The Wrong Side of Murder Creek by Bob Zellner & Constance Curry

Author:Bob Zellner & Constance Curry [Zellner, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Freedom Movement, civil rights, discrimination, race relations, racial inequality, racism, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, activism, Bob Zellner, SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Freedom Rides, Freedom Riders, Huntingdon College, Son of the South
ISBN: 9781603061049
Publisher: NewSouth Inc.
Published: 2008-01-14T22:00:00+00:00

12

Criminal Anarchy in Baton Rouge

In February 1962, in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, I had my first experience with police torture, Southern American style. SNCC Chairman Chuck McDew and I had been at our trial in McComb, Mississippi, and decided to take a bus to New Orleans with a stop in Baton Rouge. Dion Diamond, one of our SNCC field workers had been arrested and imprisoned there during student demonstrations at Southern University. Dion had left Howard University, had organized in Virginia and Maryland, had been a freedom rider, and had been arrested while working with black students in Baton Rouge. We planned to visit him, talk about his bond, and then head for New Orleans.

Both Chuck and I had good contacts and friends in the Big Easy. Oretha Castle and her sister were leaders of the movement (Oretha would later marry my friend Richard Haley, who worked for CORE and who proved to be so steady and strong on the William Moore march in 1963). Dave Dennis, who in 1964 would organize for CORE in Mississippi, was from Louisiana and worked in New Orleans. He would make the impassioned speech at James Chaney’s funeral in Meridian following the murders that summer of the three civil rights workers in Philadelphia. Tom Dent, the son of the Dillard University president, was one of our supporters and later wrote a great book about his travels to movement hot spots.

We never made it to see our friends and eat and party in New Orleans. When our wheezy old bus smoked into Baton Rouge, Chuck and I took in the early evening scene. Even though it was still February the street were warm and swarming with people. As the driver wheeled us through the Negro district of town, we could see revelers inside the various night spots beginning their Saturday evening—glad to have made it through another week. Student demonstrations had roiled the local black campus. Chuck and I wondered aloud if the police wouldn’t take out their frustrations on some black skulls tonight.

“Naw,” Chuck did his best imitation of the local boys in uniform, “these cracker cops hope these black dudes will drink up their anger and be ready for work Monday morning back at Mister Charlie’s plantation house.”

I asked McDew not to call them that, “I am a cracker, too,” I said.

“Shut up, Nigger,” Chuck snapped, “here’s the station, watch yo’ ass now.”

That ended the discussion of calling white people names. We tried to inconspicuously check our bags in a couple of lockers. We didn’t know how long we could visit Dion, and we would need them handy for the last leg of the trip to New Orleans.

As we left the Baton Rouge bus station, McDew hailed the first black person we saw and asked directions to the Parish Prison. Pulling his hat down over his eyes, the man said softly, “What business you got down there, man—you don’t want to be nosing around that particular area.”

Chuck explained that we were going to see a friend about his bail, got the directions, and we set out.

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