Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1960-01-02


should never have been taken out
of Mexico without first locating
and consulting me-"
King said he also understands
that his car was taken.
He said he was addressing his
letter to the United States Am
bassador at the Mexican Embassy
as demand for the return to me
Of my family and property forth
with"
When he broke into the metro
polita press of Jackson, Miss, as
well as the wire services two years
ago, with criticism of the NAACP,
then the target of Mississippi leg
islative guns, King stirred the stu
dents of Alcorn college, a state
supported school where he taught,
to a mass strike until the school
authorities got rid of him.
School administrators reacted
Immediately and fired King, sup
porting the students, but only un-
til Mississippi authorities wheeled
their big guns into line.
In the scramble of events which
followed: Alcorn was closed tenn
porarily for lack of students"
King reversed his field and de-
Tended the NAACP, the students
were "locked out" of Alcorn, then
were accepted" back on pledges
of good behavior"
In brief, Mississippi, most rigid
| ly segregated state in the union,
had put down a revolution.
Many of the student body's lead
ers never returned to Alcorn. The
NAACF got them scholarships or
helped them pay their tunition as
scholastic refugees in other parts
of the country.
Those who returned, returned to
a new subdued Alcorn, both faculty
and student-wise, with the state
brooking no Indignation, no equal
ity-nonsense.
King, with the entire race turned
on him as on a Judas, skulked
about Mississippi for a while.
Part time AME pastor, he left
that charge when his congregation
cold-shouldered him.
Finally, in a burst of remorse,
he threatened to enroll one of his
children in a white school, finally
turned up himself at the lilywhite
university, seeking admission as a
graduate student.
State police promptly escorted
him out, jailed him, then trans
ferred him to the State mental hos
pital where he was held under
observation for several weeks I'M
til the efforts of his brother, an
Albany, Ga, lawyer, and aroused
public opinion which felt that King
was being called insane simply be-
cause he attempted to enter the
white university, freed him.
A few weeks later, he arrived
in Los Angeles where people soon
began to have doubts that it was
just racial persecution which land
ed the lanky Mississippian in a
state institution.
King, who has seldom failed to
keep the press posted on his every
action, came to the Tribune office
where he explained that he had
been misunderstood in Mississippi.
His mistake had been to criticize
the NAACP in love, in an effort to
make it better, he told the Tribune.
His was an error of judgment,
in attempting that betterment in
a nest of the organizations enc
mics, he said. He charged that
his criticisms were lifted out of
context by whites to serve their
purpose.
His father, an AME minister,
had bought him a home in Comp
ton, at 1912 w. Reeve St., and had
sent him out here to make a new
life for himself, he stated.
He predicted that the Rev. Mar
tin Luther King, Jr. would have
to leave the South, too.
There is only so far you can 60
down there, he said, before the
white man cracks down with mass
i've resistance and retaliation ia
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