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Belfrage--Voter registration reports, 1963, March-August (Sally Belfrage papers, 1962-1966; Historical Society Library Microforms Room, Micro 599, Reel 1, Segment 5)

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This folder contains a rich assortment of first-person documents from 1963. There's an almost daily diary by Bobby Talbert about his voter canvassing and mass meetings in Itta Bena, Mississippi, including his account of sharing a jail cell with a group of men--all of whom eventually became prominent civil rights leaders in Mississippi--and how they entertained themselves while there. There's also an assortment of affidavits about police and other whites' mistreatment of blacks, comments people made when urged to register to vote, the use of police dogs to intimidate would-be voter registrants at the courthouse, and the abuse of prisoners. Perhaps the best document is a wonderfully warm (and surely ironic) 1963 letter from Charlie Cobb to Senator James Eastland on the first anniversary of intensive efforts to register voters in Eastland's home county, asking him to support federal protection for civil rights workers and to encourage African American workers on his plantation to registe
Format:
Diaries Affidavits Correspondence
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Wisconsin Historical Society

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Recollection Wisconsin