Protestors and activists who criticized oppression and corruption within American government and society made up the new left movement in the 1960s which advocated reforms concerning social and political issues such as abortion, gender roles, gay rights, and drugs. College students were perhaps the largest demographic of the “new left”.[1]  Student voices from Mississippi’s counterculture came from organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Also, the underground newspaper, The Kudzu, acted as a voice for Mississippi's countercultural movement.

 

 In the South, it was controversial to be known as a member of these organizations or openly admit anti-war sympathy, and one could risk being ostracized by their community or disowned by their family if they were exposed. Their political and social views were often interpreted as hostile by the state’s more traditional and conservative population, and as a result, activists in the new left became perceived as un-American "communists" and often found themselves under the watchful eyes of the police.[2]  

 

Student activism and protests surged in the 1960s, however, black students were typically less involved in the anti-war movement.[3] Attending newly integrated schools was a challenge in itself. Black students risked their safety more than white students and typically did not throw fuel on the fire as “it was a time of turmoil in campus communities across the country.”[4] In 1967 a wave of protests erupted throughout Jackson, Mississippi after Benjamin Brown, an African American civil rights activist at Jackson State College, was fatally shot by a police officer.[5] In response, the SSOC rallied 20 white students from Millsaps College to march to the Governor’s Mansion which made national news as the first civil rights demonstration by white Mississippians.[6] This was an unprecedented event in the state’s history.

 

Further escalating tensions in Mississippi, on May 14, 1970, police opened fire on an anti-war rally at Jackson State, a predominately black school, which left twelve students wounded and two killed. Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, a law student, and James Earl Green, an innocent bystander and track star standing on the opposite side of the street, lost their lives during the police shootout.[7]  This event fueled already existing racial tensions of the time, angering many because it was often overshadowed by the shootings at Kent. After this incident at Jackson State,  “200 students and faculty from Millsaps marched to the Governor's Mansion, a 10-fold increase over the previous incident, and an indication of how rapid public opinion was changing in those years.”[8]   

 

 

 

[1]Roland Marchand. 2010. “The New Left Ideology,” The History Project. Accessed November 1, 2015. http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/lessons/view_lesson.php?id=43.

[2]Joseph A. Fry. The American South and the Vietnam War: (Belligerence, Protest, and Agony in Dixie, 2015), 287.

[3] ibid. Jospehy A. Fry. 

[4]“Killings at Jackson State University.” Accessed October 8, 2015. http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/killings-jackson-state-university.

[5] Benjamin Brown Case. Accessed November 1, 2015. http://www.northeastern.edu/law/academics/institutes/crrj/case-watch/brown.html.

[6]David Doggett. Accessed October 30, 2015. http://www.crmvet.org/vet/doggett.htm. 

[7] Jackson State University. Accessed November 1, 2015.  http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/14/40_years_ago_police_kill_two. 

[8] David Doggett. Accessed October 30, 2015. http://www.crmvet.org/vet/doggett.htm