Sex Abuse, Beatings and an Untouchable Mississippi Sheriff

Lounette Collins Obituary

By Floyd Ingram | 8:13 AM | May 30, 2014 | Obituaries CJ-0604-OBIT-Collins-1KCOLUMBUS – Lounette Buchanan Collins, 90, passed away Wednesday, May 28, 2014, at Baptist Hospital in Columbus. She was a retired teacher with 36 years in the Houston Public Schools. Funeral services are set for Saturday, May 31, at noon at Pleasant Plain M.B. Church in Prairie. The Rev. Willie K. Orr will officiate. Burial will follow in the church cemetery. The body will lie in repose from 11 a.m. until the hour of the service. Carter Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements. She is survived by one son, Henry Collins (Angela) of Spanaway, Wash.; one daughter, Yvonne Collins Jones of Columbus; two sisters, Ophelia Holliday (R.C.) of Prairie and Oberia Holliday of Columbus; four grandchildren, Camille Bobo, Cheryl Hutchinson, Tarekee Barr and Jermaine Collins; 11 great-grandchildren; two great-great-grandchildren; and a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. http://chickasawjournal.com/2014/05/30/lounette-collins/

Equal Ground [Program 3]

Join David Freudberg for a stirring, wrenching, and remarkable tale of human endurance, spirit, and strength. Travel back to the era of civil rights in Mississippi as Mae Bertha Carter, a former sharecropper and mother of 13 children, describes her struggle to have her daughters schooled with white children. This inspiring woman fended off gunshots, harassment, and unrelenting hostility to ensure her children would not be sharecroppers and, amazingly, not grow to hate those who opposed them. Her daughters talk emotionally about how they survived daily torment to become successful professionals, the lessons instilled by their parents that still guide them today, and what it meant to play such a significant, but unknowing role in the changing of a country. Humankind also talks to a white classmate of the Carters and to Connie Curry, the author of a book about Mae Bertha "Silver Rights." Family, fortitude, and the will of the soul...this is an unforgettable half-hour.

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“"Everybody out here was whooping and hollering and running and trying to flip,” said Patrina Brown, 25, the new mayor’s niece and newly elected as one of Alligator’s five aldermen.

Some youngsters ran into Mr Fava’s store to taunt him. “They was pulling down their pants, shouting, ’Kiss my black ass, because we got a black mayor’, swinging their things around and throwing stuff,” said Jennifer Green, 31, a black mother of 10.

Remember Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in September 2005, I was reading I Wonder as I Wander by Langston Hughes.

http://www.amazon.com/I-Wonder-As-Wander/dp/0374940312

I was at the point when Mr. Hughes describes the aftermath of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 when horrific scenes from New Orleans were televised.

Listening and watching the nation’s reaction in the days following caused me to wonder if I were seeing a repetition of history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mississippi_Flood_of_1927

The 1927 event profoundly affected Black people across the nation. So much so that my Grandfather made mention of the dastardly treatment of our people at the hands of their white brethren and elected officials. Many left Mississippi and never looked back. Many black voters derided President Hoover and left the Republican Party they had staunchly supported since Reconstruction.

So mean-spirited were the reactions of some in Boston to the unfolding Katrina tragedy that when I began organizing a charitable response many Black associates stopped speaking to me for fear of incurring white wrath.

I was undeterred and gained necessary insights into pathologies of contemporary urban Uncle Tomism.