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Welcome to another edition of black man in America presented by your city station in cooperation with the city's commission on human rights these programs are broadcast Tuesday after knowns are five Y.C. F.M. ninety three point nine mega cycles and Tuesday evenings of my W N Y C eight hundred thirty killer cycles your knowledge to tell you more about this important series is our moderator Good evening this is what you make both and I'm here to bring you another in the series the black man in America devoted as the title states to examining the history and life of African-Americans and the contributions they have made in our making to the material cultural and spiritual wealth of this country this includes all of living not simply the civil rights issues we see in the headlines tonight's guest is an moody author of The Coming of Age in Mississippi and autobiographical account of life in the Deep South the book was recently published by Dial Press and has won wide acclaim Mr Moti was born in Wilkinson County Mississippi in one thousand nine hundred forty and spent her early childhood on a plantation where her parents were sharecroppers and then she moved on to a small nearby town she attended Naches a junior college annex Mississippi and graduated from Tougaloo College near Jackson Mississippi in one thousand nine hundred four she worked for the Congress of Racial Equality corps traveling and speaking all over the nation most recently she was coordinator of the civil rights training project at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in New York state she now resides in New York City with her husband coming of age in Mississippi is her first book now Miss Molly I know from the writings that were made about that you are at by the time of the release of your book. Your book is now being compared with manchild and promised land and down these mean streets and would you say that it can be compared with those two books. Well I could say well I would say any book you know primarily written by Negro and concerns his struggle you know from struggle to exist I would say can only compare you know just as this could be compared to men child is certainly could be compared to the life of any Negro in America I would say in a certain way but we were all the same values we were all in the same bag in other words. But my book I think it's a little different you know it's different from man child because life in the south in the rules south is much different from life in the ghetto and Wilkinson County in Mississippi that's way down the southwest part of yet is the southwest Mississippi that's where Charles Evers holds forth these days you know Charles Evers is there you know keeping up the drive and don't continue in the struggle is Fayette in we're going to the county fair it is a little above Wilson County about an actress yes that is what town were you born in Centreville set of all I saw that in the book but I didn't realize that was a real name I thought maybe that woman may have I lot of stuff has been changed but the town has remained the same most of the names I've changed but whether the circle is a town the the book certainly is shocking and it's interesting too that Senator Edward Kennedy made a review of your book in The New York Times Book Review and he said you are a rural Brown and of course we know that Mr Brown's life was all well mainly filled with despair as he grew up in Harlem it's been said that it's a miracle he survived to tell a story what was it like to be raised in Mississippi what are your recollections of childhood days unwelcomed County Oh if I think about it I mean the thing that hit me most I think is being hungry all the time you know an hour sitting around waiting for my mother and father to come out of the field and being lonely I want Bob Bob Kennedy said it was true about the the poorness of the south it's very poor I mean things have changed a little now you. In the sense that people are struggling more they're trying to do a little more with the saw and you've had a few advances but there's still a tremendous amount of poverty especially in the greenwood area in the Delta Yeah whole delta area where you know the revolution in. Cotton technology and various things has taken place and you have negroes just as poor as ever and people being thrown off the plantation all these Nigro they don't have any means really of supporting themselves you see because the only thing that they have the only type of work that they know how to do in the past you know has now been you know taken over by machines so what can they do I know but there's another thing I would like to say. When I was on The Today Show I received a letter from a lady who was responsible far would say transport Negroes from the south to various you know the ones who've been put out of work to various farms in the north in. Various places she wrote this long letter you know telling me about the fact that they were having such a hard time getting Negroes moved and everything and that she they put out so much money and they had gotten them nice homes and you know everything so much better than the South and all but the Negroes didn't want to move and that the men were lazy and you know this is a lady that's working for oh I would have you know you know the whole prejudice the whole subtle thing with our hang up with Negroes and everything you know and they had have a forty hour week and they would be making a dollar twenty five our dollar whatever they would like. I would say a day and the whole the real sad point is that I mean here you have people who are employed by the government let's say and they really don't understand she doesn't really she didn't understand that why are Negro family would want to just all of a sudden I would say pull up all of his roots everything that he's ever known leaving behind his church his garden all of his friends and you know the whole terror of gone into something new you know want to start all over again and. The thing like that and I don't think this is the answer I mean Mississippi is a