Week 1

Week 1 

Beyond casework which I am limited in discussing, this week involved a satisfying bit of state-hopping. There was a week-long commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer in Jackson, Mississippi, consisting of a number of seminars, presentations and lunches involving the original contingent of civil rights activists who risked their lives for their cause.  

It was a good few hours drive south to the Louisiana coast, then north-east across the border.
Socio-economic indicators were abound, even right next to our campus

My colleague took us along Highland Road en route, which bore a few relics of its past...

You could still make out what I guessed was old field boundaries and irrigation ditches next to the lodgings.

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We arrived in Jackson in the midst of the Freedom Summer events. Our first stop was a photography and artwork exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art.

Not just any old photography, but breathtaking heat of the moment snapshots of the political and racial turmoil of the 1960s, as well as work by the renown portraiture artist Norman Rockwell.

My personal favourite was an award winning series taken by Matt Herron in 1965, of a five year old boy named Anthony Quinn refusing to let go of his American flag despite the attempts of an officer twice his size to take it off him.

I actually attended a Baptist Church sermon today in McComb, and to my surprise one of the reflection speakers was Anthony himself.

He said he didn't really appreciate the gravitas of  what he was protesting at the time. His mum had simply told him not to let anyone take the flag off him; he was far more scared of what she would do rather than whatever armed officers could....

The centrepiece of the Rockwell exhibit was his work 'Murder in Mississippi'; a depiction of the last moments of  Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner  in 1964 (on the right below).

The shadows of the perpetrators allude to what was proven at trial  to be  the collusion of local police authorities with Klansmen. As the depiction is from the imagination of Rockwell, the picture on the left was the inspiration for his composition. It shows Chaplain Louis Padillo defying sniper fire to give the last rites to a dying solder in Venezeula in 1962.

An individual I had the pleasure of talking to was Hezekiah Watkins. He was 13 years old when he joined the mass movement of activists in the South; the youngest of the lot. His group staged a sit-in at a Greyhound bus station, refusing to budge from the 'whites only' section, and he was arrested for breach of the peace.

I asked him if he lied to his parents about where he was going. 'Yup'.

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I had the extreme pleasure of walking through Tougaloo College campus. The College was founded by New York based Christian missionaries in 1869 for the education of freed slaves, and bore a very proud heritage. The sleepy willow trees sighed over the rolling lawns, and th...I'll just show you some pictures.

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So everyone has their heroes. Whether it's Danny Glover...

...or maybe something more nuanced....like for example Robin Williams' character in Good Will Hunting; the world-weary mentor who tames the vulnerable but brilliant undiscovered prodigy played by Matt Damon. Rumour has it that Damon's history teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, Larry Aaronson, was his inspiration  for the mentor.

Larry and I had a Whataburger together. He was working at the start of the year on one of my cases with a couple of fantastic High School students who laid a lot of the groundwork. The world really is short of good history teachers. I enjoyed a  vibrant 15 minute crash course in the history of the South, as well as a sobering discussion about the Boston bombers; the younger of the brothers was Larry's neighbour and he knew him well.

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By today (29th) the commemorations had drawn to a close. We were kindly driven cross-state back to Baton Rouge by our Program Director, stopping on the way for the sermon I mentioned above, which was held in Society Hill Baptist Church. The Church had been bombed during the 1964 Freedom Movement...

And rebuilt thereafter...










And so, I sit once again in my well air conditioned Baton Rouge student apartment. The next potential trip is Houston, Texas, where I may get to visit family members surrounding one of my cases...

Arrival/Digs/Expectations

 I am currently sitting in what will be by accommodation for the next two months. I am staying in Dunn Hall; new modern apartment buildings adjacent to Southern University Law Centre. To give you a decent picture of what the campus is like...

(oops...bit shaky at the start. The Law Centre is just off to the right in the panoramic, to the left is the Mulatto Bend of the Mississippi River)

The Law Centre is part of the wider Southern University and A&M College; founded in 1880 in the wake of the American Civil War and out of consensus for a higher educational institution for 'persons of color'.

As a historically black college, there has been contemporary tension as to whether admissions to the Law Centre should be discriminate, so as to preserve its raison d'être.  It was pretty surreal to hear my colleagues on the Program discuss their recent or prospective choices in Law Schools across the US being affected by a University's status as a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) or a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). 

Some more information on the genesis of the CRRJ Program emerged today after meeting one of the attorneys (and previous legal fellow) working on the Program. It was established following (and using some funds derived from) the successful settlement of a 2010 federal lawsuit under legal counsel of the Program's Director, Margaret Burnham, which concerned alleged participation by Franklin County police  in the kidnapping, torture and murder of two 19 year olds by Klu Klux Klan members in the summer of 1964. You can read the details of what happened to them in the above link. This incident was tangled in with the killings of three civil rights activists in the same summer; which formed the basis of the popular Hollywood film Mississippi Burning...

So, understandably I am feeling a fairly substantial weight of expectation. 

In terms of the work I will be carrying out, for the duration of the Program I will be bound by attorney-client confidentiality (whilst not enjoying the status of an attorney, these cases can still lead to a civil suit) and as such I'm not sure as to what I can disclose as I go along. I'll get back to this inevitably.

