Soon after the Peace Park was built, children in the community painted murals on the wall marking the boundary between Manyanani and the rest of Khayelitsha.
International relations.
Even in Khayelitsha, the Table Mountain range is a constant presence.
Homba Primary School choir.
Portrait.
Football.
Another perspective of Khayelitsha.
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Clarksdale is the county seat of Coahoma County, located in northwest Mississippi – the heart of the Delta. This area, containing some of the most fertile land in the world, has cotton fields that stretch for miles. Ever-present in the wide, flat terrain of the Delta, they serve as a constant reminder of the people’s origins. One can also find swamps and bayous, as well as Moon Lake, about which Tennessee Williams (a Mississippi native) often wrote.
Clarksdale is surrounded by a number of smaller towns, scattered among miles of cotton, such as Jonestown, Coahoma, Lula, and Friars Point. Jonestown, located a few miles to the northeast of Clarksdale, used to be a diverse, bustling town during Jim Crow. With increasing black political empowerment in the 1970s and 1980s, Jonestown, like so many other towns, experienced almost total white flight, leaving the town economically depressed. Jonestown struggles with problems resulting from the absence of economic opportunities, including drug abuse and crime. That said, much has been done by the locals to better their community. Initiatives to clean the town and create public parks through grants have been very successful.
Two miles to the northwest of Jonestown sits Coahoma, a small town of 325 residents that faces many of the same problems as Jonestown. It is also the birthplace of the late James Carr, a notable singer of soul and R&B.
To the north of Coahoma is Lula, another small town of 370 residents according to the 2000 census. In addition to having a Mississippi Blues Trail marker, Lula also is the home of the cotton gin still run by the Johnson family.
To the southwest of Lula is Friars Point, a town of about 1500 people that experienced a minor race riot in the late 19th century. It now boasts a museum containing artifacts of local history. Friars Point also has a Mississippi Blues Trail marker, and is mentioned in a few blues songs. Muddy Waters claimed to have seen Robert Johnson playing in front of a drugstore in the town, and was so intimidated by his skill that he moved on.
To the east of Clarksdale lies Lambert, right across the border in Quitman County. Lambert is home to nearly 2,000 residents, and is the birthplace of the innovative blues harmonica player Snooky Pryor, and is now home of blues teacher Johnnie Billington.
History
Sitting on the banks of the Sunflower River, Clarksdale was until recently one of the top cotton centers, drawing cotton picked and processed by African-Americans from the miles of plantations surrounding it. With the establishment of a train depot there after WWII, many blacks went north to Chicago in order to escape the ever-present oppression of Jim Crow and find jobs that didn’t involve picking cotton for two dollars a day. However, the population was not strictly divided between blacks and whites; a number of immigrants from other countries arrived at various times as well. Italian, Lebanese, and Chinese immigrants opened shops and generally received better treatment than African-Americans. Though lynching occurred rarely in Clarksdale compared to other areas, the KKK was very active and Jim Crow did enable the violent suppression of the black population for almost a century. Out of this suppression during the first half of the 20th century, the musical style known as blues emerged. Clarksdale saw some of the best blues musicians in history live and play in its shacks and juke joints. Sam Cooke, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and many others were born in Clarksdale itself or in nearby towns. The blues played, and continues to play, a large role in Clarksdale life.
The town of Clarksdale itself did not see major action during the Civil Rights Movement, but many major events related to the movement did occur in the area surrounding. Emmett Till was murdered in Money, a few miles to the east. Fannie Lou Hamer was from Indianola, just south of Clarksdale. Clarksdale itself was the home of Aaron E. Henry, a major grass-roots activist and member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or MFDP, which claimed to be the only democratically elected party in Mississippi at the time. Hamer and Henry were the major leaders of the MFDP when they attended the Democratic Convention in 1964. Their main objectives revolved around gaining democratic representation and the right to vote. Despite the failure of the MFDP to gain seats at the convention, Jim Crow began to be dismantled in Mississippi over the next few years. Many black residents still remember desegregation and the first time they were allowed to go to formerly whites-only restaurants, or enter the Clarksdale cinema through the front door.
Economy
The economy of Coahoma County and Clarksdale has for centuries been centered on cotton. The Delta’s rich soil produced the best American cotton since the antebellum period, and plantation owners depended on predominantly black-but also white-labor to plant, tend, and harvest the crop. Most of the black population depended on this system of sharecropping in order to survive, and, because of Jim Crow restrictions, found it almost impossible to expand into other trades. Black sharecroppers were generally paid between two and three dollars for an entire day’s labor. Once cotton harvest and processing became mechanized in the latter half of the 20th century, the machines replaced many of the sharecroppers. Additionally, globalization has hurt the existing cotton producers in Coahoma as cotton grown in other countries is increasingly imported for domestic use. Thus, most of those who depended on cotton for subsistence either had to find new work or become unemployed.
