A Pictorial Biography: Clarence Mitchell Jr.Main MenuA Pictorial Biography: Clarence Mitchell Jr.Biographical SectionsErica Cavanaugh4e4deeebc4cbee6daa4e3b78bae785da5e73f1b8To our knowledge, The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr. has been granted permission to use all images displayed or they are in the public domain. Please contact the project at https://www.clarencemitchellpapers.com/contact if there are any copyright con
The Mitchells at the Atlanta Southwide Conference
12020-08-17T16:49:01+00:00Erica Cavanaugh4e4deeebc4cbee6daa4e3b78bae785da5e73f1b813Mitchell and Juanita attend Atlanta Southwide Conference that Thurgood Marshall called regarding the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Posing outside the Wheat Street Baptist Church (left to right, back row) are Dr. A.H. McCoy (“give me liberty or give me death”) of Jackson, Mississippi; A.P. Tureaud of New Orleans, Louisiana;Dr. A.M. Mackel, of Natchez, Mississippi; Carsie Hall of Jackson, Mississippi; and Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary in Mississippi; (second row) Bernard Brown, St. Louis, Missouri, Juanita and Mitchell; John Wesley Dobbs, Atlanta; (front row) J.A. Brown of Charleston, South Carolina; Robert Sanders of Florida; and Kelly Alexander of Charlotte, North Carolina. In a newspaper article on the meeting, Juanita noted that the four leaders from Mississippi were targeted for death. “How would you like to open the daily paper as you sip the morning cup of coffee preliminary to the day’s work and find your name facing you in the bold black headlines that call you a ‘trouble maker,’ ‘strife-monger,’ ‘a menace to the peace of the community?’” she wrote. She explained that Dr. McCoy, president of the Mississippi State Conference of NAACP Branches, had boldly called a meeting to memorialize the Rev. G.W. Lee of Belzoni who had been murdered because he sought the right to vote. It was then that he spurred his listeners to bravery by declaring, “give me liberty or give me death,” she said. Even though Evers was the white supremacists’ number one target, she wrote, he continued his “death defying job” as field secretary.plain2020-08-17T16:59:27+00:00NAACP Papers, Library of CongressErica Cavanaugh4e4deeebc4cbee6daa4e3b78bae785da5e73f1b8