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Mack Charles Parker was arrested for raping a white woman in 1959. A Mississippi state trooper offered his pistol to the woman’s husband so he could shoot Parker on the spot. The husband, Jimmy Walters, knew that his wife was not even certain that Parker was the attacker so he refused the offer and he reminded the officer that there was still doubt.

The Walters’, who had a sense of justice, seemed to be the minority in Poplarville, and there was such a strong cry for revenge against Parker that the judge couldn’t guarantee Parker’s safety. Because of this, the county jailer started burying the jail keys in his backyard at night.

M.C. Parker, at 23, had served two years in the Army and was working as a truck driver when he was arrested for the rape of June Walters. He lived with his mother, brother, sister and nephew in a poor black section of Lumberton, Mississippi and most of his wages were spent on his family. On the night of the rape, he had been out with friends, and it will never be known whether he was innocent or guilty of the crime.

Most white people in Poplarville were convinced Parker was a rapist including a former deputy sheriff who believed that Parker didn’t even deserve a jury trial. He ended up recruiting a lynch mob from men attending a prayer meeting and three days before Parker was to stand trial, eight masked white men dragged him from his jail cell, beat him, shot him in the heart and threw his body in the river, where he was found 10 days later. In addition to the former sheriff, the lynch mob included a Baptist preacher and the jailer, who had been persuaded, after all, to give up his keys. Many people in town were afraid of the mob, and many believed the lynching was justified so no one would offer any information to the FBI even though everyone knew who committed the crime. The county prosecutor himself praised the lynching and said he would refuse to prosecute anyone arrested for the crime.

Elsewhere, officials were not so ready to set aside the standards of justice and the lynching was called a “reprehensible act” and pledged a full investigation. This negative publicity only enraged whites in Poplarville, and they took their anger out on Mack Parker’s family. After numerous death threats, Parker’s family had to flee to California.

The verdict of the trial was more than a victory for the killers of Mack Parker; it was a victory for the white South over federal interference. The grand jury refused to indict and the lynch mob went free.

Some plainly viewed the lynching as an act of heroism against a federal government that was slowly destroying the Southern way of life. As one of Mississippi’s State Sovereignty Commission officials put it, “If we sat back and waited for the government to prosecute and punish Mack Parker, it would never happen. So we did it ourselves.”  Unfortunately, Mack Parker was presumed guilty and never had the chance for a trial to prove whether he was innocent or not.

This is a prime example of why it’s so imperative you not only practice your beliefs, but stand up for them as well. The majority is not always right and sometimes it just takes one voice, no matter how small or soft, to be the voice of reason and change the course of someone’s life.

This is one of the many lessons we learn each year during Sojourn to the Past. To learn more, visit www.sojournproject.org.

On May 4, 1961, a group of blacks and whites set out on a highly publicized trip to test a Supreme Court order outlawing segretation on bus terminals. They called themselves Freedom Riders.

Waiting for these buses to arrive at the terminal, an angry mob of white men carrying pipes, clubs, bricks and knives came at the bus. The driver drove off quickly as they saw the mob there waiting, but the mob caught up with the bus again right outside of Anniston, Alabama. The mob smashed all of the windows of the bus and threw a firebomb on board. The Freedom Riders all rushed out of the flames and into the hands of the mob where they were quickly brutally beaten by them.

The second busload of riders were all beaten by eight white men who boarded the bus when it pulled up to the terminal. The most seriously injured was a man named Walter Bergman who suffered a stroke as a result of the beating and was confined to a wheelchair for life.

Top federal officials arranged for the wounded Freedom Riders to fly out of Alabama, and students in Nashville made plans to finish the Freedom Ride. Federal officials tried to discourage them but were unsucessful. Once again these individuals attempting to finish the Freedom Ride were met by a mob – this time of more than 1,000 whites who beat them without police interference.

President Kennedy decided to protect the Freedom Riders since officials had failed to stop them. They rode into Jackson Mississippi unharmed the rest of the way, but were promptly arrested due to the fact that officials were told they could continue to enforce their segretgation laws if they would guarantee the Freedom Riders’ safety.

In September, bus companies were ordered to obey the earlier Supreme Court ruling which outlawed segregation in bus terminals. Once again, young protesters had exposed the injustices of segregation and forced the federal government to defend constitutional rights. As Martin Luther King said, “The real meaning of the movement: that students had faith in the future. That the movement was based on hope, that this movement had something within it that says somehow even though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.”

The Medgar Evers Memorial: University, MS

Medgar Evers, a Mississippi native, is memorialized at the Lamar Law Center of the University of Mississippi. Evers was instumental to the desegregation of the Mississippi education system. In addition to fighting for his own admission to the school of law, Evers was a key figure in the eventual admission of the first black student, James Meredith, into Ole Miss. Shortly after he made his investigations of the murder of Emmett Till and the Clyde Kennard conviction public, this NAACP lawyer was assassinated in front of his home. He has since been commemorated musically and the 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi.

Evers is also remembered for his pride in Mississippi. He said, “I love the land of my birth. I do not mean just America as a country, but Mississippi, the state in which I was born. The things that I say…will be said to you in hopes of the future when … we will not have to hang our heads in shame or hold our breath when the name Mississippi is mentioned, fearing the worst. But instead, we will be anticipating the best.”

Sojourners visit the Medgar Evers memorial during the trips to learn about and to honor a man who was determined to fight for equality, both in his local community and for future generations of Americans.