The white flight that occurred in the wake of desegregation and the dismantling of Jim Crow took a lot of industry out of the rural areas as well, leaving many communities economically depressed. Developments in Coahoma County in the past few years have been a double-edged sword. Casinos, which have recently begun arriving in the area, have provided the best job opportunities seen in years for many. They have also caused an increase in gambling addiction in the surrounding areas, prompting some to compare them to the “pay now, exploit later” methods of the old plantations. Much of the region, most notably rural communities, has not been severely affected by the global market crisis aside from the increase in the price of fuel. This phenomenon is mostly because Coahoma County is not as integrated into the world market as most parts of the U.S. That said, many point to significant improvements in the local economy, especially in Clarksdale. Blues tourism has done a lot in the past few years to bring many to the area, with the many blues clubs, hotels, and historic attractions.
People
Of the over 30,000 inhabitants of Coahoma County, roughly 29% are white, 69% black, and less than 2% from other backgrounds. In Clarksdale, the 20,645 inhabitants are roughly divided along the same racial lines as the county. While it would be naïve to say that racial tensions no longer exist, the incredible strides and progress made in the past 40 years have irreversibly changed Delta society. However, there is still much that causes friction between whites and blacks.
After the dismantling of Jim Crow in the late 1960s and early 1970s, mandatory school integration prompted many whites to move and create academies that would economically segregate the student body. White flight and newly gained voting rights led to the election of blacks to political offices not occupied by African-Americans since Reconstruction. In Clarksdale, this was partly a result of local efforts to make the city adopt a ward system-an act to further democratize the area and give direct representation.
Set in the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape, King William’s Town, or “King,” sprawls across the banks of the Buffalo River about 30 miles west of Port Elizabeth, which lies at the mouth of the river. The Buffalo River is the only navigable river in South Africa, giving King and Port Elizabeth an economic advantage, making them a key point of trade from the 19th century onward. King lies at the foot of the Amatola Mountains, after which the local Amathole Museum (formerly the Kaffrarian Museum, a racially derogatory term) was renamed.
The environs of King William’s Town are home to a number of other small towns and townships-a reflection of South Africa’s tumultuous history. Townships like Zwelitsha, Dimbaza, Phakamisa, and Schornville were created for those forcibly removed and as a funnel for labor to places like King. Ginsberg Township, the birthplace of Bantu Steve Biko, was originally created during an outbreak of the bubonic plague as a neighborhood for blacks from the surrounding rural areas. Bhisho (formerly Bisho), the site of the infamous 1992 massacre, is another major town near King, and now has a memorial near the site where the shooting occurred. While traveling through the environs of King, one will also encounter Steve Biko’s graveyard and home, the Amathole Museum, the Botanical Gardens, and even a memorial to Queen Victoria.
History
Originally founded in 1835 at the site of a mission built nine years earlier, King William’s Town-named for King William IV of England-soon became the premier trading outpost of the then British Kaffraria (the area of King and Port Elizabeth today). In 1857, a number of Germans who had fought in the Crimean War settled in the area, giving the distinctly German names to nearby places in the district such as Berlin and others. These German ex-soldiers effectively doubled the white population there, bringing it to nearly 4,000, as opposed to the Xhosa population which at the time numbered as many as 52,000. By 1889, the number of whites had climbed to over 8,000 and remained such for nearly a century. The 120,000 Xhosa, however, grew to over 630,000 by 1980.
In 1880, King was connected to other towns by a railway, effectively making it the major trading center of the colony. This economic success was largely due to extensive trade with the indigenous African population, sending colonial goods in return for wool and animal hides. This influx of foreign goods and the colonizing effects of Christianity from the missions were major factors in the social and cultural subjugation of the native Ama Rharhabe Xhosa population. White society continued to flourish in King on the backs of black Africans who, in spite of their vast numerical superiority, were ultimately forced to submit to white domination.
