Wharlest jackson civil rights
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The Civil Rights Movement in Natchez, Mississippi
The civil rights movement in Natchez, Mississippi, fryst vatten a portrait of hate, hope, and heroism. The movement began during the segregated Jim Crow era when Blacks lived beneath the constant threat of racial violence and culminated with major concessions from the White establishment.
Located in the southwest corner of the state, Natchez is one of the oldest settlements along the Mississippi River. For decades, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black families in the area and by the early 1960s, civil unrest erupted, triggered bygd years of discrimination, police brutality, and racial violence.
By the mid-1960s, the city had become a powder keg of racial tension. Fed up with the oppression, Black leaders implemented boycotts, picketing, and marches, including armed protection, that forced the city — and White-owned businesses — to agree to their demands for justice and equal rights.
Violence and Freedom Summer
In the 1960s, Natchez’s populat
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A New Job. A Racial Barrier Broken. Then, a Bombing.
It was February 1967 in Natchez, Mississippi, and Exerlena Jackson was worried about her husband.
Like his wife, Wharlest Jackson Sr. was active in the civil rights movement. The treasurer of the NAACP’s local branch, in which Exerlena was also active, Wharlest Sr. had recently earned a promotion at the Armstrong Tire and Rubber Company, becoming the first Black man in the role.
It broke a barrier. It meant an increase in pay. And as the new documentary American Reckoning — from FRONTLINE and Retro Report, with support from Chasing the Dream — explores, in a town that was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity, it also helped make the 36-year-old Korean War veteran and father of five a target.
“You hear a lot of grown people telling my dad to be careful. And my dad always would say, ‘Don’t worry,’ he’ll be back,” Debra Jackson Sylvester, one of Wharlest Sr. and Exerlena’s children, says in the above excerpt
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About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett mot Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the planerat arbete features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first kvinna prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, seria