Facebook Menu Your shortcuts Privacy  · Consumer Health Privacy  · Terms  · Advertising  · Ad Choices   · Cookies  · Home Create a post Stories Feed posts Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook A must share Pyramid Secrets npdeootSrsgg07 1 ihhmu1g0ia8281m9h3m849c5c6t0 5 9agl h a6aifl1h17c  · On June 12, 1963, a white supremacist murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Mississippi. That same night, white Southern author Eudora Welty wrote a story from inside the killer's mind—before he was even arrested. She published it days later. White Mississippi never forgave her. She never apologized. June 12, 1963. Jackson, Mississippi. Just after midnight, Medgar Evers pulled into his driveway after a long day working as NAACP field secretary. He stepped out of his car carrying NAACP t-shirts that read "Jim Crow Must Go." A single rifle shot rang out. The bullet struck Evers in the back, tore through his body, passed through his living room window, ricocheted off the refrigerator, and came to rest after penetrating a kitchen wall. Evers staggered thirty feet, collapsed in his doorway, and died in his wife's arms while his children watched. He was 37 years old. The assassin was Byron De La Beckwith, a white fertilizer salesman and avowed white supremacist who had been stalking Evers for weeks. He escaped into the night. The murder stunned the nation but shocked almost no one in Mississippi—this was the logical conclusion of hatred that had been building openly for years. That same night, just miles away, Eudora Welty sat at her typewriter. She was 54 years old, a respected author from one of Jackson's prominent white families. Readers knew her for gentle Southern fiction—delicate character studies, lyrical descriptions of Mississippi life, stories about small-town communities and eccentric neighbors. They expected magnolias, manners, measured prose, and careful nostalgia. Not confrontation. Never politics. Certainly not this. But Welty had been watching. She'd been listening to the language white Mississippians used to justify violence. She'd been noticing what her community worked very hard not to see: that racial terror wasn't an aberration. It was routine. It lived in everyday thoughts and casual conversations. It excused itself with comfortable certainty. She began typing. She chose to write from inside the mind of the man who had just committed murder—not to defend him, not to soften his actions, but to expose how ordinary white supremacy really was. How it sounded. How it justified itself. How it existed in the same minds that went to church on Sunday and complained about the heat. The story was titled "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" It was cold, exact, and deeply unsettling. The narrator speaks in the first person, explaining his reasoning for murder with the casual logic of someone discussing pest control. He's not a monster from outside the community. He is the community—its assumptions, its resentments, its violently defended sense of order. Welty finished the story within hours and immediately sent it to The New Yorker. The magazine published it on July 6, 1963—just three weeks after the murder and before Byron De La Beckwith had even been arrested. When police finally captured De La Beckwith days later, investigators were stunned by how accurate Welty's details were: the weapon, the language, the psychological justifications, the mundane ordinariness of the hatred. She had imagined the killer's mind with such precision that the story read like a confession. How had she known? Because she understood that world. She had grown up inside it. She had listened to men like De La Beckwith her entire life—at dinner parties, in church basements, at social gatherings where respectable white Southerners said things they believed were reasonable. White Mississippi reacted with fury. How dare she? A respectable Southern woman, from a good family, writing something like this? Forcing decent peoples to confront what they preferred to ignore? Making them see themselves in the voice of a murderer? Critics accused her of betrayal. Of disloyalty to her race and region. Of stepping outside her proper role as a Southern lady who should write pretty stories, not ugly truths. Some readers stopped buying her books. Social acquaintances turned cold. She received hostile letters suggesting she was a race traitor, a Communist sympathizer, someone who'd forgotten where she came from. Welty did not apologize. She did not soften her position or claim she'd been misunderstood. She had spent decades writing with beauty and care about Mississippi—its people, its landscapes, its contradictions, its soul—but she absolutely refused to pretend that racial violence was not central to that reality. She understood a truth that made her community deeply uncomfortable: silence is a choice. Comfort is a choice. Writing safely is a choice. And she had chosen differently. This wasn't her only quiet act of courage during the civil rights era. While many prominent white Southern writers remained silent or actively opposed integration, Welty supported civil rights. She spoke against racist violence. She refused to sign segregationist petitions that other white writers endorsed. She lost readers, endured criticism, and accepted the social cost of her positions. But Welty was never a loud activist. She didn't march in the streets. She didn't deliver fiery speeches or join protest organizations. That was never her temperament or her method. Instead, she did something equally powerful and perhaps more dangerous for someone in her position: she refused to let her art protect injustice. She used her literary skill—her ability to inhabit characters, to capture voices, to expose interior lives—to force white readers to confront the hatred they'd normalized. She showed that you don't have to shout to challenge wrongdoing. You only have to refuse to lie. You only have to write what you see with clarity and without flinching, even when your own community demand you look away. The story remains devastating to read today. The narrator's voice is horribly familiar—the same justifications, the same dehumanizing language, the same casual certainty that violence