King’s fortuitous position on the banks of the Buffalo River made it not only a trading center, but also a military outpost until 1913, especially after trade began to decline at the turn of the century, in conjunction with the rise of Port Elizabeth. In 1901, King was hit by the bubonic plague, which prompted increased segregation of the town. Ginsberg, the township where Stephen Bantu Biko was later born, was founded as a response to the outbreak. Many Xhosa seeking economic opportunities came from the surrounding countryside to Ginsberg, where they faced exploitative white landlords. Furthermore, a new wave of Xhosa arrived when they were forcibly removed from nearby Brownlee Station. Segregation and ghettoization continued, most notably with the creation of new townships in the environs including Dimbaza, Phakamisa, Zwelitsha, and Schornville.
With the establishment of the Ciskei homeland between 1961 and 1981, Bhisho – a close neighbor of King William’s Town – became the capital of the new “sovereign” Bantustan (part of a series of “homelands” created by the apartheid government as a way pacifying black and international criticism). In 1992, nearly 80,000 people gathered in front of Bhisho to protest the authoritarian rule of Oupa Gqozo, the Ciskei military leader. Ciskei Defense Forces opened fire on the crowd without warning, killing 29 people and injuring over 200. The Bhisho Massacre ultimately led to new talks between Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk, then president of apartheid South Africa, which eventually resulted in a coalition government and transition to democracy.
Economy
The economy of King William’s Town was traditionally based on its proximity to local Xhosa tribes that exchanged wool, hides, skins, and other goods for manufactured and imported goods from European settlers. The massive amount of trade that occurred between the two groups contributed significantly not only to the economic success of King, but also to the erosion of traditional culture among indigenous blacks. Christianity, the influx of foreign goods, and urbanization made many Xhosa economically dependent on the whites – an effect later reproduced on a massive scale by the apartheid government to subjugate the African population of South Africa.
Trade in King William’s Town flourished in the latter half of the 19th century with the town becoming the main marketplace of nearby Port Elizabeth. The large amount of industry and its fortuitous location allowed merchants in King to trade with both settlers and native tribesmen. When Port Elizabeth outstripped it at the outset of the 20th century, King was reduced primarily to a military outpost. It wasn’t until the region was declared the “autonomous” Ciskei homeland in 1981 that the town once again began to regain economic status with the influx of Ciskeian workers and a subsequent budding service economy. Today, the economy of King William’s Town, though mostly based on cattle and sheep farming, also claims an industrial sector that produces textiles, soap, candles, candy, cartons, matches, and leather.
People
The Buffalo City Municipality – which includes King William’s Town, Bhisho, and East London – is home to people from a wide range of backgrounds.
Black African residents number at 563,776.
Coloured residents (from a diverse heritage of KhoiKhoi, South Asian, and other peoples) number at 38,391.
Indian residents (whose ancestors came when the area was still a British colony) number at 4,692
White residents number at 70,520.
Most neighborhoods in and around King William’s Town are overwhelmingly or even completely populated by black Africans from a number of different tribal heritages. Apartheid’s legacy of economic inequality along racial lines still continues today, although no longer at a legal level. That said, initiatives like Black Economic Empowerment, or BEE, aim at correcting these inequalities by encouraging people from the previously disadvantaged groups to enter higher levels of the economy. Comparable in many ways to affirmative action in the U.S., BEE has done much to diversify corporations and increase employment opportunities for the disadvantaged. It has, however, come under criticism from a number of people for reinforcing socially-constructed racial distinctions and giving favor to Xhosa at the expense of other groups, like Coloureds, Indians, and non-Xhosa blacks who did not escape the oppression or dispossession of apartheid either.
Legacies of apartheid can still be seen everywhere. The townships created to house non-white laborers continue to be places of abject poverty and rampant crime. Though much has been done to correct the ills of apartheid, centuries of racial oppression and systematic dispossession cannot be reversed in a few years. Thus, in spite of the incredible leaps and strides made in South Africa, there is still much work to be done.
The Black Consciousness movement (BCM) formed during a period when the apartheid government banned major oppositional movements. With the overthrow of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique and Angola in 1975, black South Africans began to believe they too could deliver themselves from the racist framework of apartheid. African and African-American writers like Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmicheal inspired the BCM philosophy. Bantu Stephen Biko, the intellectual architect of BCM philosophy and a medical student at Natal University, split with the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) in which he had been involved, while accusing white liberals of hindering the anti-apartheid effort. Biko believed whites and blacks suffered from superiority and inferiority complexes, respectively, which crippled interracial collaborative efforts for black liberation. In 1970, Biko became president of the organization that eventually created BCM: the South African Student Organization (SASO). BCM philosophy emphasized “psychological rehabilitation as a precondition for political resistance.” Biko argued that because “the greatest weapon of the oppressor was the mind of the oppressed,” blacks had to believe they were worth the liberation they were seeking to achieve. BCM philosophy also redefined blackness, Christ and Christianity, and the history of black South Africans.
