As much as I love bringing positive, sweet stories, I do want to mention this week a story about the country store in Collbran, Alabama.
It has a really sad history; I first ran across it when I was researching to have a historic marker put up to memorialize William L Moore, who in 1963 was walking from Chattanooga to Jackson, Mississippi to hand-deliver a letter he’d written for Governor Ross Barnett, telling him to end segregation.
The LA Times did a great job on writing about this in 2002 and the article is available here.
One day, Av drove me up to Collbran so I could see the store yet again to figure out if the historic marker would be more appropriate at here where Moore was last seen with other men (including Floyd Simpson) having a tense interaction, or farther down the road where Moore’s life was taken.
It was such a terrific surprise to see that, between my visit one and two, a historic marker had been put up by someone else working on the same project.
A gentleman who had an innocent personal connection to the incident got the job done wonderfully (and NPR did an absolutely beautiful piece about this), which was really so much better than it coming from me.
Not nearly enough resources have the text of William L Moore’s letter to Gov Barnett, which he never got to hand-deliver as he’d wished. Bill Moore wanted everyone to have it — he mimeographed it and gave copies out freely. Here it is:
Dear Governor Barnett:
I have always had a warm place in my heart for Mississippi, the land of my childhood and my ancestors. I dislike the reputation this state has acquired as being the most backward and most bigoted in the land. Those who truly love Mississippi must work to change this image.
Frankly, I do not know which is worse — to be raised to believe that one should be happy to live in poverty and die twice as fast as the white man and to be told to reject the ideas of those who tell you democracy means the right to vote whatever the color of one’s skin; or is it worse to be raised as members of a sort of ‘master race’ which fights a losing battle to preserve injustice with barbaric laws and police state methods.
The British were wise in that they dissolved their empire before they were forced to do so. Consequently, the governments of countries such as India and Nigeria are stable and friendly and democratic. The French, on the other hand, held onto their empire as long as they could. Thus the bitter strife in Laos, Vietnam, Algeria.
The end of Mississippi colonialism is fast approaching. The only question is whether you will help it to end in a friendship like the British, or try to hold onto what is already lost, creating bitterness and hatred, as did the French. For our sake, as tell as the Negro’s, I hope you will decide to try the British way.
The white man cannot be truly free himself until all men have their rights. Each is dependent upon the other. Do not go down in infamy as one who fought democracy for all which you have not the power to prevent.
Be gracious. Do more than is immediately demanded of you. Make certain that when the Negro gets his rights and his vote that he does not in the process learn to treat the white man with the contempt and disdain that, unfortunately, some of us now treat him.
Sincerely,
William L. Moore
At the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, The Memorial, designed by Maya Lin and dedicated in 1989, William Moore is included. Her design was inspired by the Amos 5:24 verse that MLK used in his “I Have a Dream” speech: “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
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