The Treasures of Mississippi
By Lettye Smith
M.Div ’06
July 21, 2005
I must admit that Mississippi was not a place in which I was excited to spend a summer field education experience. After all, my perspective of Mississippi came from watching the television drama In the Heat of the Night, as well as stories my mother remembered of shotgun houses and picking cotton from her childhood in the Mississippi Delta.
Rims Barber, dedicated civil right activist. |
The state holds a treasure of residents who saw and understood the need for justice, especially in the 1960s. The unrest in the state then revealed a sense of calling and responsibility for many from across the country.
One gentleman in particular who has influenced me is Rims Barber of Jackson, Miss., who has dedicated himself to the civil rights movement despite the fact that, from an outsider’s perspective, he did not necessarily have a responsibility to the cause of social justice for the black community here.
Rims is a native of the south side of Chicago, and he later became a Presbyterian pastor in Iowa. He felt a call to Mississippi in 1964, especially after Freedom Summer and the Neshoba County killings, which is connected to the trial now receiving national attention 41 years after the killing of three civil rights workers.
It took Rims an entire year to make the decision to leave his comfortable surroundings and enter into a place where he felt led to serve in ministry and become a light to those who had nowhere else to turn. A Princeton seminary graduate, he went to Mississippi not knowing what to expect. Despite being white, he found himself helping with sit-ins and lobbying for minorities in Jackson.
He was a firm believer that in order for black people to improve their place in the community, they needed to be where the laws are made and be elected into public offices. Thus, Rims was influential in working on the campaign to have the first black person elected to the Mississippi legislature. While working at the capital he developed the relationships needed to lobby for social justice concerns today.
He still resides in Jackson and works on educational concerns and the advancement of Jackson State University, a historically black college, as well as the Jackson public school system, which is predominantly black.
Rims is a powerful example of the many people who came to Mississippi without any ties to the state except a call for social justice. It is striking to consider how many like him dedicated their lives to civil rights not only here, but across the country in times when social justice could not be taken for granted.
Micah 3:1b could not say it any better, “Should you not know justice?” The answer is “yes,” we all should know justice and people such as Rims Barber and the countless others like him. They are the hidden treasures of Mississippi; when found they are never forgotten.