The BCM inspired young black South Africans to a revolt against the Bantu Education system; this revolt began in the township of Soweto in 1976. After the banning of BCM and the murder of Stephen Biko in 1977 by the apartheid regime, thousands of black South African youth fled the country and joined Umkhonto we Sizwe (“the Spear of the Nation,” or MK), the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Although the BCM no longer existed formally, the members resuscitated the oppositional parties like the ANC by supplying them with new recruits whom Nelson Mandela described as “a different breed…brave, hostile, and aggressive; they would not take orders, and shouted ‘Amandla!‘ at every opportunity.”
While in King Williams Town, the research team interviewed several individuals who were part of or familiar with the movement. Important interviews included Ntsiki Biko, Stephen Biko’s widow; a member of the Azania People’s Organization; and ordinary individuals influenced by the movement.
Between the 1940s and 1970s, the United States experienced social upheaval on a massive scale. From this crucible of change and activism emerged the Civil Rights Movement. The descendants of black African slaves were now fighting for the general equality afforded them as American citizens. Because of the enormous sacrifices made by those involved, lawmakers purged many laws enforcing racial discrimination and oppression from the books, allowing, in theory, for institutional equality. Because of its unique symbolic significance and horrendous record of racial violence, Mississippi in the 1960s became a central battleground in the struggle for civil rights.
After Reconstruction ended in 1877, the American South entered a period characterized by widespread racism and segregation, violence, and the rise of hostile forms of discrimination upon the African-American community by Southern whites. Consequently, blacks were left to the will of Jim Crow, a system which white Southern state legislatures enacted in order to ensure the political disenfranchisement and economic constraint of African-Americans. Jim Crow laws rendered blacks second-class citizens, segregating them from whites in public facilities, restaurants, public schools, public transportation, restrooms, and essentially every other part of society. Under the society that embraced Jim Crow, blacks were kept at the bottom of society through brutal methods, most notably lynching. Education, or rather the ways state law denied it to blacks, was one of the most pressing issues facing African-Americans in the struggle. It was seen as a means not only of social mobility, but also of liberation. Thus the attainment of equal rights in education was the first step towards freedom and general social equality.
On May 17, 1954, in the United States Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of schools was unconstitutional. This was a turning point in the fight for Civil Rights because the ruling overturned the earlier Plessy v. Ferguson verdict, which established the segregationist doctrine of “separate but equal.” African-Americans began to see a gradual end to legal segregation on the horizon which inspired hope within the community.
But, despite the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education, school desegregation still had to be achieved through individual acts of courage, as young black students entered often hostile all-white schools. In Mississippi, this proved to be significantly more difficult than in other places. When James Meredith became the first black student at the University of Mississippi, or ‘Ole Miss’, in 1962, he met violent opposition from much of the all white student body. In addition to, or perhaps because of, receiving hundreds of threats, as well as being shot at, the risk involved in Meredith’s act of integration prompted President Kennedy send in the National Guard to protect him and his rights to attend the school.
The event that had the most significance in mobilizing people and making the struggle into a massive movement was not the Supreme Court ruling, but rather the murder of a black teenager in Mississippi. After he allegedly made a pass at a white woman, local white southerners brutally murdered Emmett Louis Till in Money, Mississippi on August 28, 1955. Till, a Chicago, Illinois native, was only fourteen years old at the time of his death. Not familiar with the strict racial caste system in Mississippi, or the behavior expected of blacks there, he unknowingly fell prey to the violent brand of racism exercised in the South at the time. After his mutilated corpse was revealed to the public as a testament to the brutality of Jim Crow, the murder drew immense public criticism from around the country, mobilizing many and sparking a new period of the Civil Rights movement.
Influenced in part by traditions of non-violence from Gandhi, Quakerism, and traditional African-American Christianity, the Civil Rights Movement utilized forms of direct action and civil disobedience to combat discrimination and segregation. Members participated in sit-ins, boycotts, freedom rides, marches, legal recourse, and voter registration drives to galvanize their efforts against racism. Many participants attribute the success of the Civil Rights Movement to the non-violent tactics used to achieve equality.
