HATTIESBURG, Miss. – From a Ku Klux Klan firebomb attack on a Black storeowner to frequent marches on Main Street by Blacks pushing for voting rights, the city of Hattiesburg was a pivotal scene of racial unrest in the 1950s and 1960s.
A University of Southern Mississippi conference late last week highlighted the role of key activists and local foot soldiers who helped change the racial landscape of the South during the civil rights movement.
The academic conference, which began Thursday and concluded Saturday, included panel discussions by many veteran activists, including Lawrence Guyot, Marilyn Lowen, and Martha Noonan, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Guyot said there were many developments in Hattiesburg that gave the cause momentum, including the U.S. Justice Department’s 1961 lawsuit against Forrest County registrar Therron Lynd, who thwarted efforts by Blacks to vote.
“It’s so central because SNCC was able to bring in the National Conference of Churches and facilitate the Department of Justice in finding witnesses in the lawsuit against Therron Lynd,” Guyot said.
SNCC also began one of its first voter registration projects in Hattiesburg in 1961.
Hollis Watkins, who now lives in Jackson and was a member of SNCC, said Hattiesburg had the largest number of professional Blacks who attempted to register to vote. She said that “dispelled the notion that literacy tests were legitimate. The discretion was left solely with the registrar, who had less than an eighth-grade education.”
