Diane Nash's statement for my American Prospect article was longer than I could include in the published piece. Her statement is worth reading in full:
The State of Mississippi is trying to change its image to appear to be a state that is no longer racist. If Mississippi would focus on truly eliminating and/or decreasing racism instead of on public relations programs and schemes, a substantive change actually could take place.
I refer to schemes such as prosecuting one person out of a lynch mob and protecting the rest of the mob, especially those who are now financially well off and politically connected.
Another scheme: Prosecuting a token few while neither investigating nor prosecuting murders of hundreds of black men who were lynched. For example, there were other bodies found in 1964, while the FBI was looking for the bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Those murders apparently have never been investigated nor has anyone been prosecuted for them. The same is true for bodies found in rivers, bayous, etc. throughout the state.
Prosecuting a token few and protecting the vast majority of murderers continues to send the message that one can murder black people and (most likely) get away with it. That is not acceptable. Mississippi should not be allowed to defraud the rest of the country into thinking that racist Mississippi is in the past. Make no mistake; racism is alive and well in Mississippi in 2007.
Justice demands the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If any one of those 3 elements is missing, justice is absent.
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