As time passes on, so do the many individuals who were a part of one of this nation's singularly most important periods, the civil rights movement. The death of Victoria Gray Adams of Palmer's Crossing marks the latest of the many civil rights icons who sacrificed so much to make sure that the equal rights of all citizens were protected.
In Mississippi, that meant being a part of efforts that sought to equalize the playing field for black citizens who were denied equal opportunities in education and politics, to name a few.
Adams devoted her life to help open the Freedom Schools in Mississippi in 1964, becoming a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. With people such as Fannie Lou Hamer of Sunflower County, Adams was part of the attempt to unseat the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegation during the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J.
The attempt failed but it brought to the forefront what was happening here and the rest of the South in terms of excluding a large segment of the population from the political discourse.
The positive changes that the 1964 event brought about cannot be disputed. African-Americans now comprise significant numbers of the state's Democratic Party leadership. The South has been politically reconfigured to illustrate the diversity of its population in many areas. Mississippi, for its part, has more black elected officials than most states.
In the past year, the nation saw two of its premier civil rights icons, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, pass on. Now Mississippi mourns the loss of one its own civil rights giants, Victoria Gray Adams.
It will be said that much work remains to be done, and reasonable minds would be inclined to agree. Rest assured, however, that the tireless work done by Victoria Gray Adams has made that task much more achievable. For that, both Mississippi and the United States can be grateful that someone such as Adams had the courage to show us we can all do so much better. |