MLK’s Influence on Mississippi Migration Improved Family Conditions, And Left Others Behind
By Danielle Buckingham
(BLACKSTEW) — On July 10, 1966, Dr. Martin King Luther King Jr. gave a speech in Chicago, at Soldier Field football stadium calling for Chicago city officials to end housing discrimination. Among the crowd of over 30,000 people was my maternal grandmother, a mesmerized teenage Black girl from a small town in Mississippi. About six years later, she would pack up her things, and with my mother in tow, board the Mississippi Central Railroad train from Durant, Mississippi to Chicago, Illinois to start a life in a northern land of Black opportunity. Dr. King’s message served as the catalyst for my grandmother—and others—building a fruitful life in the Windy city.
King's work in Mississippi was modest. Research turned up very little, and both my grandmothers' memories of his presence in Mississippi, boil down to a few marches and rallies he lead that never made it to their small, obscure towns. And though Dr. King's activism in Mississippi was minimal, he was deeply impacted by the despair and poverty he witnessed in the controversial state.
Just four days before he was assassinated, King announced plans to lead a march from Marks, Mississippi to Washington, D.C., for the Poor People’s Campaign. While he never lived to see it, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the citizens of Marks moved forward with the campaign, travelling the distance in mule wagons.
Before King announced his plans to address the broad stroke of poverty affecting the United States, he expanded his efforts to urban areas where a covert, but insidious form of racism was emerging. From 1965 to 1967, Dr. King and other activists led the Chicago Freedom Movement which played a crucial role in passing the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Upon learning about the work King did in Chicago, I became curious of whether it impacted family members who migrated from Mississippi circa King's presence there.
The general and mostly nonchalant response to my inquiry was, “We went for work.” For many of them, working was not just facilitating their new lives in the big city, but supporting family who remained back home in Mississippi. My father’s mother recalled the journey as if it were, seemingly, a version of underground railroad network:
“I went up there to live with my auntie, and had a job the next day," she recalled, "Once I saved enough money, I found a place and sent for my mama and brothers. That’s how we did it back then.”
For her and other family members who left the South, family and survival was their primary motive even in the midst of history being made around them. King’s sacrifice, and encouragement to improve their quality of life in Chicago, was not lost on them.
“When he was doing all those marches [in Chicago], he helped move Black folks in a lot of those neighborhoods they weren’t letting Black folks live in.” My grandmother told me.
The Chicago Freedom Movement addressed a myriad of issues that faced Black Americans in the city, but housing discrimination was at the forefront. Similar to the South, white supremacist policies strategically isolated Black families into certain areas, depriving them of resources. The protests led by Dr. King served as a backdrop for the country’s first major public housing desegregation lawsuit. This feat was a level a progress that felt nearly impossible in Mississippi during that time. It was one of the many incentives for Black Southern migrates to remain in Chicago for generations to come.
King’s legacy feels complicated when it comes to Mississippi, particularly for areas that were more removed from the movement. Much of my extended family still live, work and survivd where many consider the worst of the south, and when my grandmothers reminisce on the iconic civil rights leader, he comes across as somewhat of a celebrity figure.
Nonetheless, most Black people understood his purpose. Most everybody was familiar with the work he was doing. Almost everyone recognized King's charismatic voice and the energy he brought when speaking to large crowds. Most importantly, they knew what his visibility and audacity cost him in the name of Black justice and liberation .