in defense of white supremacy is not just acceptable but necessary. Welty didn't caricature or exaggerate. She simply reported what she'd been hearing her entire life, and in doing so, made it impossible to dismiss as anything other than what it was: murderous hatred dressed in ordinary language. Byron De La Beckwith was tried twice in 1964. Both trials ended with hung juries—all-white juries that couldn't bring themselves to convict a white man for killing a Black civil rights leader, despite overwhelming evidence. De La Beckwith walked free and lived openly in Mississippi for decades, celebrated by white supremacists as a hero. It wasn't until 1994—thirty-one year after the murder—that De La Beckwith was finally convicted and imprisoned. He died in prison in 2001, the same year Eudora Welty died at age 92. By the time of her death, Welty had been honored with a Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and recognition as one of America's greatest writers. But in 1963, when it mattered most, when speaking up carried real social cost, she made a defining choice. She could have written safe stories that reassured white readers and preserved her comfortable position in Jackson society. She could have remained silent about the murder of Medgar Evers like most respectable white Southerners did. She could have protected her reputation by avoiding politics and staying in her lane. Instead, she wrote one dangerous story on one devastating night, published it immediately, and forced her own community to hear the voice they didn't want to recognize as their own. That is courage that doesn't announce itself with grand gestures. It appears quietly on the page, steady and undeniable, refusing to look away from what others insist isn't there. Eudora Welty showed that complicity is also a choice. That silence protects injustice. And that sometimes the most powerful thing a writer can do is simply tell the truth about the world they know—especially when that truth makes their own community profoundly uncomfortable. On June 12, 1963, a white supremacist murdered Medgar Evers in Mississippi. That same night, white author Eudora Welty wrote a story from the killer's mind—before he was arrested. She published it days later. White Mississippi never forgave her. She never apologized. #history #education #DidYouKnow #UnitedStates #worldhistory #truestory #darkhistory #realstory Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook

MY STORY My grandmother had a smokehouse that sat some distance behind the house. My brothers and I were afraid to enter it despite the alluring smell of curing pork because a huge snake lived in the smokehouse and had, by all accounts, lived there for many years. I saw it once; an incredibly large black snake that must have been six feet in length and as thick as a large man’s wrist was coiled in a corner, peering out. I never entered that smokehouse again, even in later years when I was nearly grown. The adults to whom we complained never bothered the snake, saying it served the purpose of keeping the rats out. It must have worked because even though we would spot a rat here and there on the property, we never saw a rat near that smokehouse. (From "A History of Florida Through Black Eyes" by Dr. Marvin Dunn) #repostblackhistory

Thirty-nine-year-old court stenographer Alice Morrison sat in her office in Boston in November 1920, reviewing the transcript she had just typed from that morning's custody hearing—and as she read through the testimony of fourteen-year-old Catherine Williams, who was fighting to keep custody of her infant daughter against her husband's family who wanted to take the baby because Catherine was "too young and immature" to be a mother despite being legally married, Alice felt tears streaming down her face because the transcript captured in cold, precise words the impossible situation of a child trying to defend her fitness as a mother while everyone in the courtroom refused to acknowledge that she herself was still a child. Alice had worked as a court stenographer for fifteen years. Her job was to record every word spoken during court proceedings with perfect accuracy. She was supposed to be neutral, invisible, just capturing the record. But Alice was human, and some cases affected her deeply. This morning's custody hearing had been one of them. Catherine Williams, age fourteen, married for eighteen months to twenty-eight-year-old Thomas Williams, had given birth to a daughter eight months ago. Thomas had recently died in an industrial accident, leaving Catherine a widow at fourteen with an eight-month-old baby. Thomas's parents, the Williamses, had filed for custody of the baby, arguing that Catherine was too young and immature to care for a child on her own. They wanted to take the baby and raise her themselves. Alice reviewed the transcript of Catherine's testimony: JUDGE: Mrs. Williams, how old are you? CATHERINE: Fourteen, Your Honor. I'll be fifteen in January. JUDGE: And you were married at age...? CATHERINE: Twelve, Your Honor. We married in May 1918. JUDGE: And your daughter was born when you were thirteen? CATHERINE: Yes, sir. Last March. She's eight months old now. ATTORNEY FOR GRANDPARENTS: Mrs. Williams, do you work? CATHERINE: No, sir. I take care of my baby. ATTORNEY: So you have no income? CATHERINE: Thomas's factory gave me a small death benefit. It's not much, but I'm careful with it. ATTORNEY: How do you support yourself and the child? CATHERINE: I live with my mother. She helps me. And I do sewing work at home when the baby sleeps. ATTORNEY: Your mother helps you. So you admit you cannot care for the child alone? CATHERINE: I... I need help sometimes. But I love my baby. I take good care of her. ATTORNEY: Mrs. Williams, you're fourteen years old. You're still a child yourself. Don't you think your daughter deserves to be raised by mature adults who can provide proper care? CATHERINE: I'm her mother! I carried her, I gave birth to her, I feed her and love her. I know I'm young, but she's mine. She needs me. Alice remembered how Catherine had been crying as she said this, how her voice had broken, how she had looked desperately at the judge pleading for someone to understand. The transcript