USA Africa Dialogue Series - "Stony the Road" to Change: Black Mississippians and the Culture of Social Relations

"Stony the Road" to Change:
Black Mississippians and the Culture of Social Relations
Excerpt

Cambridge University Press 0521829097 - "Stony the Road" to Change:
Black Mississippians and the Culture of Social Relations
Marilyn M. Thomas-Houston

Page 1

Introduction

first contact:

doesn't everybody own a tv? While traveling west along a beautiful
tree-lined street of postbellum homes in Oxford, Mississippi, I
observed what I thought to be a dis-turbing example of the quality of
race relations in this quiet universitytown. A Black man, about 75
years old – driving approximately twenty-five miles per hour – was
traveling in front of me along the same side street. Although the
light changed from red to green a few seconds or so beforethe elderly
gentleman arrived at the intersection, he stopped. Puzzled byhis
stopping, I tried to see what was wrong. I saw the vehicle on the
crossstreet come to a stop as well, and knew the problem wasn't
traffic. Hethen beckoned for the car – driven by an elderly White
woman, in herlate 70s or early 80s – to continue across. My "big city"
impatience and"middle-class" self-importance induced me to blast my
horn. To my dis-may, the "gentleman" waited and the "lady" – after a
couple of moments of thought – proceeded across against the light. "We
don't have to live likethis anymore," I thought while witnessing the
unfamiliar show of defer-ence in this Black–White/male–female
interaction. "This is 1983," almosttwenty years after the Civil Rights
Movement (CRM)1 brought an end tothe Jim Crow period in the state and
federal troops supported the integra-tion of the University of
Mississippi. The year 1983 was nineteen yearsafter the signing of the
first Voting Rights Act. Needless to say, the eventwas traumatic. More
importantly, this event and similar ones I witnessed became driving
influences that guided my academic and personal searches for
understanding during the next twelve years.

1 "CRM" and "the Movement" are used (for economy and flow) to refer to
the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

More information:

Introduction - assets.cambridge.org/97805218/.../excerpt/
9780521829090_excerpt.pdf

http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1150770/?site_locale=en_GB

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