Randy Cooper in Tchula, Mississippi: "Searching For Ozell"
TEENAGE DIARIES
Produced by: Joe Richman All Things Considered (NPR)
4/22/96

ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: This is All Things Considered. I'm Robert Siegel. Eighteen year-old Randy Cooper lives on a farm in western Mississippi, 3 miles south of the town of Tchula. As part the series Teenage Diaries, we gave Randy a tape recorder and asked him to document his life in rural Mississippi. Randy decided he wanted to research the Civil Rights movement in his county. What he learned led him back to his own family. This is Randy's story.

[farm sounds, kissing noises]

RANDY COOPER: What's up man? Wassup? That's the dog right there--little puppy. Yes, um...My name's Randy Cooper. I'm 18 years-old, and I live here on the Dawson farm in Holmes County, Mississippi. Here you go...peas we plant here, and greens and corn. We have something like about 15 pecan trees. Well, we call it pecans, but ya'll be calling it pee-cans in the city. All these bugs flying around, all over my head and everything.

[opening barn door]

RANDY: Better watch out for snakes. You see right here. This is where my great-grandfather used to hang different varieties of meat here, and smoke it out. This is about seventy years old. For it to be seventy years old, it still looks pretty good though. Dawson used to be a plantation maybe about a hundred and fifty years ago - a hundred twenty years ago. Now, you know a lot of people, well--but mostly black--have little parts of Dawson. I'm the oldest grandson that's down here and maybe one day I'll go on and farm on my own. If get it in my blood some type of way, I'll keep it up.

[walking, sound of motor failing to start]

RANDY: What's up dude? What's up? You still don't fix that truck down here?
NEIGHBOR: Hold that down.
RANDY: Which part?
NEIGHBOR: Hold the trunk down.

[sounds fade]

RANDY: Far as like, do I like living here in Holmes county? Well, there's a yes, and there's a no. I like it. But as I say, in Holmes county we're something like the third poorest county in the nation. In the whole nation. And there's absolutely no McDonald's in Holmes county, no malls in Holmes county. Basically Holmes county is just farm land.

[cooking sounds, mother calling]

RANDY: My mom has just made some greens. So they're just sitting here eating and everything like that.

[kitchen sounds, someone singing]

RANDY: Now I'm walking in the living room. We have a beautiful living room, and here I'm standing right here where there's a TV and VCR--actually we have TV's in all the rooms. Let's come on through here. And now I'm in my room that I share with my brother. Turn the light on here.

[sings off-key, laughs]

RANDY: I know I don't sound too good, but...

[turns on music, phone rings]

RANDY: Telephone's ringing. [answers phone] What's up? This here's Meredith on the phone, that's who I'm talking to. [to Meredith] What's up Mer? Huh?

Meredith, she's my girlfriend. We've been dating now about 8 months.
[to Meredith] You're not going to talk to me? Why? You don't want me to record this? [laughs] Why? Do you love me? Huh? Well, if you love me you'll talk. Meredith? [pause] I'm not recording you now.

[music comes up, then fades out]

RANDY: My great-grandfather's name was Ozell Mitchell and he played a major role in the Civil Rights movement throughout the late fifties and early sixties. I'm seeking information about my great-grandfather because of the simple fact, you know, he died two weeks before I was born and I never really got to know him personally.

RANDY: What's up Quita, ya'll? This my next-door neighbor. She's about-- Quita, how old are you? About 6, Quita? See, I'm doing this project for National Public Radio.
QUITA: What you all gonna do?
RANDY: Just basically talking about everyday life around here and everything, and about my great-grandfather.
QUITA: Grandfather?
RANDY: Yeah, he dead now.

[sound of pages turning]

RANDY: Just flipping on this book here. Yeah, this is a picture of my great-grandfather Ozell Mitchell showing him with his hat pulled over his head. It says: "Ozell Mitchell, photographed on his farm. He and his sister, Anna Mitchell Connagee were two of the grassroots people who began the Holmes county movement in the early spring, 1963."

[gospel singing and clapping fades in - "Certainly Lord"]

RANDY: A lot of people know about Malcolm X , Martin Luther King, and all the others. But most people my age around here today, they don't know that Civil Rights really started right across the fence or down the road, you know.

[song ends, "allright" from singers]

RANDY: Southern Echo is an organization that a teaches and trains young people to be better people.

RANDY: Yes, I'm about to interview Leroy Johnson here about my great-grandfather. Leroy, what did you hear about my great-grandfather and what type of guy was he?
LEROY JOHNSON: Well, I remember the whole thing about going down and watching, as a small child, the building of the community center and seeing your great-grandfather up on top of the roof, nailing with his little chapeau-- his little hat on. You know, he had this little hat that he pulled down to the front of his head and when the sun got hot he'd pull it down a little bit further, and it was one of those things that I will forever remember. Ozell Mitchell--without him it never would have been a Civil Rights movement in Holmes County, Mississippi. His thing was that for black folk to be first class citizens, you had to have the right to vote. And if we as a people were given those opportunities, we could be lawyers, we could be doctors, we could be the best farmers in the world. We could be anything we wanted to be.

[gospel singing - "Let It Shine", Randy singing off-key, music ends]

[telephone ringing]

ANABELLE MITCHELL, Great-grandmother: Hello?
RANDY: Hey grandma.
ANABELLE MITCHELL: Uh huh.
RANDY: Don't you remember when I was telling you I was doing this little project about granddaddy and about the South in the 60's?
ANABELLE MITCHELL: Oh you trying to learn more about him?
RANDY: Yes.
ANABELLE MITCHELL: I didn't know you was paying that much attention.
RANDY: Yes m'am.

