State of Siege: Mississippi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement
Series: American RadioWorks: Black History
From: American Public Media
Length: 00:59:00
Mississippi occupies a distinct and dramatic place in the history of America’s civil rights movement. No state in the South was more resistant to the struggle for black equality. No place was more violent. While the history of civil rights activists has been well documented in radio and television, the stories and strategies of their white opponents are less well known.
Using newly discovered archival audio, along with oral histories and contemporary interviews, State of Siege brings to light the extraordinary tactics whites in Mississippi used to battle integration. Their strategies ranged from organizing a massive network of citizens councils to promote white supremacy, to establishing a state-run spy agency to disrupt civil rights activism.
The program also traces the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and illuminates the way whites came to both accommodate and defy the mandates of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Ultimately, what happened during the civil rights era in Mississippi had a profound and lasting impact on American politics to the present day.
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Piece Description
Mississippi occupies a distinct and dramatic place in the history of America’s civil rights movement. No state in the South was more resistant to the struggle for black equality. No place was more violent. While the history of civil rights activists has been well documented in radio and television, the stories and strategies of their white opponents are less well known.
Using newly discovered archival audio, along with oral histories and contemporary interviews, State of Siege brings to light the extraordinary tactics whites in Mississippi used to battle integration. Their strategies ranged from organizing a massive network of citizens councils to promote white supremacy, to establishing a state-run spy agency to disrupt civil rights activism.
The program also traces the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and illuminates the way whites came to both accommodate and defy the mandates of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Ultimately, what happened during the civil rights era in Mississippi had a profound and lasting impact on American politics to the present day.
Transcript
Stephen Smith: From American Public Media, this is an American RadioWorks documentary. As the civil rights movement spread across the American South, no state fought as hard or effectively to preserve segregation as Mississippi. Extraordinary tactics were used against black activists and moderate whites.
Hodding Carter: They were simply going to see to it that no one deviated from total conformity to what was called “our way of life.”
Jerry Miller: …drive-by shootings, there were beatings, there were church burnings, every night.
I'm Stephen Smith. Stay with us over the coming hour for "State of Siege: Mississippi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement,” from American RadioWorks. First this news.
PART 1
[Sound of walking outside]
Horace Harned: Alright, this is my place for the next mile down that way…
Horace Harned lives in rural Mississippi…near the town of Starkville.
Harned...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
00:00 - 01:00 (0:59 + :01 silence) Billboard outcue = "first, this news."
01:00 - 06:00 (5:00) NPR News hole, Music Bed.
06:00 - 25:29 (19:29) Part 1; outcue = "American Public Media."
25:29 - 26:29 (0:59 + :01 silence) Music Bed.
26:39 - 59:00 (32:31) Part 2; outcue = "American Public Media."
59:00 - 60:00 (1:00) silence [no silence segment on ContentDepot]
Intro and Outro
INTRO:During the civil rights movement, states across the American South were shaken by violence as African Americans struggled for equal rights. But no state was more violent, or more resistant to integration than Mississippi. A new documentary from American RadioWorks explores the extraordinary tactics white Mississippians used to block integration with blacks.
OUTRO:Additional Credits
Producers: Kate Ellis and Stephen Smith
Editor: Peter Clowney
Executive Editor and Host: Stephen Smith
Coordinating Producer: Ellen Guettler
Assistant Producer: Suzanne Pekow
Audio Mixing: Craig Thorson
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