One of the reasons I let my subscription to the New Yorker lapse several years ago was the increasingly snarky tone of their content. The magazine’s obsession with George Bush fueled this trend. Well, someone gave me a gift subscription, and I’m glad to see that even with Bush gone things haven’t changed. “Talk of the Town columnist Hendrik Hertaberg, a former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, was discussing Obama’s handling of the oil spill. He described Ray Mabus, who Obama had just appointed to head a commission to restore the coast, as “the Secretary of the Navy who, although a former governor of Mississippi, is an enlightened and competent public servant.”

In my recent book, “The Past Is Never Dead, the Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississippi’s Struggle for Redemption,” I talked about some of the reasons for the rigidity of the almost universal  stereotype of Mississippi. One reason was it’s place on the bottom of almost all lists measuring well being, such as income, obesity, childhood diseases, education, and also the ever running movie “Mississippi Burning.” After reading Hertzberg’s remark, I have a new reason: it gives the already enlightened and competent a place to be snarky about. Everyone needs someone to kick around, particularly those who sees themselves as rightfully on the top of the pile.

I couldn’t say for sure, but I’d be willing to bet that Hertzerg has never been to Mississippi. Which is a real shame, since you can still hear the best blues in the world there.

In an article in the February issue of American Way Magazine, the author writes that Emmett Till was murdered at the Bryant grocery store in Money, Mississippi.  He repeats this as fact a second time in the article. No version of the events of that night in 1955  that I have read claims that Till was murdered at the Bryant grocery store. The commonly accepted version, based on eyewitness statements, is that he was beaten and shot to death in a plantation in neighboring Sunflower County.

I hesitate to criticize another writer, but in a story this written about there can be little reason for misstating such a key fact. This is particularly so when the author, as he explains, has lived in Mississippi for 30 thirty years.

There is another factual error in an introduction by the editor of the magazine,  who is writing about the murder of two black youths in Southwest Mississippi in 1964 and the 2007 prosecution of James Ford Seale for the crimes. He states that both youths were chained to an old Jeep’s engine block and dumped alive in an offshoot of the Mississippi River. As I detail in my book, “The Past Is Never Dead, The Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississippi’s Struggle For Redemption,” one youth was tied to an engine block and the other to rails.

This is a  small discrepancy and one barely worth noting. Misstating the place where Emmett Till was murdered is quite another matter indeed.

Last Saturday morning I was checking my e-mail when I got a note informing me that “The Past Is Never Dead” had been selected as finalist, or shortlisted, for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, awarded by Stanford University.  It was of course a delightful shock. The fact that it was one of fifteen nominees in the non-fiction category did not lessen the impact.

But it did set me to thinking about why I write. I believe that all writers want to be published, although I know there are many who get considerable satisfaction from writing for themselves. I remembered when “In Broad Daylight”  was first published, in 1989, and I was riding my bike by East High School in Denver. In the Esplanade was a young girl sitting under a tree reading a book. I thought of those who had read and would read my book, people I would never know, could never even imagine: a waitress sitting on a stoop in Brooklyn, a businessman flying across country in his private plane, a farmer in the Northwest sitting at the local cafe, a professor of history at a major university. (In fact, later I would receive a photo of a young woman sitting at a coffee shot not far from the collapsing Berlin Wall, reading the book). For each person who read it, I realized, it would be a different book. For each personality that absorbed the words, it would be a different story. It would bounce off their strings and sound a different song.

A person’s mind is their most private place. It is them, inside. To be invited into someone’s world, to become a part of a person’s consciousness, is truly an honor. You become a part of their story. Images from your words exist in their minds.

So, at the risk of sounding corny, I would say thank you to the readers, for allowing me in. That really is why I write.

The debate over Del Clement continues. Loved ones often have a hard time seeing the truth of the ones they love. I spent three years in Skidmore. Del’s reputation was unanimous: he was a hot head and a drunk. I saw him at many gatherings, and never once sober. When he approached me he was drunk and belligerent, and as I said, the fact that he waited until my friends left the bar did not indicate much courage on his part.

As for who shot Ken McElroy, there was never any doubt in anyone’s mind that I spoke with that Del shot McElroy. There was an eyewitness identification, and there was another person willing to testify to Del’s involvement until, surprise, he suddenly changed his mind.

And it certainly fits Del’s style. He had been drinking. It was an impulsive, hot-headed act, not to mention being incredibly stupid. And ask yourself this: how much courage does it take to shoot a man in the back?

James Ford Seale –Round Two on the Statute of Limitations Issue

The federal appellate process can be long and tangled. On March 13 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed James Ford Seale’s 2007 conviction in the kidnapping of two black youths in Southwest Mississippi in 1964. Earlier a three-judge panel of the Court had reversed the conviction on the grounds that the prosecution violated the statute of limitations. The full eighteen-member Court heard the matter last spring and split 9 to 9 on the reversal, which had the effect of reinstating the earlier conviction. The 5^th Circuit then asked the Supreme Court to exercise special jurisdiction and hear the statute of limitations issue. In October, the Supreme Court declined to hear the issue, with Justice Stevens and Scalia vigorously dissenting.

The matter was remanded to the three-judge panel to hear the other issues initially raised on appeal. It was denial of this appeal that occurred on March 13. It’s not over yet: the defense will now go back to the Supreme Court on the statute of limitations and the other issues. The odds are long that the Court will take it next fall, given that two justices have already expressed their desire to hear it. If the Court accepts the case in the fall, it will probably be argued in January and a decision issued sometime next spring or summer.