beautiful state we have lots and lots of land physically beautiful I mean psychologically his hell but basically it's a very beautiful state you know they have lots of land and if the government wants to move in if they really wanted to move in and to do something and you know try to eliminate these problems they have the. The land and everything to do with you know they have all the natural resources that they need to start with all they have to do is put a little money and buckle down and try to eliminate these problems but there are two problems because one is the attitude of that lady who is an obvious what I'm saying one is the whole attitude of the whole attitude of the. I would say of the government itself you know in the sense that you know I want to give out more food stamps you know what I mean but what can food stamps do they go to the stores and they all sent these stamps to say some very prejudiced man who just you know only takes as they have been away because it means an increase in his income you know and he sells them rotten cheese and rotten meat and bread never a thing like that it's a pretty it's still pretty rough you know that's not the answer sheets on a ball of town laughter thing it's just I've seen that imagine myself I have been a man at night as many times since one thousand sixty three when I was was killed yeah I've been traveling in Natchez and other parts of Mississippi quite frequent once every month and sometimes once every two months for the past six years and I know that in Natchez Mississippi there was a situation where the agricultural depo was actually cheating Negroes coming in with their food stamps and not giving them the proper powers because they couldn't understand that they just sign of anything they way that I was given they don't even understand a lot of them don't even understand the you know the way the stamps work they just go in and give the man you know this and then he just hand them out dish out a little bit of food here and there and say well you know this is all you know come see you next month and so when you next day I'm scum and you know he's making a fortune he's the only one benefit and I mean Negroes still getting rotten food still get in you know they're less I would say their proportion of what they should actually get and that's not the way to do it was really below you against this because I think the government I think the people as a whole should. Consider you know moving in and get these big companies and things to invest some money in the ones that are there you know Negroes still have these menial jobs sweeping floors and stuff like that and so forth again in Natchez I remember that people working in the natural steam laundry white women making sixty dollars a week and Negro Women working right next to the making ten and twelve fifteen dollars a week to ration the same working all over and the same thing in the tire factory down there in Natchez that the Negro men were making forty to sixty hours a week where the white men working right next to them with less education and not less training making one hundred dollars a week another thing I was I would like to say you know you noted in Kennedy's article where he had said that so much had changed and first of all I would like to say I mean he Kennedy you know he called the essence of what that's what was you know what I set out to do when I first wrote my book and he had said you know he said that things had changed but I would like to you know make a note that even though when you have noticed this commissionable. That even though things have changed say slightly you know that psychologically the problems are very much the saying so far still to go a long ways to go the attitude of the Negro has changed in a sense and I think this has been brought about because of the I would say more or less that black powerful loss of that we are now embraced and so because. I let's say I grew was develop with the whole nonviolent approach you know under Dr Martin Luther King and you know far more in the rest of the earlier people in James Farmer who came into Mississippi and you know I was one of the originate just as a story from Michael and Rob Brown also grew up in the same that you know I was in the same thing but you know they come to a point where they were able to see you know that the approach that we were taken was not taken was not exactly get in you know not yet in is where we wanted to go here we were we were fighting for integration who'd been kicked all over the state from one in the over to the next you know and still things were something was a little chaotic that something was a little off somewhat but not enough psychologically not enough stuff psychologically on the whole I think the whole I would say. The whole development of the Black Power philosophy I think stem from the fact that our we saw that even though the negro was say beginning to gain a few lunch counters here in here for instance you know even though I was kicked and beaten and a lot of my friends would be know all over Woolworth you know and everything that you know in Jackson and everything that we we did we. I mean we we got a little satisfaction is that now we'll worth it so you know what I mean so what. Most of the negroes and most of the teenagers who participated with us I mean those kids don't even have money to go in their need today but I mean even if they did there was a still and on the line psychological problem that was not being fulfilled and that problem was eradicating this whole myth about being black and being inferior to the white man you see in this way I think the whole black power movement has changed a lot and I would say the attitude of the negroes even in Wilkinson County and in the Delta and all over has taken on a whole new approach you know now they're saying I'm just as good as anybody you know irregardless of my nappy here are you know my black skin or something like that you know doesn't matter say the texture of my hair and the color of my skin doesn't matter you know I just think this is beautiful just give me the right opportunity give me