Among white supremacists, this made him something of a moderate. Investigations continued as did public attacks on civil rights workers as Communists, atheists and sexual deviants. Nonetheless, according to Irons, hard-line segregationists thought Johnston was soft on civil rights.
After Paul B. Johnson was inaugurated as Governor in 1964, Johnston began reining in the horse of all-out white resistance. Irons sees the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts as a crucial turning point from resistance to partial accommodation, or to put it differently, from official, overt resistance to desegregation of any kind to unofficial, covert resistance.
It wasn’t respect for the law that prompted a change in strategy, but a concern for white business interests. Many white businesses were caught between blacks who boycotted a business that did not comply with the new laws and whites who boycotted a business that did. Johnson and Johnston wanted whites to pull in the same direction, using superficial compliance to avoid fundamental change.
Part of this ameliorating strategy was to deny poverty program money to black organizations and communities by investigating and publicizing anything that could be labeled immoral or corrupt. The MSSC also tried to thwart black participation in USDA programs which paid farmers not to grow crops and pressured wholesalers not to supply black merchants.
Irons sees the MSSC as constantly in denial. Even while the reports that made it to the archives complain about the boycotts, the civil rights movement is dismissed as a failure. The reports both express fear of what will happen if blacks win local elections and praise the "good Negro citizens" who vote a "white ticket."
Ultimately, Mississippi adjusted to the new racial order, but not by acquiescing to complete integration. It developed new institutions, such as white private schools, to keep blacks and whites apart and adopted more subtle ways of maintaining white supremacy. It gave up massive resistance but never moved to massive acceptance. Irons’ study of the MSSC helps us to understand why the eradication of racism continues to be such a formidable task.
After Paul B. Johnson was inaugurated as Governor in 1964, Johnston began reining in the horse of all-out white resistance. Irons sees the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts as a crucial turning point from resistance to partial accommodation, or to put it differently, from official, overt resistance to desegregation of any kind to unofficial, covert resistance.
It wasn’t respect for the law that prompted a change in strategy, but a concern for white business interests. Many white businesses were caught between blacks who boycotted a business that did not comply with the new laws and whites who boycotted a business that did. Johnson and Johnston wanted whites to pull in the same direction, using superficial compliance to avoid fundamental change.
Part of this ameliorating strategy was to deny poverty program money to black organizations and communities by investigating and publicizing anything that could be labeled immoral or corrupt. The MSSC also tried to thwart black participation in USDA programs which paid farmers not to grow crops and pressured wholesalers not to supply black merchants.
Irons sees the MSSC as constantly in denial. Even while the reports that made it to the archives complain about the boycotts, the civil rights movement is dismissed as a failure. The reports both express fear of what will happen if blacks win local elections and praise the "good Negro citizens" who vote a "white ticket."
Ultimately, Mississippi adjusted to the new racial order, but not by acquiescing to complete integration. It developed new institutions, such as white private schools, to keep blacks and whites apart and adopted more subtle ways of maintaining white supremacy. It gave up massive resistance but never moved to massive acceptance. Irons’ study of the MSSC helps us to understand why the eradication of racism continues to be such a formidable task.
©2010 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com
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