Letter, P.D. East to friends; October 21, 1962

              Letter, P.D. East to friends; October 21, 1962
Transcript

[Personal address extracted]
Hattiesburg, Miss.
October 21, 1962

To:

A.I. Botnick
[Personal address extracted]

Mr. Irving Jay Fain
[Personal address extracted]

Mr. Maxwell Geismer
[Personal address extracted]

Mr. Harry Golden
[Personal address extracted]

Mr. John Howard Griffin
[Personal address extracted]

Mr. Alfred Hassler
[Personal address extracted]

My dear friends:

You may well consider this a mad way to write a personal letter, and it may be, but in it is a certain method; well, if not method, it does save much typing, and I'm for that. At the outset let me make it clear that this is not an appeal; rather, it is a report on a very personal situation, here and now, in which I'm involved.

I have before me a Citation - Chancery Court, in which I am charged with Civil Contempt. You will note, please, that the governor and I are equal on this level. I hope they get him, but not me, naturally. To understand this, you'll need some background, which I'll keep as brief as possible.

When I was twenty I got married; of that marriage a son was born. When I was thirty I divorced the lady. In the decree I asked my attorney to stipulate I'd pay the boy seventy-five dollars a month; at the time I was editing two union papers and could afford to make the gesture. Well, as Fate would have it, I started The Petal Paper and by the end of the second year seventy-five dollars looked like a retirement fund to me. I couldn't pay, so I got further and further behind. Finally, I was hauled into court, in late 1959. The attorney of my ex-wife is the County Judge here, a Baptist, and he feels he's doing God's work by letting sinners like me have it. The long and short of that court hearing was that he injected the race issue, saying had I not taken the stand I did I'd not be behind with the payments. The judge threw out the case, and darned near threw out the County Judge type attorney, whose name, incidentally, is William Harelson.

Mr. Harelson then went into another court and charged me with "Child Desertion," a very serious offense, one for which they can put you in the pokey. Anyway, I agreed to pay my son fifty dollars each month, starting in December of 1959, provided all the back money due was dropped and forgotten. (This does not excuse anything, but his mother, I understand, makes upwards to five hundred a month, and the judge reminded her that the child was as much her responsibility as mine.) Anyway, from December, 1959 until March of 1962, I think that's the correct date, I paid him. In March of this year he reached his 19th birthday and my attorney, Harold B. Cubley, told me I could stop the payments, which I did. Not one word was heard from anyone about it, not until this week, that is.

Now, let me relate certain facts relative to the present time. About a month ago the Circuit Clerk of this county was in Federal Court, charged with having discriminated against Negro citizens. Rumors begun to be circulated that it was one P.D. East who was