continued with the grandparents' attorney hammering at Catherine's age, inexperience, poverty, and dependence on her mother. The argument was clear: a fourteen-year-old couldn't possibly be a fit mother, regardless of being legally married. But the horrible irony was that no one questioned how Catherine had become a mother at thirteen in the first place. Everyone accepted that she had been legally married at twelve and had become pregnant at twelve or thirteen. The marriage that created this situation was never questioned—only Catherine's fitness to deal with the consequences. Alice read Catherine's final testimony: CATHERINE: Your Honor, please don't take my baby. Yes, I'm young. Yes, I need help sometimes. But I'm her mother. When she cries, she wants me. When she's scared, she reaches for me. I may only be fourteen, but I love her more than anything in the world. Please let me keep her. Please. The judge had taken a recess to consider his decision. Alice had left the courtroom to type up the transcript. Now, reading Catherine's words in stark black and white, Alice couldn't stop crying. The judge's decision came that afternoon. He ruled that custody would be split: the Williamses would have physical custody of the baby, but Catherine would have visitation rights and could regain full custody when she turned eighteen and demonstrated financial stability. Alice typed up the judge's decision, her hands shaking. She was creating an official record of a fourteen-year-old mother having her baby taken away because she was too young to be a proper parent—a baby that existed only because adults had allowed a twelve-year-old to be married and pregnant. After finishing the transcript, Alice did something unusual. She made copies of Catherine's testimony and kept them in a personal file. Over the following months, Alice started keeping copies of testimony from other cases involving child brides—court proceedings where young girls testified about their marriages, their pregnancies, their attempts to escape or survive. Alice had access to hundreds of court cases. She began collecting testimony that revealed the reality of child marriage in ways that statistics and reports never could. The actual words of girls testifying in court, preserved in transcripts, told powerful stories: From a divorce hearing: "I was thirteen when Papa made me marry him. I didn't know I could say no. I thought I had to obey." From a custody hearing: "The baby came when I was fourteen. I didn't even know how babies were made. Nobody explained anything to me." From an annulment petition: "I want to go back to school. I want to be a child again. Please let me annul this marriage. I was only twelve when it happened." Alice compiled these transcript excerpts into a document she titled "In Their Own Words: Child Brides Testify." She submitted it to the Massachusetts Child Welfare Society. The society was stunned by the power of the transcripts. These weren't social workers' observations or doctors' reports—these were the actual words of child brides, preserved under oath in court records, undeniable and devastating. The Child Welfare Society published Alice's compilation with all identifying information removed. The document was distributed to legislators, judges, social workers, and reform advocates. Reading the actual testimony of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen-year-old girls describing their marriages, pregnancies, and attempts to regain custody of children or escape bad situations had an impact that statistics never could. These were real girls speaking in their own words about their lived experiences. One legislator who read the compilation said, "I've seen numbers about child marriage. But reading a thirteen-year-old testify that 'I didn't know I could say no' makes it real in a way statistics never did." Alice's transcript compilation was cited in legislative debates about raising marriage ages. Lawmakers could read the actual words of child brides testifying in court and could no longer ignore or minimize the issue. Alice continued her stenography work until 1945, retiring at age sixty-four. Throughout her career, she continued collecting testimony from cases involving child brides, creating an archive of their voices. Alice died in 1963 at age eighty-two. Before her death, she donated her entire collection of transcript excerpts to a legal archive. In her final letter explaining the collection, Alice wrote: "I spent my career recording court proceedings. I was supposed to be neutral, just capturing words accurately. But some cases broke my heart. The child bride cases were the worst. I would sit in the courtroom recording testimony from thirteen-year-old girls trying to explain why they should keep custody of their babies, or fourteen-year-old girls begging judges to annul marriages they never wanted. I recorded their words with perfect accuracy, but I also felt their pain. These weren't just case files—these were children whose voices deserved to be heard. That's why I collected these transcript excerpts. Policymakers could ignore statistics or dismiss advocates as biased. But they couldn't ignore the sworn testimony of actual child brides speaking in their own words about their experiences. These transcripts are powerful because they're undeniable. A girl testified under oath that she was married at twelve. Another testified she didn't know she could refuse. Another testified she just wanted to be a child again. Those words, preserved in court records, tell the truth about child marriage in ways that nothing else can. I hope this collection ensures that these girls' voices are never forgotten." Alice was buried in Boston. Her gravestone reads: "Alice Morrison, 1881-1963. Court stenographer who preserved the voices of child brides through their testimony. She ensured that their words—spoken under oath in courtrooms—would never be forgotten. One stenographer's careful documentation gave children a voice that echoed through time." Alice's collection of transcript excerpts is now preserved in legal history archives as primary source documentation of child marriage in early 20th-century America, told through the actual words of the children who experienced it.