Fighting Racism

This chapter discusses how a few Black people decided to confront racism in Enfield in 1963. This change was brought on by a combination of factors: awareness of the growing resistance to racism throughout the South, knowing that the same discrimination existed in Enfield, and the actions of a few courageous people deciding it was time to make a change. In 1963, Mr. Reed Johnson decided to run for one of the Enfield town commissioner positions. He and his wife, Mrs. Willa Johnson, organized a voter registration campaign to get more Black people registered to vote. They were successful in getting the attention of Black people in the community, but their activism also drew the attention of the Ku Klux Klan. The chapter describes how the students working on Reed's voter registration campaign planned about boycotting and picketing the segregated movie theater and White-owned businesses that did not hire Blacks. It highlights the people who joined the fight against racism in Enfield, including John Salter, JV Henry, Robert Blow, and TT Clayton. Finally, the chapter looks at the March on Washington and retaliation directed to the Black people in Enfield because of the boycotting and the picketing.