Civil Rights: Eulogy for a Woodchopper

CIVIL RIGHTS

Jimmie Lee Jackson was a $6-a-day Negro woodcutter who lived with his mother, his sister and his grandfather on a patch of red-clay soil outside Marion, Ala. One night last month Jackson, 26, joined a Negro demonstration in Marion. When cops began breaking it up, he and some other Negroes sought refuge in a cafe. State police went in after them. In the melee Jackson was shot in the stomach, and died eight days later.

Last week Jimmie Jackson was eulogized by civil rights leaders as another martyr to the cause. At...

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