The last issue of Wesleyan magazine included an inspiring article about John Maguire and David Swift as early sixties freedom riders. I was a freshman when John Maguire brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak in McConaughy Dining Hall. This was in the fall of 1963, a couple of months after the March on Washington and the Birmingham church bombing. Of Wesleyan's 1200 students, it seemed like half were crowded into the dining hall. King was inspiring, but I was especially moved and challenged by a senior, Ron Young, who had spent a year working in Memphis with Rev. James Lawson. `Test your beliefs in the fires of the hells of this world.' Those were his closing words. I promised myself that I would do that.

In the spring of 1964, John Maguire put out the word that students were being recruited for the Mississippi Summer Project. He interviewed me and others. Five of us, I believe, were eventually recruited. We were told that our room and board would cost $10 per week and that we needed to have access to our own bail money. With 200 other students, I set out for training in Oxford, Ohio. Bob Moses, James Foreman, Stokely Carmichael, Vince Harding and many others trained and challenged and scared us. In the video Eyes on the Prize, I am shown briefly looking very nervous after we had gone through an exercise simulating a mob attack at a court house.

 

In Ruleville, Mississippi, Len Edwards, Wesleyan class of 1966, was my roommate and we had the honor of living next door to Fannie Lou and Pap Hamer. Fannie Lou Hamer was the charismatic and outspoken leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Atlantic City convention.

Charles MacLaurin from SNCC was in these early twenties, but already an experienced civil rights worker. He was the project director in Ruleville. I visited Charles last year. He now lives in Indianola, Mississippi. Laughingly, he said, ` You know people always wondered why I wore sunglasses all the time. I didn't want any body to see the fear in my eyes.' He was bold and cool headed and patient with us good hearted and courageous but naïve students.

Going door to door promoting voter registration and membership in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was my task. We would often encounter fear and indifference. The fear we could partially understand since we were often threatened, teens who worked with us were jailed, and our church meeting place was unsuccessfully firebombed. In early August, I was working by myself in the town of Drew, Mississippi. The police arrested me on trumped up charges and threw me in the little town jail for the night. I was sentenced to 90 days on the county work farm. I posted bail and my lawyer appealed my conviction. A year later when I tried to find out what had happened to my case, I was told that there were no records of it and my $500 bail money was not to be found.

I realize now that the experience of being arrested and jailed alone traumatized me. I returned to Wesleyan for my sophomore year feeling wounded and angry and hopeful and blessed. And very grateful to John Maguire and David Swift.

Joseph Brooks Smith Class of 1967