Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote by Gordon A. Martin, Jr.

 

This description at Goodreads is excellent:

Forrest County, Mississippi, became a focal point of the civil rights movement when, in 1961, the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit against its voting registrar Theron Lynd. While thirty percent of the county's residents were black, only twelve black persons were on its voting rolls. United States v. Lynd was the first trial that resulted in the conviction of a southern registrar for contempt of court. The case served as a model for other challenges to voter discrimination in the South, and was an important influence in shaping the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Count Them One by One is a comprehensive account of the groundbreaking case written by one of the Justice Department's trial attorneys. Gordon A. Martin, Jr., then a newly-minted lawyer, traveled to Hattiesburg from Washington to help shape the federal case against Lynd. He met with and prepared the government's sixteen black witnesses who had been refused registration, found white witnesses, and was one of the lawyers during the trial.

Decades later, Martin returned to Mississippi and interviewed the still-living witnesses, their children, and friends. Martin intertwines these current reflections with commentary about the case itself. The result is an impassioned, cogent fusion of reportage, oral history, and memoir about a trial that fundamentally reshaped liberty and the South.

My thoughts:

Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote is an impressive account of one trial (United States vs. Theron Lynd) in Forrest County, Mississippi that affected the voting rights of blacks in Mississippi in 1962. The author, Gordon A. Martin, Jr., was a lawyer at the time and worked on the trial, traveling often between Washington, D.C. and various parts of Mississippi to find witnesses for the trial. Later Martin became a Trial Court judge. Twenty seven years after the Lynd trial, he traveled back to Mississippi to interview the witnesses in that trial, and discuss their experiences during the trial and how they had experienced the changes in Mississippi since that time. He combines his experiences while working on the trial and the interviews with the witnesses in the 1990s into a moving account of their story.

I am grateful that the author decided to write this book. It was an eye-opener for me, often depressing to read about the treatment of blacks who wanted to be able to vote. It was wrenching at times to look back to the 1960's and read about what life was like in the South at that time. At that time I was in my early teens and I was living in Alabama. 

Reading about civil rights and the disparities between whites and blacks in the American South is a depressing experience for me. But this book was uplifting in many ways because a dedicated group of people put so much effort into the case and it made a difference. Ultimately the outcome was that black people in Mississippi were able to register to vote and take a part in determining their future.

I liked that this book focused on one aspect of that subject, and one particular court case. That made it easier to feel like you knew the participants better and could empathize with their plight. The writing was excellent, and I liked the approach to the subject, with the emphasis on the witnesses and the preparation for the trial.

It was sobering reading this book at a time when voting rights are again being threatened.

This book is dedicated to Gordon A. Martin, Jr.'s daughter:

For my daughter, Constance, who as a baby moved to Washington with Stephanie and me and who never lost interest in this book.

Constance Martin is a fellow book blogger at Staircase Wit. I have enjoyed reading her blog for years. I know that she is proud to have a father who played such an important role in the  struggle for civil rights and documented the efforts of those participating in the trial.