In another front in the fight for civil rights, SNCC, or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, came into rural Mississippi early in the 1960s to help blacks register to vote. Facing strong opposition and little outside aid, SNCC decided on a revolutionary new method. They brought in hundreds of mostly white, socially-conscious college students from across the country–an action designed in part to draw attention from the media and an American white elite now more involved with the struggle through their children. This influx of hundreds of white students brought national attention to the struggle in Mississippi. It also drew a virulently militant response from a specific segment of the white community, as a new, secretive organization called the White Knights of the previously established Ku Klux Klan was formed in response to the increased presence of outside activists in Mississippi. The White Knights carried out a number of attacks, including the murder of three members of SNCC–an act that drew nationwide attention to the civil rights struggle in Mississippi.
Out of the work conducted by SNCC emerged the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or MFDP, which attended the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Comprised of major grass-roots activists like Fannie Lou Hamer and Aaron Henry, the MFDP sought to unseat the Mississippi delegation of the Democratic Party, citing the fact that the representatives were not democratically elected due to the fact that blacks were systematically prevented from voting in the state. The Democratic leadership didn’t want to lose the Dixiecrats–their traditional base of white support in the South–but they didn’t want to alienate the black vote either. In the end they proposed on a compromise that neither side accepted. The Dixiecrats weren’t unseated, but the MFDP was given two at-large seats, which gave them no real voice at the convention. The Dixiecrats protested by walking out on the convention and the failure of the MFDP to gain representation disillusioned many civil rights activists.
Regardless of setbacks, however, by the late 1960s and early 1970s institutionalized segregation had finally become defunct through the efforts of those involved in the movement. African-Americans all over the country, but especially in places like rural Mississippi, experienced the elation of hard-earned freedoms.
While in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the research team interviewed several individuals who were part of or familiar with the movement. Important interviews included Johnny Lewis, Mayor Espy, Bill Luckett, Sister Kay Burton, and several others who influenced the movement.
Podcast: Mississippi Liberation Philosophy
Created by Kyle Coston and Max Paschal
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Song became a principle element of the struggle during the apartheid regime. Consequently, the research involved investigating why music took such a pivotal role. The project addressed why people chose to sing rather than fight, what effect song had on those who sang and those who were sung to, and what they hoped to achieve through singing. To answer some of these questions, students interviewed several residents of King William’s Town who had sung some of these songs in their youth. Major interviews were with Miss Nobulunku Nbongco, currently a police woman, and Mrs. Gloria Piliso who is presently teaching at a local primary school in King William’s Town.
Liberation music was used in one way or another to advance the liberation struggle. The songs that the masses sang included those that offered comfort and hope during times of hardships, those that praised their imprisoned leaders and criticized their oppressors, and those more aggressive songs that when sung, induced fear in the security police. Song became a common voice for the oppressed masses as well as a formidable multi-purpose weapon against the oppressive apartheid government. Consequently, song was an important aspect of the struggle, which was used effectively to fit the immediate conditions.
Podcast: Comfort, Engagement, Encouragement, Dissent: Freedom and Liberation Songs during the Anti-Apartheid Struggle
Created by Atandi Anyona and Ryan Koons
Music in Mississippi
Just as in South Africa, liberation music also played a role in the civil rights struggles of the American South. From research in Mississippi, the research team came into contact with two forms of music which expressed the conditions of the South: gospel and blues.
The most notable of the gospel songs was “We Shall Overcome” which accompanied sit-ins, protest marches and worker strikes. In a sense, it was the theme song of the Civil Rights Movement. Much like blues, such songs provided a base for uniting and mobilizing people because they contained within them a language which everyone could speak and understand. Gospel music provided a space for community empowerment and an optimistic emotional outlet. It used the negative reality in which the musicians lived as a base from which to beseech the sacred for positive.
To gain a better understanding of blues, we interviewed Bill ‘Howlin’ Mad’ Perry, a contemporary blues musician from Lafayette County, Mississippi. Blues mediated an individual’s experience with his political, social, and economic environment. The emphasis was on individual accomplishment, unlike gospel, which focused on God. Blues provided an avenue for reaction to the sorrow, emotional disillusionment, and mental frustrations created by the harsh conditions of the South such as sharecropping, racism and oppression, and poverty as well as relationships between the sexes.
Unlike in South Africa, where song was sometimes used for aggressive confrontation with authority, both gospel and blues aimed more at producing hope and relief through expressing the feelings that were taboo during slavery. In essence, both are a type of liberation music, reacting to the surrounding conditions and hoping for positive social change.
Soon after the Peace Park was built, children in the community painted murals on the wall marking the boundary between Manyanani and the rest of Khayelitsha.
International relations.
Even in Khayelitsha, the Table Mountain range is a constant presence.
Homba Primary School choir.
Portrait.
Football.
Another perspective of Khayelitsha.
