Racism, Alive and Well in America

It worries and disturbs me that our country's problems with racism have lost prominence in discussions of government policy, community life and personal experience. As I've followed some of the discussion that has cropped up here and there on the internet about the story of Winston Carter's death, I've seen comments that it must be a suicide because that sort of racism, the violent, lynching sort, isn't around any more. To me such comments reflect a lack of familiarity with the history of this kind of racist violence, and it is suggestive of how current forms of racism have become invisible to good people. In a more concerted effort to address the departure of racism from wide concern, I'm hoping to post more pieces that expose the life of American racism today. As a first offering in this intent, I will have the honor of presenting to you in my next post a recent piece by Wally Roberts who was was a Freedom School Coordinator in Shaw, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer (1964).