JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI: AN AMERICAN CHRONICLE OF STRUGGLE AND SCHISM
[ 1979 and 1987 -- Krieger edition]
Depicted on the cover of this 1987 (Krieger) edition of my book, is our Woolworth Sit-In, May 28 1963, at Jackson. This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. [Recently, many "end-of-the-Century" photo collections have carried large renditions of it.] A huge mob gathered, with open police support and, while the three of us sat there for three hours, I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things. Seated, left to right, are myself, Ms. Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and Ms. Anne Moody. Other sit-ins -- some in a split-off section and some briefly with our heavily targeted part -- were Mr. Memphis Norman (himself brutally struck and kicked unconscious), Ms. Pearlena Lewis, Ms. Lois Chaffee, Mr. James Beard, Mr. George Raymond, and Mr. Walter Williams. Dr. A.D. Beittel, President of Tougaloo College, and himself a much older man, joined us at the conclusion of the affair.
My book first appeared in 1979 and was later reissued as a slightly expanded paper edition in 1987. All told, it drew over three dozen very positive reviews. A few excerpts:
Jessica Mitford called it "An excellent book about Jackson...A thrilling first-hand account."
UMOJA: A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES said, "Jackson, Mississippi is a gold-mine of raw data..."
Anne Braden in Southern Fight-Back (Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice) termed it "...an invaluable study in how community movements are built and how they can be thwarted -- in this case, by, among other forces, the federal government."
In Win Magazine, Clyde R. Appleton wrote: "This book should be read. It should be studied. There are lessons here for everyone who has been, is, or will be taking part in the people's struggle for peace and justice."
Perk Perkins in Sojourners said, "Salter's closeness to the struggle and his demythologizing impulse give the book its power and drama...paints a graphic picture of the struggle for freedom."
Neil McMillen (History, University of Southern Mississippi), said in The Journal of Mississippi History, "No other study yet in print so carefully details the inner life of a local protest movement...written by a thoughtful activist who recognizes the value of reasoned discourse."
Joseph R. Hacala, S.J., writing in Best Sellers said, "A moving and contemporary account...vivid, stirring."
Alene Jones [Texas Christian University] in Explorations in Sights and Sounds : "...fascinating book...excellent...written in a thorough and logical manner...this book will be profitable to students in a variety of professions...I strongly recommend that this book be read by people in general and by blacks in particular."
Jay Weinstein, in Social Forces: "In Jackson, Mississippi, John Salter provides a sympathetic, carefully reasoned, and highly readable first-person sociological account of the events surrounding Evers' murder and its actual and symbolic connections with this transition in the Civil Rights Movement. Salter skillfully details the roles played by key actors and organizations -- including his own role as a participant and observer."
Sarah Cooper, in Wisconsin Magazine of History: "Activist and sociologist John R. Salter, Jr., has written a first-rate, firsthand account of one of the major grass-roots struggles of the southern Civil Rights Era: the Jackson movement of , which undertook to desegregate public facilities and win decent treatment for the city's black residents...Salter suggests, however, that it is not the vacillation of the Jackson moderates, but the insidious pressure of the national NAACP leadership in New York and the shadow of the Kennedy Administration that ultimately accounts for the dissolution of the movement after Evers' death...."
Vinton Prince, Jr. in The Journal of Southern History: "Scholars interested in the Civil Rights Movement during the early sixties will find John R. Salter, Jr.'s, Jackson, Mississippi esssential reading. He conveys the courage of the demonstrators, the fury of the mob, and the pervasive sense of hate in Jackson extremely well. Less exciting, but more valuable for historians, are his comments on the internal workings and strains of the Jackson movement."
In Southern Exposure, Frank Adams said, "Salter offers a blow-by-blow account of a movement and its destruction which will be difficult to refute. In the final analysis we learn that when the politics of civil rights took precedence over civil action, then Evers, Salter, King, and, tragically, Jackson's black community's struggle for freedom became expendable. As a book for organizers, Salter's book deserves a place beside Alinsky's more publicized Rules for Radicals or the lesser-known classics Tin Horns and Calico by Henry Christian, Heroes and Heretics by Barrows Dunham, or the recent novel by John Nichols, The Milagro Beanfield War..."
David Ranney, in Monthly Review: "Salter lets the story unfold for the reader in a distinctively low-keyed and insightful way. He lets us in on his thoughts and feelings concerning the hopeful/terrible events exploding around him...In many ways, Jackson, Mississippi offers us hope through its demonstration of the ever present potential of a blossoming of a movement of oppressed peoples. Nothing could be quite as dismal as the picture Salter paints of Jackson in the fall of 1961. "Mississippi," he says, "was functioning in the purest and most cold-blooded sense of the word as a garrison state that viewed itself not only as being prepared for war, but as already fighting a war." ...Salter's story suggests a path...The left today would do well to consider this path very carefully..."
And in Social Development Issues (University of Iowa), Gary Lowe: "Salter's book is not splashy. He quietly tells of the evolution of a very vital and dangerous effort to create social change. As a text/case book for community organization, Salter's book is of great value. . .After all is said and done, Salter emerges with hope, and so might we all."