Mississippi stayed on MLK’s prayer list
Editor’s Note: In 2014, Dick Molpus, former Mississippi Secretary of State, delivered a stirring speech on the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, MS by local klansmen. Molpus was 14 years old at the time. The following is an excerpt of his speech related to encountering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Years after the killings, this community still bore the shame of the murders. Martin Luther King Jr. visited in 1966. He was marching up the hill; there were bottles being thrown at him, and people were cursing. A guy jumped off the back of a pickup truck and hit Ralph Abernathy. It was just chaos, and I was watching all of this. Florence Mars [a white civil rights advocate] was there; she stood there by herself and held an American flag as they marched up the hill – a small act, but a heroic act. African American preachers – some of the real heroes – marched up Beacon Hill that day in 1964 with Dr. King and John Lewis, side by side. [King had visited Philadelphia during Freedom Summer in 1964 soon after the murders of the three civil rights workers]. I thought those guys were crazy, the local guys. So I got to see real heroism at a young age from some folks who had never imagined that they would be putting their very lives on the line. I heard King tell the townspeople, “There is a complete reign of terror here.” He was standing with a group of people, about fifteen people, and he said, “This is the worst place I’ve ever been in my life. The killers of those young men are within the sound of my voice.” And somebody said, “You damn right,” from back about three or four rows. I’m almost sure I know who said that, and he was one of them.