What I can say is the nature of the work will lead me to what was described to me as 'the woods'; rural areas where people keep to themselves and are still very much gripped by the past. I asked if there was a chance that, as a white man, interviewees (mainly older ones) would not be particularly trustworthy or receptive in recounting their stories. 'It is possible'... which is why I would be paired with one of the other legal fellows, who from what I know so far are all of African American descent. The caution exercised by these people isn't unfounded. The Program's research is tactfully conducted with the concerns of individuals affected at its heart. Nevertheless I was advised to err on the side of caution as to telling people who I was/what I was doing here/where I was staying. People know people. Even today there is an estimated 5,000 Klan connected individuals out there, somewhere.

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So, in terms of expectations v. reality. I had the expectation that the South in particular would not be a public transportation utopia, rendering a car the utmost necessity.

Yup. Where does it go? When does it arrive?

I also had the expectation of pastel coloured wooden houses, with a rocking chair on the porch.

Check.

From my previous experience working abroad, it would be cheaper for me to buy a wee cellphone with a month-only contract for unlimited texts and calls, which I would undoubtedly need. So began my Saturday journey on foot to my local Walmart to get one. To avoid running up a three figure bill in data roaming costs for Google maps, I decided to rely on the generous advice of locals, who every 20 minutes would tell me the Walmart is 20 minutes thataway.

No, I wasn't sending SnapChats, I saved that one for later, but you have the pleasure of seeing it now.

After an hour's journey  in the 27 degree heat, without ever seeing the glorious Walmart logo shimmering in the distance like a desert mirage, I gave up and called a taxi from a motel I passed. I was picked up by my hero of the weekend, Herbert:

Herbert didn't need a satnav, he had grown up in Baton Rouge. He spoke in a low mumble which made it hard for me, as someone who speaks in a low mumble, to understand. His told to me about the cultural diversity in the area; his grandfather was a Frenchman and his grandmother was a Cherokee Indian, so basically he was the embodiment of Creole Louisiana. His outlook on the area was certainly more positive than the Armenian born taxi driver that took me half asleep from the airport when I arrived; who opined 'people in this area don't care about you, they will kill you for two dollars, my son was shot when he was 26 years old'.

Herbert coincidentally picked me up when I called a taxi from the Walmart to go back to my hotel. He was kind enough to let me take a picture of him, then off he drove into the generic rush of inner city traffic.

Fast forward to today, where I have met my roommate and fellow legal fellow from Atlanta, who is (1) keen on sports (2) a jazz trumpeter who has been down Bourbon street before (3) is 21 in eight days, and wants to go back to Bourbon street (4) has a car with him (and I'm informed fuel expenses are reimbursed). Glorious. Our relationship was christened by portion of chicken wings at a local sports bar to the background of the pains and joys of a packed bar of Americans watching the USA/Portugal game, who I am told have a new-found national love for soccer.

Orientation in six hours, sleep time. 

Intro

Through popular demand I have been called to write a blog.

For the next two months I have been afforded a fantastic opportunity. A preliminary thanks should go out to the International Officers at Northeastern University for securing me a visiting scholar visa in a remarkably short amount of time. To avoid this sounding like an Oscar speech, I invite you to watch this instead. Tissues may be required ( I managed, just).

Some press coverage of the Program's success can be found here. 

A couple of FAQs to cover first:

(1) How did I find this? 

A Google search, a speculative enquiry and an attached cover letter and CV. This is the second summer I have spent working abroad after going off the beaten track (as opposed to haring after a legal placement at home) and there is little to invalidate the old world/oyster cliche by showing strong academic/extra curricular ability, which most people I know are capable of, and a genuine interest. And nope, the Program pays expenses and provides accommodation at Southern University, Baton Rouge, suitably located on the banks of the Mississippi.  .

(2) Why am I doing this?

If you haven't already, watch the first link above. A quote springs to mind: 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing'. Now for the negative part. At some point in your lives you may encounter a wrongful situation and stand next to alone whilst it is allowed to fester in its petri-dish conditions of facilitation, lying and by-standing. Instead of solidarity, survival kicks in, and supposed good, intelligent people follow the path of least resistance, and may prosper, leaving a stark, perverse notion: 'why weren't you 'strong' enough to turn a blind eye too?' The world turns and nothing appears to change.  

It can be argued that this 'sort' of feeling, as the very lowest common denominator, featured in the individual stories like those told above that accumulated into the overwhelming mass of injustice suffered by African American minorities in the United States throughout the 20th century. Nevertheless, some of the individual stories that I've read so far are truly horrific; I can't imagine being part of them. As the sun is inevitably setting on generations of victims and witnesses, it is perhaps a small consolation that this sort of work provides some redress to those who simply had to watch the world turn, for a very long time. Of course, it's not 'my pain', but I feel I can help alleviate it.

And now the positive part!

I had long dreamed of travelling to the Deep South, including Louisiana and especially New Orleans. A lot of people who have never been, myself included, have a heavily romanticised vision, fuelled by literature, music, sport and Hollywood, hence the pungent cheese of my chosen blog title. Anyone who I have met who has in fact been has confirmed it is exactly like it! Being greeted at Baton Rouge airport by a blast of oven temperature air and eternal ambient chorus of crickets in the tall grass provided a tingle of excitement as I stumbled after 16 hours of flights into a taxi to my hotel for the night.

This sort of opportunity will hopefully enable me to be immersed head first in it all, by being thrown into the heart of local communities in a truly 'live' project aimed to truly benefit others as opposed to insular self-congratulation. I hope to provide a deluge of photographs of food, locations and people, with plenty of my own attempts at wit and the wit of others peppered in...