the same opportunities you give me any white male you know any yellow man Blue Man purple man any kind of man you know and I'll you know I'll prove that I can I can stand up and well you know it's like my battle you said a while ago that the federal government could do something about this by putting some money in and you said a little money put in some of money in the problem is that those who hold power and influence and money in the statements that we today will not permit the government to come in and do what has to be done now so this is the it's not a matter of them permit and see the government say for instance now the government could take a much harder stand and I I read in the paper just recently Nixon had said that he's going to look loosen up on the guidelines you have to grade in the schools I mean see this is the whole this is what they want I mean if they can be pressured into say if they got federal government can be pressured into dealing with them on a level say for instance of say. So made into some compromise compromise and any type of situation that is bad to the government the federal government should be strong enough and should be above I think compromise with any injustices. On the part of I would say any of the people under this particular government the government should be for law and order for law for real and I mean not the kind of law and order that the people who elect elected Nixon say they should be for but I mean for Law and Order and for justice for all of all people that's right regardless of color race creed or what happened it was one of all the laws for all the people yes you see and this is what I was getting to the point I was alluding to that I didn't quite get is that. Even though you have had your psychological change you've had a surface change you've gotten as Kennedy noted in his review of few people. You know and he noticed that in the Canton area which I was one of the first people to go in there and set up an office in Canton which was at that time really a rough area yes very I mean man was killed right at that we got a new tool A Did you know and caught all of his sex organs everything just completely destroyed but just like to the councilman in that area a lady even just says what I'm saying even though they have elected a few I would say. Public officials they've just maybe you know in the voting say the voting record has increased you know negroes are now voting state yes. Twice double what they were in the last three times as much. These people are not in a position to do anything they are not there you are also forced to compromise just like the government has been forced to compromise they are not in a position yet to recognize you know to say stand up and really fight for the Negro they are in a constant pressure I mean all the work the Charles Evers and all the you know the rest of them who are still there working has been negated by the fact that they don't have that support that they need state from the government and from say the negroes themselves and you have a lot of negroes even though they are voting they still haven't been educated to the point where where they will vote for a black man and think that that black man will represent him you know they still you've got to educate that vote you've got to get them to you know stand behind each other and furthermore you got to get the government I think to to basically back up things now and Nixon Now I want to say this Nixon with his whole you know added to loosen the guidelines in this whole thing with the South you know even the mere fact that George Wallace was able to carry five states in the south is something that proves that the whites attitude hasn't changed at all you know that they still law they still want you know segregation and all the other oh you know they want to know the old Southern tradition they want things to stay the same and they are very much the same but the negroes have changed and I think but we they can't do it by themselves you know we can't do it by ourselves we need the government we need everyone who who is of who's in a position to help and in a position of power to back him up and I think things will change much faster we had on these microphones Paul good who prepared a report are you in the south for the government so the government can say that they don't know about they can close your eyes to it and certainly Senator Robert Kennedy made a report also of poverty in Mississippi particularly as he was there and Martin Luther King Of course made known the plight of Marks Mississippi which is supposed to be really a poorest area and the entire country and yet in spite of the fact that all this is known nothing really is done and it won't be done it seems to me until we get a moral outrage from all people in the country. Why do you feel differently. I don't think than more I would say this I don't think that moral outrage is coming in the sense that I say for instance when we were demonstrating when we first started demonstrations in the south where we mainly we were demonstrating to dramatize the fact that things were so bad in the South you know that you know here we are down here is suffering and everything and I mean you northerners up there you know Northern liberals who are looking on you know I mean rush down and say you know do something and we were really just dramatize into the world that things are really so bad and you're the negroes were harmful you know peace loving and what have you and you know we went out and got out here it's been an all new and we saw that it didn't produce the type of response that we had set out initially to get in that was to get people morally committed to end in the problem you know so we've been through that already that we've been through that you see what I mean so the thing now is you see we saw that actually now mainly we were demonstrations they for the people in the north you know what I mean just the whole to create a whole situation where as people say hold that's help rageous you know and they would say oh Mississippi is not even like a part of the United States you know