Volunteers holding hands singing at a church.

White College Girl

            Hi, my name is Jan and I’m going to tell you about my experience in the summer of 1964. As my freshman school year began to end at Ole Miss, my friends and I began to hear rumors that about 700 Negroes and whites, who care about equal rights for everyone, were training to come to Mississippi to help Negroes register to vote. They were training on colleges in places like Oxford, Ohio. When I went home from school and told my father about this, he said, “That d****d NAACP.” I was appalled. I knew that he was an important member in the Ku Klux Klan, but I thought that he would never say that in front of me, his baby. I live in the town of Alesville, which is close to Oxford, Mississippi, where Ole Miss is located.

About a month later, I was shopping in town with my friend, Barbara. That day I was wearing my favorite yellow skirt and blue blouse (I liked them because the blue showed off my blue eyes and the yellow was bright like my blonde hair). We were about to walk into Jackie’s Clothes, when suddenly a big orange bus pulled onto Main Street. Everyone there knew who it was, the NAACP and SNCC, who came together as the COFO, to register more Negro voters. I did not know what to think of it. I knew my father would be mad, but I did not mind them so much because people should all be equal. Barbara’s father was a black activist, so she was excited. Her family would invite Negroes over for dinner and they always talked about racial equality. We continued our walk around town, looking inside stores and wondering where the bus had gone. When I got home at about 5:15, my father was not home. My mother, June, was in the kitchen making spaghetti for dinner. Our home was a small, four-roomed house on the south side of town. No Negroes lived near us. I did not hear anything else about the bus that day. I wondered if my father knew about it. I was sure he and his Ku Klux Klansmen would be upset.

            Later that week, Barbara and I walked around the outskirts of town trying to find some of the places where the COFO set up to register more Negroes to vote. I felt as though I was beginning to drift away from my father. He hated Negroes and would always get mad when someone talked about them or the NAACP or the possibility of more rights for them.  They were humans in my eyes, no different than me, just with a different skin color. When we finally found where one of the voter registration booths was located, we were fascinated by how many people were lined up waiting to register to vote. We sat in the grass by the booth, watching people register. The booth was in the front yard of a little brick house with a sign over the top that said “SNCC and COFO.” There was a black hand and a white hand shaking to show Negroes and whites coming together. Around the yard were organizers, some where even carrying signs that said “Register to Vote,” “Equality for All,” and “End the Literacy Test.” People just kept coming and coming. They would register and leave and more would come, register and leave.

Though it had been a couple of hours, it seemed like five minutes when Barbara said, “We’d better be heading back.” I got up and began to walk back, but a woman called out to Barbara and me, “Wait, can you help us?” We looked at each other and as if we read each other’s minds and nodded our heads at the same time. We wanted to help and told her we’d be back the next day. That night at dinner, I did not tell my father or mother about what we did that day. I told them that we did the usual, a walk around the town to look in shops with a stop here or there to buy something.

A registration booth.

The next day, we returned and talked with the woman. She explained how we would talk to people at their homes or even in the fields while they worked about registering. She told us we would go to a nearby county called Burgess. We rode in a car with a white organizer named Ben from Ohio. His car had black paint on the doors. We asked him why there was black paint there and he told us how it used to have the black and white hands on it, but the insurance company made them take it off because they thought it was too much of a target. I was scared my father would find out I was leaving town with a Yankee activist, but I really wanted to do this. I knew what we were supposed to do. We were supposed to walk up to a door, knock on it, ask if they were registered, and if they were not, talk to them about the importance of voting and being registered. Then, we would help them with the paperwork to become registered. When we got to the first house, I began to get scared. The house was small, in bad shape with no paint, with no shingles on the roof. The front porch had slats of wood that were uneven and missing in places. Two old chairs sat out front on the lawn. Though I thought I wanted to do it, I was really scared my father would find out. I could not go up to the house. I could not help with the registration. At that moment, I did not know why, I just couldn’t do it. I stayed in the car. I ducked down whenever I saw another car, afraid it could be someone who knew my father. I asked Ben and Barbara to take me back to Alesville. I felt terrible. Barbara stayed with me instead of returning to help the COFO that day.

Two COFO workers registering a Negro woman at her house.

Though Barbara and I quit helping to register voters, we continued watching the registration activities throughout the summer. One day, we even saw Robert Moses, the main organizer of the voter registrations and the field secretary for the SNCC. He gave a speech on the front porch of the house where people were registering. Almost every night, my father was gone and came back after I was supposed to be asleep. He was always wearing his white robes. I began to get scared; I thought that father might be plotting to kill some of the COFO folks or cause violence. I asked Barbara if she thought the Ku Klux Klan might kill someone trying to register voters. She said that they might, but probably not. I hoped that she was right. I was worried my father would be one of the killers.

            As the end of the summer approached, I began to wonder when the activists helping with registration would leave. Father was really beginning to scare me. He was out at night and when he was home he was angry and ranting about the Negroes and the whites who were helping them. I began to get worried my father would find out that Barbara and I were watching them or that I had gone to Burgess County in a car of one of the activists. I also worried he would find out that Barbara’s family were black activists, so we stopped hanging around the registration house so much. Finally, one day the COFO packed up and left our Alesville. Even though I had not helped out, the woman still thanked me and told me good bye. They seemed to understand that I wanted to help but could not. I was glad, but sad at the same time. It turned out that my father did not kill anyone and the Ku Klux Klan did not attack any of the COFO workers or the house in my town. From watching the Negroes register and seeing how happy they were people were helping them, I realized that I wanted to be a black activist. People should be equal and not have to live in fear that they will be attacked or killed by a group that is scared of others having rights.

Places where they went to register.

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