Mississippi
Revisiting Mississippi – 60 years after the Klan murder of Civil Rights workers
![Revisiting Mississippi – 60 years after the Klan murder of Civil Rights workers Revisiting Mississippi – 60 years after the Klan murder of Civil Rights workers](https://www.workers.org/wp-content/uploads/missing-civil-rights-workers052524.jpeg)
In 1964 I quit my job as cub reporter for the Detroit News and left for Mississippi to cover Freedom Summer, headed by courageous youth of the Civil Rights movement and the approximately 1,000 volunteers who followed them there.
One of my first nights in Mississippi was at the home of a Black farmer who owned his own land. Near the front door was a small arsenal of shotguns and rifles to protect against possible trouble from night riders.
In 2024, I returned to the scene of the Ku Klux Klan killings of Mississippi organizer James Chaney and volunteers Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both New Yorkers, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, on June 21, 1964 — a crime that shocked the country, followed by the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of 1965,
This spring I spoke for three hours with Black community leader Leroy Clemons, who has organized the Neshoba County Youth Coalition, comprised of Black, white and Choctaw members, to fight for reconciliation and civil rights in Mississippi. He filled me in on some changes that have taken place since 1964, when most Philadelphia law officers were Klan members: “Back then no one wanted to talk about the killings, or the frequent burnings of Black and Native churches.” Today the town has a Black majority, Black police: and a Black mayor.
Back in the summer of ’64, despite widespread speculation that the three Civil Rights workers had been victims of the Klan, no bodies had turned up. So on July 17, Civil Rights volunteer Ruth Schein and myself showed up at the Philadelphia public library to learn more about Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, both reputed to be Klan members.
After a few hours of research, I left the library to get my car, but was accosted by a mob of five men who were suspicious of out-of-town reporters and started hitting me on the head and face with chains. After a while Deputy Price showed up, and in the confusion I was able to escape, retrieve my car, pick up Ruth from the library and leave town.
On Aug. 4, the bodies of the three Civil Rights workers were found buried in an earthen dam. Later, 18 men stood trial for the murders, most of them Klansmen. Deputy Price and seven others were convicted of violating the civil rights of the victims by killing them. Each served a term in prison of several years.
In 2004, Klan leader Edgar Killen was convicted of planning the killings and served a longer sentence, dying in prison.
In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was running for President, he stopped at the annual Neshoba County Fair to give a speech on “state’s rights,” in what was widely regarded as a “wolf whistle,” to broadcast his sympathies with white supremacists who opposed the Civil Rights movement in 1964.
References: We Will Shoot Back: Armed resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement, by Akinyele Umoja; The Summer that Didn’t End, by Len Holt; Witness in Philadelphia, by Florence Mars.
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Mississippi
Mississippi alligator breaks 2 state records and is possibly a world record
![Mississippi alligator breaks 2 state records and is possibly a world record Mississippi alligator breaks 2 state records and is possibly a world record](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/09/10/PJAM/75154627007-1000001789.jpg?auto=webp&crop=1078,606,x2,y184&format=pjpg&width=1200)
‘When she came up she was under the bottom of the boat in between the pontoons. She was slapping the boat with her tail and all that. I thought she was going to knock my motor off for a minute.’
Watch: Texas officer wrangles angry gator from family’s front porch
Body camera footage captured the moment a police officer swiftly removed a small alligator from a home in Texas.
After two frustrating nights on the last weekend of the season, a Mississippi hunter caught the alligator he’d been after, but what he didn’t realize when he pulled it in his boat was that not only did it break two state records, it’s possibly a world record.
Jason Ullendorf said a cousin of his was buying a part at a boat shop last week when he was told about an alligator in the Pascagoula River. The alligator had been spotted near a sandbar and had been making people visiting the location uncomfortable.
“We figured we’d help them out and get it out of there,” Ullendorf said. “We went down there to look at it, and it was a pretty good gator. It’s kind of crazy how it happened.”
Catching it was easier said than done, though. Ullendorf and members of his hunting party repeatedly hooked the alligator, only to have the hooks pull out or break off when the alligator would go under logs.
“We chased it from about 9 o’clock until about 3 o’clock in the morning,” Ullendorf said. “By then we’d lost all our hooks.”
More: Hunters bag Mississippi alligator weighing almost 700 pounds
Another long night of hunting alligators
The following day, Ullendorf bought more hooks and returned to the river with only one other hunter, Joseph Mangano of Richton. Fortunately, they found the alligator in the same spot as the night before. Unfortunately, it was shaping up to be a replay of the night before with the two repeatedly hooking the alligator, only to have the hooks pull free.
“It was frustrating,” Mangano said. “At one point, we got so frustrated we left it and an hour later started again. We knew we would hook it, but we were going to have to get it out of the trees.”
At 4:45 a.m., the hunters got a break. The alligator surfaced in open water near the sandbar. The two hooked the alligator with a rod and reel and then got a hand line on it as the alligator towed the two men and their 18-foot pontoon boat upriver. Everything was going relatively smoothly until they pulled the gator near the boat.
“When she came up she was under the bottom of the boat in between the pontoons,” Ullendorf said. “She was slapping the boat with her tail and all that. I thought she was going to knock my motor off for a minute.”
More: ‘The size and mass of his head is unreal.’ Mississippi alligator hunters bag 800-pound giant
Mississippi hunters suspect their alligator is a female
The two got the alligator in their boat and while Ullendorf referred to it as a “she,” he didn’t think it was a female at the time. This alligator was too big to be a female, and the longest female alligator ever recorded in the state was caught in 2022 by Jim Denson and measured 10 feet, 2 inches.
“As soon as she came up we said, ‘That’s a male,’” Ullendorf said. “We never second-guessed it.”
But then they did. When to two took the alligator to Mangano’s business in Richton, Running M Meat Company, they discovered the alligator didn’t have male sex organs.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” Ullendorf said. “We called Andrew Arnett to come down and verify it. I didn’t believe it at all.”
Is this Mississippi alligator a world record?
Arnett is the head of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Alligator Program. He confirmed it was a female and certified it at 11 feet, 3/4 inches long and 324 pounds. Not only was it a state record for longest female, it was the new state record for heaviest.
However, it may have broken another record, if only it existed. Multiple internet searches came up empty for an official world record for female alligators, but some states keep official records. According to searches by the hunters and Arnett, the longest female alligator on record before Ullendorf’s was 10 feet, 6.75 inches long and it was caught in Florida. If that’s true, Ullendorf has the new world record for longest female alligator.
“Just from what I’ve seen online, I think so,” Arnett said.
Do you have a story idea? Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com.
Mississippi
Mississippi Mass Choir new album
![Mississippi Mass Choir new album Mississippi Mass Choir new album](https://gray-wlbt-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/LN5AVK73IRECJB53MST6TFOPVM.jpg?auth=7293d246690750f402210a8085107a94402842e689fadd2a04c7637358c3eda3&width=1200&height=600&smart=true)
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – The Mississippi Mass Choir has a new album! We Still Believe is available!
The director and some choir members joined Studio 3 to discuss the songs.
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Mississippi
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