Mississippi Essay 1964

It was a special year, graduation from high school, senior skip day was still in vogue, off to college next fall. Barry Goldwater was running for president. Lyndon Johnson was waging war on poverty. The other war, Vietnam, and the protests were just heating up. Meet the Beatles was released. Poll tax was abolished. Mississippi, in shame, was bombing and burning. Muhammad Ali beat Liston. The first Mustang appeared at the Ford place on the low end of Main Street, it was a red convertible. Jack Ruby was found guilty. The Good Friday Earthquake brought Alaska to its knees. The Rolling Stones debuted. I saw the New York World's Fair. Malcolm X was taking a stand. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered by Klansmen in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Draft cards were burned for the first time by 12 guys in New York. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, abolishing persistent segregation, was signed by the president. Goldwater asserted that extremism could be a virtue. Race riots occurred nightly on the 6 o'clock news. The Gulf of Tonkin, civil war in the Congo, the last execution in the United Kingdom. Bob Dylan turned the Beatles on to pot. The Warren Commission reported. Pete Townshend busted his first guitar. Tunnels were dug under the Berlin wall. It was an Olympic year. Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Cardinals beat the Yankees in the World Series. A 5.3 kiloton nuclear device was exploded in Tatum salt dome near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. There was more, lots more, these things stuck.