Memories from Mississippi
An Interview with Civil Rights veteran John Lyon Paul
“The call is from Itta Bena, Mississippi, a small, rural and impoverished community on the Delta. Fear is king there.
On the telephone is John Lyon Paul of Yorktown, one of 975 Northern students now in Mississippi.”
The Patent Trader
2nd July 1964
Almost sixty years ago, John Lyon Paul arrived in Mississippi to participate in the Freedom Summer of 1964. The initiative, spearheaded by the Student Non-Violent Co-Ordinating Committee (SNCC), sought to address the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the Deep South.
In June 1964, 1,000 white students arrived in the South to register Black voters and draw attention to the state which had some of the lowest rates of Black voters in the entire country.
At the time, the Magnolia State was considered one of the most unrepentantly racist states in the South. In anticipation of the summer, the state media reported on an upcoming “Mississippi Invasion” by “outside agitators”, fuelling widespread panic of a “Black revolution” and provoking recruitment within white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
John Lyon Paul, aged 21 at the time, was recruited by the Freedom Summer architect himself, Bob Moses, whilst studying at Hamilton College in New York. He had grown up in the “lily white community” of Yorktown Heights but was alerted to civil rights issues early on by his mother, who taught history at a local public school.
“My mother was a big influence on my life”, John stated. “She had a broad perspective on the development of the United States and had high principles, accepting and embracing all people.”
Despite the apparent dangers, John felt strongly about participating in Freedom Summer and arrived in Oxford, Ohio to begin training in June 1964. The sessions were orchestrated by civil rights activist James Forman and other SNCC members who taught non-violence and self-protection.
During one of these workshops, John briefly met Andrew Goodman, a fellow volunteer, who days later, along with Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared from Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their bodies were later found in a dam in Neshoba County, having been kidnapped and brutally murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists.
News of the men’s disappearance came the night before John left for Mississippi and organisers called an emergency meeting, urging volunteers to reconsider their journey to the South.
“It was the moment where rubber met the road”, John remembered. “But not one person left the room, instead, there was a really strong re-commitment.”
The events established a climate of fear which lasted throughout the entire summer. John experienced this from the moment he arrived in the small town of Itta Bena in the Mississippi Delta.
On arrival, he and another volunteer were marched to the nearest bus stop by local white men and told to take the next bus north.
John remembered, “We phoned the SNCC office in Greenwood, 20 miles away, and were told to stay inside the nearby gas station until someone could come to get us.” SNCC activist and later ‘Prime Minister’ of the Black Panther Party, Stokely Carmichael, rescued the volunteers and walked them through the angry crowd before being followed by armed white men in pickup trucks.
John recalled, “We were faced with an impossible decision. On one hand, if we left, it would be another ‘victory’ for racism, but if we stayed, there was an increased threat to not only ourselves, but to the Black community.”
A church meeting was later called for the community to decide whether the perceived “outside agitators” posed too much of a risk to stay. John recalled, “The matter was decided after much discussion and prayer when an old man stood up and to the hushed gathering simply said, “As far as I know, an agitator is the part of the washing machine that gets the dirt out.” And with that, the meeting concluded.
John then began work accompanying Black Mississippians to the nearest courthouse to register to vote. But even for those willing to take the risk, there remained significant barriers to exercising this right.
Registrars at the courthouse systematically denied Black voters on illegal grounds, often requesting that they read aloud and interpret the constitution, knowing full well that many of these agricultural and domestic workers were illiterate. John watched as one man signed his name with an ‘X’. “But the pride that people took in signing at all was really strong", he remembered.
Economic reprisals kept Black Mississippians from attempting to register in the first place as many depended on whites for their livelihood, either working on their cotton plantations or in their homes. It was not uncommon for the names of those who registered to be published in the local newspapers, resulting in immediate job loss.
The fear of a violent backlash also deterred many and such concerns were not unfounded as John experienced first-hand. Later that summer, he was driving some local Black Mississippians home from the courthouse when three white men spotted them.
They turned around and pursued John’s car at over 100 miles-per-hour until John eluded them, first by driving on a dirt road “kicking up” a cloud of dust and then hiding in a plantation cornfield. He and his passengers escaped unharmed but the experience nearly cost them their lives.
Part way through Freedom Summer, SNCC and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) changed its emphasis, believing that they could better achieve Black voter enfranchisement by creating their own party, The Freedom Democratic Party (FDP).
In August 1964, delegates attended the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. John was one of several protesters who demonstrated outside the building to support the party and call for an end to voter suppression.
Following the convention, John returned to New York to complete his degree. Like many volunteers, John’s eyes were opened to the systemic deprivation and inequity in the South and he likened his return to university to that of a soldier coming home from war.
As an English Literature student, his final year thesis focused on Black characters in William Faulkner’s novels; characters from the same community he had come to know and love in Mississippi. He also kept in touch with Rosie, the Black retired midwife who had courageously opened up her home to him during the summer.
After university, John joined the Peace Corps, but left during his training to make a personal statement about being trained as a soldier. His military draft board reluctantly classified him a "conscientious objector" and required him to work for two years as a civilian doing “alternative service.”
For the past 45 years, John has lived in upstate New York working as a professional artist and sculptor, basing many of his pieces on themes of human rights and justice. John describes his work as “tools for centring, grounding, meditation, and healing”.
St Francis Shrine is described by John as an “instrument of peace” which reflects the passivism of the freedom struggle and “a shooting gallery for emotions and intentions.” Credit: John Lyon Paul
St Francis Shrine is described by John as an “instrument of peace” which reflects the passivism of the freedom struggle and “a shooting gallery for emotions and intentions.” Credit: John Lyon Paul
Many Thousands Gone is an interactive sculpture made of three tree-trunk and iron wheels which move in a continuous circular motion. The title comes from a slave song from the Civil War. Credit: John Lyon Paul
Many Thousands Gone is an interactive sculpture made of three tree-trunk and iron wheels which move in a continuous circular motion. The title comes from a slave song from the Civil War. Credit: John Lyon Paul
To this day, John continues to be influenced and inspired by his experiences of the summer of 1964.
Asked if Freedom Summer was a success, John points to the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 which guaranteed Black Americans the right to vote. But he believes the effects of the summer were still being felt in January 2021 when Georgia elected its first Black southerner to the Senate.
“It took a long time for that particular plant to flower”, John stated. “But it was really a triumph of Black voter rights and efforts.”
John watched the election coverage from his home in Ithaca, New York. “I was in tears”, he recalled. “My wife and I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping against hope that at least one senator would but then two!”
The victory was particularly poignant as it was the high turnout of Black voters who ultimately secured the win. The political transformation was pay-off for Georgia’s Stacey Abrams’ decade-long vision of “flipping the state” in the Republican stronghold, as well as the tireless efforts of Black grassroots organisations who challenged discriminatory voter suppression tactics and canvased voters in low-turnout areas.
Whilst history was made on 6th January 2021, the date will forever be synonymous with the storming of the US Capitol Building which ensued only hours later.
John stated: “Georgia was a sign of a step forward and the attack on the Capitol was a sign of deep and hateful racism. It’s almost as if the scab was torn off and we could see the wound.”
But in spite of the divisions, John regards this period as a “rich time” for the nation to come to terms with its deep-seated prejudices. As President Joe Biden stated in his inaugural address, democracy is an ideal to aim for, not one which has been yet achieved.
“We have so much more to do”, John concluded.
