One Year - 1986: A Boycott in Mississippi

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Black residents of Indianola, Mississippi, were fed up with decades of separate-and-unequal classrooms. When a white outsider got hired as school superintendent, they decided to take a stand. This week, Joel Anderson tells the story of how their boycott of white businesses transformed the community and captivated the nation. One Year is produced by Evan Chung, Sophie Summergrad, Sam Kim, Madeline Ducharme, and Josh Levin. Mixing by Merritt Jacob. Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts and Merritt Jacob is Sr. Technical Director. Slate Plus members get to hear more about the making of One Year. Get access to extra episodes, listen to the show without any ads, and support One Year by signing up for Slate Plus for just $15 for your first three months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Josh Levine, the host of One Year.
0:04.1	I hope you're enjoying our season on 1986.
0:07.6	This week, I'm going to turn things over to my slate colleague, Joel Anderson.
0:14.1	In 1985, Reverend Michael Freeman left his small Methodist church for a new assignment three
0:19.3	hours away.
0:20.8	He was moving to a town in the Mississippi Delta.
0:23.8	Reverend Freeman assumed it was poor and desolate, like much of Mississippi, but Indianola took
0:28.7	him by surprise.
0:29.7	I mean, I didn't expect what I experienced.
0:33.6	The lady who drove the jaguar was down the street from me.
0:39.9	This was an integrated neighborhood then, right?
0:42.0	No.
0:43.0	Just a black neighborhood.
0:46.8	Not everybody was driving a jag, but in his new neighborhood, Reverend Freeman was surrounded
0:51.5	by people who expected to send their kids to college.
0:55.0	And that's what Indianola was growing to become.
0:58.8	The town itself, you know, I thought it was a nice place to stay and live.
1:05.6	Indianola is a town of 8,000, 30 miles east of the Mississippi River, about halfway between
1:10.8	Memphis and Jackson.
1:12.3	A stream that's lined with Cypress trees runs through the center of town.
1:15.7	It's called the Indian Bayou.
1:18.2	That's where Indianola gets its name.
	...

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