RANDY: [great-grandmother's voice in the background] My great-grandmother's name is Anabelle Mitchell. She's 92 years old. She now lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Well, she told me that they had been together ever since she was 13 at the time.

RANDY: Okay grandma. Life back then - it was kind of, it was way harder than it is now?
ANABELLE MITCHELL: Oh, it was terrible. We wasn't voting at that time. And Mr. Mitchell started that, registering to vote. And we went to the courthouse and they made us lay down on the grass and said: "What ya'll come here for? Get your tail off of here." They treated us like dogs. Honey, we had a terrible time. They started Turnbull's house afire, and his wife and daughter were in the house.

RANDY: [great-grandmother's voice in the background] The fire bombing of Hartman Turnbull's house was--well, it was a turning point. Cause the sheriff and the Ku Klux Klan and all the white people, they kind of found out that the black was no longer afraid of them, and they was willing to die and stand up for their rights.

RANDY: [to great-grandmother] Okay you say ya'll was at a meeting at Turnbull's house?
ANABELLE MITCHELL: We had a meeting at Turnbull's house, he just left from there. And when he got to the back door there was three men standing there in the back: Ku Klux Klan.
RANDY: Ku Klux Klan
ANABELLE MITCHELL: That's right. And they're hollering: Oh! It's some men out here. Oh! And Turnbull came out of the house and started shooting--pom! pom! pom! And he sure pulled that trigger!

[sounds of walking through grass]

RANDY: I'm gonna just give you a little brief description of Hartman Turnbull's house. Okay, all right, it's sitting here about 600 yards from my house here on Dawson. When the Ku Klux Klansmen came around, Okay they kind of surrounded the house right here. I think that they set all of this here on fire. And Hartman Turnbull, he was loading up his gun and he came out round the front door, shooting. And they ran round the side of the house, back towards the road by the side the gate right here. And this here where they drove off. They later found out it was a Sheriff Department vehicle.

[sound of flipping pages]

RANDY: See if I can find him.... Yeah, the picture of Sheriff Deputy Billy Joe Gilmore is on page 41. And Billy Joe Gilmore's kind of standing here in his uniform, kind of with his hand on his hip. He was Chief Deputy of the Holmes County Sheriff's Department back then. They said he was along with the Klansmen the night of the shooting at Hartman Turnbull's house.

[sound of door opening and closing]

RANDY: I'm here in Lexington, Mississippi, about to do an interview with Mr. Billy Joe Gilmore, attorney at law. I thought maybe if, well, I came in and was man enough to ask him, then he would be man enough to tell me.

RANDY: Yessir, Mr. Gilmore, how you doing?
BILLY JOE GILMORE: Fine, fine.
RANDY: My name's Randy Cooper
BILLY JOE GILMORE: Yes. Uh-huh.
RANDY: Okay. So you was in law enforcement first, right?
BILLY JOE GILMORE: That's correct.
RANDY: Okay. Umm. Do you recall anything about the umm, the bombing of Hartman Tumbles house? Or anything 'bout that?
BILLY JOE GILMORE: I remember that, and that was prior to me going to work for the Sheriff's Department. I do remember that.
RANDY: Well, could you kind of, kind of give me a little outline of what took place that ya'll did your investigating on?
BILLY JOE GILMORE: That was before I was in the Sheriff's Department. I don't have any details on that. All I have is what I read in the newspaper.
RANDY: What you read in the newspaper?
BILLY JOE GILMORE: That's correct.

RANDY: He denied ever being a part of the bombing of Hartman Turnbull's House.

RANDY: Thank you very much.
BILLY JOE GILMORE: Well anytime I can help, you know, I'll be glad to.
RANDY: Okay. Mr. Gilmore, see you later.

[sound of door closing]

RANDY: I kind of figured that he wouldn't really own up to it or whatever. Even at interview, I even asked people about it, and they laugh and say: "believe me, he was a part of it." But the Billy Joe that I talked to--he was just totally different from what I heard of him. He sounded like just an average typical guy.

[little girl saying "abc's"]

RANDY: My two nieces. They're 5 and 3. Mil, how you doin' Mil?
YOUNG NIECE: 'Kay. [coughs]
RANDY: You got a little cold, don't you?
YOUNG NIECE: Yeah.

[sound of door opening]

RANDY: My great-grandfather, Mr. Ozell Mitchell, he was a real man. What I'm doing now, I'm trying to pass it on down through to let people know, you know, hey - I have some very important people in my family too.

YOUNG NIECE: [mumbling] My name is [mumbling]
RANDY: Yeah, she said her name's Christa Cooper.

[sound of little girls singing "abc's"...fades into gospel choir singing: "This Little Light Of Mine"]

RANDY: My great-grandfather--this is a little quote that he said one day: "Mississippi can't change and America can't change until blacks were granted their rights and their right to vote." He made that quote there and right now I got a smile on my face about it because I'm happy to be his great-grandson and I'm happy that he did this just to make a change.

[gospel singing]

ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: This story was written and recorded by eighteen-year old Randy Cooper, and produced by Joe Richman as part of the series, "Teenage Diaries." Next week we'll meet Amanda, a teenager in Queens, NY.

[gospel music fades with Randy singing off-key]




© 1996, Joe Richman