Unita Blackwell speaking at a Mississippi Senate hearing in 1967. Jim Peppler/Alabama Department of Archives and History
Here is an excerpt from another profile of courage in The New York Times‘ series, “The Lives They LIved, in this instance written by . To read the complete article as well as others, please click here.
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On an afternoon thick with Mississippi heat, Unita Blackwell sat on the front porch of her shotgun house with her friend Coreen, drinking homemade beer, waiting for something to happen. That’s when she saw them: two men — they looked to be about 19 — heading toward town. Blackwell knew they weren’t from around there. They walked too fast. No one walked fast in Mayersville on 90-degree days. They said, “Hello,” instead of the usual, “How y’all feeling?”
“That’s them,” Blackwell said.
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.