North Jackson Rotarian Joe Harris Reflects on Terror in the Night
Posted by Bill Osborne on May 09, 2017
North Jackson Rotarian Joe Harris reflected on Terror in the Night, a discussion of the activities involving the KKK and the Mississippi Jewish Community in the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s and 1970s at the May 9, 2017 meeting of the Rotary Club of NorthJackson. He began the reflection with a discussion of the killing of 3 Civil Rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney in Neshoba County, MS in 1964. Schwerner and Goodman were Jewish. Following the disappearance of these young men, the Jackson Jewish community mobilized to find them. B'nai B'rith, at the time an international Jewish men's organization (It now has female members.) raised funds to assist the FBI in locating the men's bodies. Following the discovery of the bodies, the Jackson Jewish temple (Temple Beth Israel) was bombed as was the home of the rabbi. The Jewish men assisted with deterring Byron de la Beckwith, Jr. who was decades later convicted of killing Medgar Evers, a Jackson Civil Rights worker, from bombing a New Orleans business man.
Mr. Harris also discussed the shoot-out in Meridian in which Kathy Ainsworth, a Jackson 5th grade teacher, was killed in a hail of police bullets, waiting in a car while her fellow member of the Ku Klux Klan named Tommy Tarrants, attempted to bomb the home of a prominent Jewish citizen of Meridian, Miss. Mr. Harris gave credit to the Meridian Police Chief, Roy Gunn, for preventing the bombing and for capturing Tarrants. Mr. Harris is shown at the podium in the accompanying photo during his presentation. To his right is Mike Dawkins who introduced him and assisted in the preparation of the Power Point presentation that was part of Mr. Harris' presentation.
We thank Mr. Harris for his long service to our club and for his courageous work in the Civil Rights Era.