Workshop Talks
August-September 2000

Lynch law prevails in Mississippi

by S. Hamer

Racism. Why does that word hold so much power? Why has it passed down through society as a vicious symbol of everything that penetrates deep hatred toward another human being because of his or her color and their place in society? How can we banish this racism, and do we have the power as people to control its burning path of destruction?

This is what we are talking about all over again in Mississippi today. Racism is very much alive in this country, even though people try to sugarcoat the truth to make it appear that we've outgrown racism. In Mississippi, and all over the South, Black men, women and children have been at the center of racism's attack.

On the plantation we had to pick cotton and plow the fields from sunup to sundown. We were forced to use separate water and eating facilities. Our children had to walk to separate schools. We were forced to stand and give up our seats on the buses after working all day. And our right to vote for a change was taken away.

Did the 1960s rebellion against racism really bring about justice and inner change? Or did it embarrass white society so that racism was hidden better, until certain moments come along when it is used in all the old vicious ways? We are asking these questions today in Mississippi because of what happened to three Black men in three different towns in our state.

Most of America has heard about how Raynard Johnson, a 17-year-old high school student in Kokomo, Miss., was found by his father hanging from a noose in a pecan tree in front of his home. Even before an autopsy was performed, the authorities ruled it a suicide.

Everyone in the community who knew Raynard said he was a well-liked young man who was talented, smart, and loved people regardless of the color of their skin. It was a known fact that he had dated white girls whose relatives did not approve of those relationships. One of the relatives is the Marion County sheriff. No one I know believes it was suicide.

It's a tragedy felt across the state, and it is what workers are talking about in catfish plants where we struggle with racism everyday. One worker at Delta Pride Catfish told me how angry she was, thinking about how we have been beaten and hung for even thinking about crossing interracial boundaries in relationships. She said that it all reminded her of the Emmett Till murder, even though that happened more than 40 years ago. It meant a lot to workers to see Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, come down to Kokomo from Chicago and march with Jesse Jackson.

Another worker, from Leland in the center of the Mississippi Delta, told about a case that has not been on national TV. It's the story of Dyrahyl Buchanan, who was pulled over on Jan. 4 by a white state trooper on a rural road in the Delta. The trooper said that Buchanan appeared to be driving drunk. And he claimed that several minutes after pulling him over, Buchanan fled into the woods, leaving his wallet and everything in the car. He has never been seen again by anyone.

Could it be just a coincidence that the white trooper has a Black wife who had been Buchanan's girlfriend? Workers I talked to who knew him are convinced that this is the real motive. People say that Moore is known as a racist bully. There is a $7,300 reward for information, but no trace of Dyrahyl Buchanan has been found.

In Holly Springs, Miss., George Hunsucker, a white man, was just allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated assault for the June 1999 kidnaping and near-murder of a Black handyman, Willie Roy Foster. Hunsucker accused Foster of taking his chainsaw, and dragged Foster behind his vehicle for over a mile. Foster suffered irreversible brain damage and is now in a nursing home.

The white judge, Henry Lackey, released Hunsucker to go home until he was sentenced. The NAACP objected and said that Judge Lackey is always more lenient with white defendants. He gives Blacks six years for the same crime that whites get six months for.

This is the face of racism in Mississippi today. Why does it seem like it has become so open and vicious again? We are attacked by the system every day, whether it's police, welfare, or at our slave wage jobs. In the 1980s and 1990s many Black workers organized themselves in Mississippi. We fought for unions, we rose up and demanded to make a change. I believe that the people in power were frightened by the movement.

They waited until things cooled down a little, and then they brought out racism full and strong. One way we see it in the catfish plants is when they have brought in hundreds of workers straight from Mexico, put them in houses on company property, and set them up to compete against Black workers. The owners act like they favor the Mexican worker over the Black worker, because they can oppress the Mexicans even more. They want to use this kind of racism to break the union.

Many workers feel like the murders of Black men are part of this same vicious racism. They are telling Black men and women in Mississippi: you will never get freedom. But I know that change comes from a society that wants to change. Mississippi has been the center of racism for over a hundred years. If we don't take every step to change it, Mississippi's racism will continue to be the measure of America. It will swallow up humanity and justice.