but it didn't happen the people didn't rush down you know and commit themselves fully what they did was they sent a little money and you know want to but what can money do without the actual more commitment when it came time for them to vote or you know to really go about changing things in a meaningful level you know it didn't it didn't come about in your book you mention that at the age of fifteen you began to hate people and that includes Negroes Yes Can you elaborate on what caused this and what is the reason why Negroes also are hated but were hated by you at the age of fifteen allow say this well at the age of when I was. Fourteen Emmett Till was killed Oh yes in Mississippi and I was working for one of the meanest white ladies in my hometown one of the meanest I mean she was just. I say number one Kelly and Lady you want to me you started working at the age of I started working at the age of nine as a mess as a mate and I was earning enough seventy five cents and two gallons of collab of milk a week well this was to help my mother with my sister and my brother and I later got jobs paying three four and five dollars but at this time when I was fifteen years old I was working for this lady and when Emmett Till was killed she saw fit to give me a long lecture. On being black and what Emmett Till had done you know all kinds of stuff that really kind of frightened me it was very I was working for her daughter in the beginning and then somehow I just sort of ah you know started work with her because she thought I don't know what she wanted but it was a real kind of challenge on both of our ports to work you know from your to work far enough to have me work and. You know I began I was she would have mediums and all kinds of stuff and along with time also as time school integration you know the Supreme Court the Syrian everything they would have millions on and they were always talking about what they would do you know if they were going to move to liberty because at that time Liberty was supposed to be so like the rough is the area this is where most of them when they are usually and they were forced to leave remember and Allen was killed as a result all kinds of stuff heard just a whole lot of stuff happened in that area and this is a they had set an example for instance they had run out the civil rights people you know they were not allowed to stay so there was a lot most of that thing we want to identify him with Coeur and with but was similarly pay wasn't and so it's Nick Foles was initially with us and the whole thing is that. She was having meetings in her house and they were always discussing negroes in this and I was you know I was peeping in listening you know to me and I heard all of this you know on the whole just the whole attitude and it was that when I was fifteen I had to say a long time I had heard for years and years I had heard my mother talking about whispering with my aunt and various other people who came around about people being keel and say for instance about Negroes you know being found in the Rivoli heads cut off and you know just part tour shows you know nothing legs of people being found various places and it was all you know like a mystery to me you know I didn't really know what was going on and I had been always so busy and I wouldn't didn't hang around with the rest of the kids to find all the other kids no you know because I was working after school and was always busy I didn't know anything everything was hushed up in the house so when Emmett Till was killed somehow I was let in on I was learning on the bass and kids when I was coming home that evening you know and I was very upset about it and then everything began to fall in place you know and I began to all the killing that Mom had once told me about I began to question the fact you know that an evil spirit my mother had told me that anyone's evil spirit had killed them and I had that it be so you had better be a good girl or that evil spirit would kill. Oh me too she was protecting you from what she was you know protecting me from the whole idea you know and telling me the truth Karen me and telling me to be nice and stuff like that but anyway she said you started to hate me and I started to hate negroes and reasons for hating them is because they were not standing up the same reason my mother was lying to me and she was telling me that an evil spirit had killed the negroes and instead of recognizing the fact that you know that the white man had killed in the ground they had killed him for no other reason than the fact that they were black you know and I begin even with a Negro min you know they would get home at night they would curse out a white man you know that he would come along with them or say something like call him boy they would come home in the privacy of their homes and they would curse him out talking about you know calling me some kind of boy such and such a such and all kinds of bastards or whatever you know anything that was more suitable to him instead of you know in his face grinning and calling him Mr you know just so and so and it was just Starr I just couldn't stand that and I couldn't stand the whites for are for really you know for killing the negroes that whole just hatred on all levels you know to begin to work it out and begin to apply it to various situations and would you say then there was a generation gap between you and your parents or between. Children like yourself and their parents. But they didn't understand you were all you know was I don't think it was a generation gap the same thing has happened mothers are still trying to protect their children from what's going on is just not I wouldn't call it a generation gap is just are a means of so they their means like my parents they she thought she was pretty My mother thought she was protecting me I guess most of them thought that this was vests you know didn't want their kids to get involved they want to turn to go on and to do something you know and to become somebody and they didn't feel they felt that their life span would be very short if they got involved and if they protested or if