OXFORD, Miss. — Efforts to improve race relations and
implement policy reforms in Southern communities have been
successful, but change remains a slow process.
That was the consensus today (Nov. 9) among 14
representatives from various organizations attending the
regional Alliance for Truth and Racial Reconciliation’s
Planning Conference at the University of Mississippi. The
first seven of 14 case studies discussing specific
responses to racial violence were presented during the
meeting, which was co-hosted by the William Winter
Institute for Racial Reconciliation.
The other seven case study presenters are to be heard
Saturday (Nov. 10). A panel of conferees hearing all the
cases is scheduled to give feedback on the best strategies
in a public program at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Peabody Hall.
Panelists include former Gov. Winter and Rita Bender, widow
of one of the three civil rights workers killed in Neshoba
County in 1964.
“The alliance was formed at a 2006 conference at the
university, which brought together groups from across the
American South devoted to racial justice and
reconciliation,” said Susan Glisson, executive director of
the Winter Institute. “The coalition’s aim is to establish
a new meaning for the Confederacy and create a New South
that will lead the nation away from racism, violence and
poverty, and toward truth, equality and peace.”
Among the notable case study presenters was the Moore’s
Ford Memorial Committee. Since its formation in 1997, the
grassroots organizers have had a 10-year struggle to see
justice served in the unsolved 1946 mob lynching of two
black couples George and Mae Murray Dorsey, and Roger and
Dorothy Malcom at the Moore’s Ford Bridge 40 miles east of
Atlanta.
“We first located their four gravesites, then helped
restore the cemeteries and installed the grave markers,”
said Hattie Lawson, MFMC chair. Achievements have included
a memorial service for the Dorseys and Malcoms, a military
service for World War II veteran George Dorsey, an annual
high school talent show/MLK celebration, a scholarship
banquet and presentation of seven $1,000 awards to
graduating seniors of local public high schools, Lawson
said.
“We have called for prosecution, believing several killers
to still be alive, and the FBI has reopened the case. Yet
we face opposition to our work, challenges in moving
forward when dealing with a stagnated investigation,”
Lawson said.
The MFMC and Southern Truth and Reconciliation presented a
spring 2006 program in Newman, Ga., where Sam Hose was
lynched in 1899. Preserving such horrible and controversial
history presents continuing challenges for Coweta County’s
African-American Heritage Museum and Research Center, which
seeks to erect a slave cabin and renovate a historic black
school.
“Attracting enough volunteers, funds and energy to fulfill
the museum’s mission is a continuing challenge,” said Diane
Wood, acting director of the museum. “Can the successful
experiences of other grassroots memorial groups popping up
around the South be exported to the hundreds of communities
across the nation where lynchings and racial violence
occurred?”
Other Friday presenters included Janie Bradley-Blake, who
discussed the 1994 Florida legislative hearings’ statements
of Rosewood, Fla., survivors; Marvin Dunn, who has
directed, narrated and produced a documentary about Willie
James Howard, a 15-year-old black boy lynched in 1944 by
three Florida white men for writing a love letter to a
white girl; and the Anthony Crawford Remembered Memorial
Committee, which seeks to have the South Carolina
legislature offer an apology for his and other lynchings.
For more information or assistance related to a disability,
contact Glisson at 662-915-6734 or glisson@olemiss.edu. A
full conference schedule is available at
To learn more about the Winter Institute, visit