 Mississippi,
South Africa & Tom Manning
Comments by
Tom Manning,
US Political Prisoner in Leavenworth KS, January 11th, 2005
Sitting here reading an
OP-ED piece in Monday’s (January 10th) Times by Paul
Hendrickson,
about the new case brought against one of the mob lynchers of the three
(3)
civil rights workers in Philadelphia,
Mississippi on June
21,
1964. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman
and James Chaney. Any number of thoughts
or memories come to mind.
I have an art magazine with
a painting of these three young men at the time and scene of their
murder,
painted by Norman Rockwell. And each
time I look at this painting I think of young men in Vietnam,
Black and white dying
together. On the same small planet.
Someone in the lynch mob
asked 24 yr. old Mickey Schwerener; “Are you that nigger-lover?” Reading this I recall on of the more
contentious days with the U.S.
Marshals during the Brooklyn
conspiracy
trial. There were only two (2) Black
marshals in that office. One (1) an
older man who stayed in the corridors of the jail processing prisoners
in and
out, for and from court, and a younger man who was part of the
otherwise all
white crew who brought us to and fro each day.
On this one day, when returning to the garage area of the
prison
(MCC/NY), chained and shackled to the Nth degree, Ray and I were
snatched from
the van and my feet never touched the ground, as we were rushed the
twelve (12)
or so feet to a wall, where we were pinned, face to the wall, pressed
from
behind, my feet still not touching the ground, several white marshals
holding
each of us. My face was looking to my
right where the young Black marshal was standing alone by the closed
elevator
door. I asked him, with a bit of defiant
humor, “would you press the up button, Please?”
And one of the marshals holding me jammed me harder into
the wall and
yelled; “Shut-up! Nigger-lover!” I looked again at the lone Black marshal and
asked; “you work with these guys?” He
never answered but in the still moment before the elevator opened and
the rush
of activity re-started, he looked as though he were searching himself
for his
lost soul. (I’d thought of this marshal
no long ago, also, when I’d heard there were Black men amongst the
lynchers of
Emmett Till.)
And I also thought of
something Ray said in his recent Portland Phoenix interview. That Richard, Jaan and myself were the last
three (3) people on Earth imprisoned for fighting against apartheid in South Africa.
……….. the Struggle
Continues! Tom
 |
Thomas
W. Manning
10373-016
P.O.
Box 1000
Leavenworth,
KS
66048 |
|
