Mississippi Madness: 1950's

careyrowland

Sep 1

In 2016-17, I was writing a fourth novel, King of Soul; the story included some memory elements from my childhood in Jackson, Mississippi.

In my historical research, I made use of Anne Moody's biography, Coming of Age in Mississippi. Anne was a Mississippian, like me, but she was a few years ahead of me. In the following excerpt from my King of Soul, I describe a lunch-counter encounter that happened in Jackson. In my novel scene, the character Aerlie is based on the very real experience, as described in her biography, of Anne Moody.

From chapter 4, Miss'ippi Madness, of King of Soul:

Back in February, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had held its annual convention in Jackson. Jackie Robinson, the great baseball player, had moderated the convention. His relaxed, good-natured emcee style inspired all delegates and attendees to assume a new confidence about where their Movement was taking them. In the days and years ahead, they would sho'nuff need buckets of confidence.

       Aerlie Mufroe, an energetic senior at nearby Tougaloo College, rode the seven miles down Highway 51 to Jackson to attend the convention, and her life was changed forever. Between Jackie Robinson's relaxed Master of Ceremonies agility, Floyd Patterson's Heavyweight champion-of-the-world clout, and a diverse assembly of dedicated civil rights activists from all over the USA, Aerlie found herself opening a new chapter of her life.

       With steady encouragement and direction from a dedicated professor at Tougaloo, Aerlie had managed to fill much of her free time during that last college semester with organizing black folks. They were planning rallies and boycotts to force the issue of new federally mandated   desegregation, right in the middle of Jackson's stodgy ole honky business district. During her last week in school, Aerlie accompanied a small group of intrepid Negroes to order lunch at a downtown dime-store lunch counter.

         'T'was then the sparks began to fly in Jackson. Not that they hadn't already been up in the air surrounding these desegregation issues. When Aerlie and her friends attempted to get some food at the honky lunch counter, the waitress got flustered. After a few minutes, she just threw her hands up, shut the lunch service down and closed the counter, rather than serve Aerlie and her friends.

Glass half-Full

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