they just Even so I resented it you travel a lot through the country now have you found any difference in the relationship between black and white in other parts of the country or is it pretty much the same thing for the different veneer I would say is pretty much the same with a different veneer because when I left I came here in sixty four as a fund raiser and I traveled all over the country raising money for court to support the Mississippi Freedom Summer and I was in and out of all kinds of B. union halls big churches maiden you know liberals on say every walk of life you say they were listening oh yes I said with a sneer because. I I had expected things to be so much different you know on just say in a way for say five months I was totally cut off from the Negro community in a sense I was going and having speaking engagements in Harlem in very small churches in the ghetto and watch in various places you know you were on the go in the streets but you were looking for different attitude that's right I was looking for our you know really sincere like you know I would meet people for instance and a lot of the people that I met you know even in their tone say when they would introduce me I keep thinking of a certain woman in particular when they would introduce me you know this is you know this is any in the second thing they would say if she's from Mississippi you know like stereotyping me right away you know of like paternalistically out you know very patronizing freeing Lee patronize. And I raised quite a bit of money and I travel for about well six months and then I've still been traveling and speaking even now but the whole you know they were willing here I found people they were willing to pour out thousand give thousands and thousands of dollars what I call guilt money I want to me just throw out their money but I mean so far as they would sit there when I would sometimes I would because when I first came here I was very very bitter My uncle had just been killed say. Three months before I you know when I was extremely bitter over that and I felt partially responsible for and a lot had happened the three civil right workers had just been you know murdered and a lot was taking place in the state and I was extremely bitter and I would just be raiding people for you know for just being indifferent NAPPA Thetic towards things and they would sit there and they would cry you know cry their hearts out and get up when I was over with them going to like the allegations of dollars and yeah just the whole attitude how they would get up and give like thousands of dollars and I would walk right outside the place that they had just left and they would be going home laughing in geology and you know us with just like I had and what I had said was totally nothing which I mean they had given their money and they had they felt totally you know Mike cured of their sins really the final words in your book or I wonder I was really wonder there are these words are in response to the famous song We Shall Overcome can we assume that your skepticism about the future hope for black people in America hasn't changed at all since the book. Oh I I mentioned earlier that I think the whole blood power philosophy in a sense you know encouraging Negroes at least telling them that. You know that they are just as good as anybody this is a very important I think a very necessary step and this is one step I would say on the black man's part of really. So getting rid of any kind of inferior feeling that he has within himself this is a major step so you do see some hope and I see some hope from that point of view but also since I've traveled and since I've been all over the country and since I am no longer looking I would say just did Mississippi as a little small problem a little remote area say detached from the United States and so I'm now connecting Mississippi with all of the other little Mississippi is all over this country and I would say all of the other RA all over the world be Afro I would say the and all where people are hungry and being exploited you know I see things I wouldn't I see things different I see that that Mississippi is not the only problem in the world that the Negro Problem is not the only one in the world that there is a tendency to say with the big powers to explored to demean I would say a lower class of people and I think I would say. I'm a little I'm just a skeptical now in spite of a little bite of the liberal hope you gave Yes I am still pretty skeptical because I think the problem goes much further than just being black or just being brown or white or something like that that there are much deeper problems that may be innate within man himself I don't know. It's been and that's why you say I wonder I wonder Yeah I really wonder they do we've been talking with and Molly about her book coming of age in Mississippi it has four parts of has childhood high school college and the fourth part is the movement and the movement has reference to her work with corps and other organizations Thank you Ann Marie for being with us on the black man in America for those of you who have not yet read Coming of Age in Mississippi I strongly urge you to do so as Senator Kennedy so aptly put it quote and movies powerful and moving book is a timely reminder that we cannot now relax in the struggle for sound justice in America or any part of America we would do so at our own peril and quote This movie is going to have an article in Mademoiselle magazine shortly in which she's going to talk about black power and what she thinks maybe the hope of America ready it did appear in January Please be with us again next week when we will have another distinguished guest this is Bill booth Wishing you all good night we welcome your comments on these programs send your cards and letters to black man in America W N Y C New York one hundred zero seven and join us again next Tuesday afternoon at five on W N Y C F I am or next Tuesday evening at nine am on W N Y C black man in America is a feature presentation of your city station broadcast in cooperation with the New York City Commission on Human Rights.