WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DURING THIS TIME?

Oh, I feel that the role of the federal government during this time was um, uh, one of uh, certainly playing politics. I personally don't feel that uh, the federal government stepped in as soon as they should have. Uh, perhaps it was a thing of allowing the state of Mississippi to go about things in its own time and to see how far the state would go. Uh, but I rather believe that uh, there was a great deal of reluctance because of uh, simply politics being played. Certainly the uh, Governor of the state of Mississippi said to the federal government uh, you know – "Don't bother to come here." The threats were made that there would be no support, that Mississippi as such would uh, secede from uh, uh, from, from the, uh, rest of the country. But the important thing is that the federal government did step in, what I consider at the last minute, and perhaps prevented a great deal of uh, blood uh, from being shed that would have had they not. People in Mississippi, I think particularly blacks, looked to the federal government as a kind of protector and uh, became a little disenchanted in, in, in all of it during this period of time, with the haste in which uh, the federal government uh, acted, and by that I mean that they did not act uh, in haste, and perhaps were not strong enough uh, at the time, in showing that they were behind what was constitutionally uh, constitutionally right.

TAKE TWENTY-SIX.