Behind the cotton curtain; June 1964

              Behind the cotton curtain
Transcript

As twilight crept over the hills of Mississippi's Piney Woods one evening last October, six college students climbed into their car after a day in the "niggertown" section of tiny Lumberton. The six, including two Yale divinity students, hoped to drive the 25 miles to Hattiesburg before dark. For when the cotton boll moon rises behind the long leaf yellow pine, "people down here (says a native Mississippian) sometimes lose all sense of responsibility to themselves, their consciences, their friends and their God; they become just masses of energy, and when they're mad, they'll do most anything to you." The students' car, however, would not start, Someone had poured water in the gasoline tank.

It was dark, then, and a hostile crowd started forming behind them as the six hurried apprehensively toward the Lumberton bus depot. The station was locked and deserted, the next bus due about midnight. Under the street lights, the mob grew steadily larger, 'attracting some men with sticks, others with knives, all spitting invective. Gruff voices punctuated the undercurrent of impending violence: "Let's stomp 'em." "They ain't got a chance." "Kill the dirty niggerlovers!" 

Terrified, one of the students ran to a nearby phone booth to call a local minister for help. The operator, a holdout against the dial system, refused to ring the number. "You're going to get just what you deserve!" she snapped. The line went dead. The students' world suddenly shrank to the perimeter of the angry mob. The seminarians began to pray. 

Seconds later a car driven by a Negro rounded the corner, and the six ran into the street and flagged him down. Pressing $25 into his hand, they persuaded him to take them to Hattiesburg. Members of the mob ran to their cars to follow. 

Five miles out of town, a Highway Patrolman waved the Negro to a stop. "Get those guys out of your car, nigger," he ordered, "or I'll throw you in jail for running a taxi without a license." The Negro begged the students to leave, and they reluctantly stepped onto the blackened highway. They fled into the woods when they spotted headlights bobbing down the pavement from Lumberton.

Hours later, dodging cars that cruised back and forth on the highway in search of them, five of the students ran out and flagged down a bus to New Orleans. The sixth did not