Books of The Times - Bruce Watson’s ‘Freedom Summer’ in Mississippi - NYTimes.com
The comedian Dick Gregory used to joke bitterly during the civil rights era, that you could always spot a white moderate in Mississippi. He was the “cat who wants to lynch you from a low tree.”
Few in Mississippi got to hear Gregory’s crack. When it came to race issues the state operated under a virtual media lockdown in the early 1960s. When James Baldwin was a guest on “Today,” NBC stations in Mississippi cut to an old movie. When Thurgood Marshall, then an N.A.A.C.P. lawyer, appeared on TV, a notice flashed: “Cable Difficulty.” Mississippi’s ABC affiliates didn’t want to air “Bewitched,” a new sitcom. Marriage between man and witch? Surely that was code for interracial sex, for the coming mongrelization.
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