Letter, Jill Wakeman (Goodman) to friends; June 23, 1966

              Letter, Jill Wakeman (Goodman) to friends; June 23, 1966
Transcript

23 June 1966
1209 Putnam
Hattiesburg, Miss.
c/o Mrs.Simms

P.S. Jordy, I DID eat your orange drop for dinner!

dear Marlene, Richard, Kenneth, Bill, Alice, Mary Jo, Phil, Jo, Irv, Fair Housing Council, et al (hoping Richard or Alice will make one or two Xerox copies)

Arrived in Jackson Monday evening and after waiting 2 hours at the airport (Bill, your Hemmingway book was marvelous) was finally picked up and driven to Mt. Beulah. Beulah is 30 miles from Jackson and just outside of Edwards, Miss. It houses about 600 people who are there until the permanent homes can be built on the 400 acres of land near Greenville -- this land is where the original Tent City was erected last winter when these people left the plantations. My one night at Beulah was unique. I stayed at the staff dorm - co-educational, 1-bath, 16 people, bunk beds, no bedding. Because of the dire financial situation within the Delta Ministry Project (and did they jump for joy when I delivered the FHC check!), come July 1, all the 600 people will be moved to the land -- ready or not -- and Mt. Beulah will shut down except for a few staff people and there will be no food served "on campus." (As Beulah has been on government rations for several weeks already, and after seeing "breakfast" and "lunch" -- no food will be an improvement!)

The day: before I arrived at Beulah, one of the men from the land got drunk and took a shot at one of the staff members! They have been meeting daily since that time to try to decide what to do about him!

Tuesday I took a bus to Hattiesburg. Stayed with Bob Beech (the Presbyterian minister in charge of this area) and his wife and 4 boys and 1 dog. Am now with a lovely little lady -- Mrs. Simms -- she lives in the poorest of the 3 Negro sections, but has a delightful house and certainly has made me feel at home.

There are no specific projects going on in Hattiesburg at the present time. Bob is really a minister to the people -- not only in Hattiesburg but in the surrounding towns as well. He is constantly on-the-road -- setting up meetings, calming people down, getting people moving, etc. In the few days I've been here I have met a multitude of people belonging to different factions, all with different problems and many ideas on how to solve them -- most of the solutions being impractical. The "big picture" could really overwhelm you if you gave it half a chance.

I think I have a job cut out for me! Laurel, Miss, is about