a vacant lot. Kids stayed out of
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school that day, and 50 ministers came from the North to lead us up the street.” The Rev. John Cameron was in his thirties in 1964, when the Freedom March made its debut in his hometown of Hattiesburg. “We would march about the Confederate statue (located to the right of the building), 41 at a time,” Cameron said, remembering the events of the first Freedom March. “They’d arrest 41 of us, and another 41 would come to take our place. Eventually, we’d filled all three of the jails. We stayed there for three
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days, three nights until bail from (church organizations) were sent to release us.” Cameron said the case was taken to court for the charges against them were unlawful. They lost their case to the state of Mississippi justice system, but when taken to Supreme Court, they won. Anthony Harris, son of activist Daisy Harris, spoke outside the Forrest County Courthouse on his arrest 50 years ago as an 11-year-old boy. Mississippi passed a law banning individuals under the age of 18 from the picket line against
FEATURE Freedom Day March Residents celebrate 50th anniversary.
First Amendment rights. Harris, his older brother and a friend were arrested and menaced by police officers until Daisy arrived, demanding their release. The officers threatened the boys with a BlackJack. It was about that time Daisy Harris burst into the police station and demanded their release. “My mother put her own safety, her own security and own freedom as secondary and stood up for the right thing,” Harris said. “In the
See MARCH, 6
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