Meanwhile, James Ford Seale sits in his cell in the federal pen in Terra Haute, Indiana, alive but apparently not well.

Stay tuned.

I just returned from three weeks on Ocean Isle Beach, one of the barrier islands not far from Wilmington, North Carolina. I went there to take a new crack at telling the story of my odyssey several years ago in which I ended up working as a prison guard at a maximum security prison just north of Dover. It began with a throw of a dart–which landed in Dover–and ended with me walking the tiers as correctional officer.

I wrote the story once, and followed the advice of friends and editors that I needed to tell the story of who I was and why I did what it did. It turned into far too much of a memoir. I don’t write well about myself. It seemed glib and superficial (for reasons which only my therapist undertands). There was serious interest in the manuscript, but eventually I pulled it because I was unhappy with the mixture of memoir and prison.

So, I’m rewriting it now mainly as a prison book. People love prison stories, witness all of the stuff on TV, and it’s much different and worse inside than it has been represented in those shows. In fact, I don’t think you can imagine it. Which ends up, of course, being my challenge as the teller of the story.

I went to the island with 45 pages. After the second day, I threw those pages out and started over. I didn’t like the “voice.” I returned home a few days ago with 45 new pages. Let’s hope they survive. My goal is to have a draft manuscipt by the end of the summer.

The title of my new book seems suddenly to have become quite popular. Frances Ford Coppola recently used it in describing one of his movies and, of course, Obama used it in his speech on race. Google Alerts show it being used frequently by writers and artists to describe a wide range of attitudes and emotions. The complete phrase of is: The Past Is Never Dead. It’s not even past. If you really think about that notion, it’s quite discouraging. It says that not even is the past never dead, it’s not even past. This means, literally, that the past is still the present, which really means that there really is no present, not if the past never leaves it. It’s true that for many people and cultures the past dominates the present–and definesthe future to a large degree, or at least the experience of the future–but to say that there is no room for the present is seriously misanthropic and depressing. I don’t think this is a mere word game, either, but I think it goes a good deal further than most people think when they quote the phrase. Usually it’s quoted to mean you have to keep paying for your past, that you never get away from it, which is good less frightening than the notion that it fills, in fact constitutes, the present.

The phrase was used in regard to a woman in Faulkner’s “Requiem for a Nun” who was trying to forget or overcome her past life, which involved murder and prostitution. It is Faulkner’s most memorable phrase, and there was a good deal of debate in the publishing house about whether a sentence made a good title. Finally, it was agreed that it best captured the theme of Mississippi’s effort at redemption from its past.  Let’s hope that its literal meaning isn’t true for Mississippi or for us.

I was pleased to see the AP piece on “The Past Is Never Dead” (finally) came out yesterday.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/22/attorney-author-examines-miss-racial-struggle/

It has been picked up all over the country, which has to be good for the book. It might have been better if it hadn’t come out so close to Christmas–the story isn’t exactly a Christmas story, after all–but one is happy with what one gets.      When I first began writing, in the late 1980s, my job was to produce a book, and the publisher was supposed to do the rest. With the internet and the publishing in the state that its in, the author is expected to do a good deal more, and I’ve had no choice but to take up the flag and wave it from atop the hill, as much as it goes against my nature. So I hustle the book, in any way that I can, unashamedly (mostly), realizing that each and every sale counts. Only a very few friends and relatives got free books this time around.

Fortunately, I have an excellent publisher this time around. Basic doesn’t give half-million dollar advances, but it produces a first-class product. And it treats each and every book with respect and dignity. Many of the bigger houses put their time and effort into the “big books,” like Sarah Palin’s, and let the others drift in the current, hoping they catch. Basic takes good care of its books, its authors, and for this I am very grateful.

I’ve been thinking of writing something on writing, so stay tuned.

James Ford Seale, convicted two years ago in the kidnapping and murder of two black youths in Southwest Mississippi in 1964, was known for his intense hatred of law enforcement at all levels, but particularly the FBI. During my research for “The Past Is Never Dead,” I heard that Jack Seale, James’ older brother and generally considered to  be the most violent member of the Seale family, had worked as an informer for the FBI.

New documents show that not only was Jack Seale an informant for the FBI, but that brother James might have supplied some information to the agency as well.  The Concordia Sentinel recently published a piece indicating that Jack had been an active informant for the FBI from 1967 on, and even mentioning the name of the FBI agent who handle him. The information came from the FBI files themselves and discussed a group of Klansmen known at the Silver Dollar Group, which was involved in many bombings during those years. Jack apparently tried to talk his brother James into working with the FBI, and in fact the FBI records indicate that James did meet with an agent and told him names of members of the Silver Dollar Group and gave information about the meetings.

The Seales weren’t the only Klansmen who turned against their comrades. The Neshoba County murders of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in 1964 were largely solved through the use of Klan informants. By 1970 the FBi had so thoroughly infiltrated the Klan in Mississippi that it was paralyzed by suspicion and paranoia.

The key was money. The FBI handed out cold cash to its informants, many of whom lived in low-income rural areas. Even Klan higher-ups were not imune; a leader of the Franklin County Klan, also on the FBI payroll, ratted out James Ford Seale and others to the FBi for the murder of the two black youths in 1964.

The FBI was well aware of the fact that James and Jack Seale were deeply involved in the murder of the two black youths. That knowledge did not stop the Agency from employing Jack Seale as an informant, despite the blood on his hands. In those days, you needed a Klansman to catch a Klansman.