Mississippi's Still Burning

Billey Joe Johnson could run like the wind. He could have been another Walter Payton, but he had the great misfortune of running into a sheriff's deputy in Lucedale, Mississippi while driving while black. This young man, full of promise, was one of the most sought after football recruits in the South. He had absolutely no reason to kill himself as law enforcement contends he did. It is a common practice among less scrupulous police to carry a throw away gun often seized from a suspect but not reported to plant on or near a criminal suspect in the event the officer shoots him. Mississippi was notorious for this and similar racially motivated abuse or arbitrary cruelty by authorities. This suspicious death did not occur in the civil rights era of the early 1960s but Monday morning. It is incumbent on Federal authorities to investigate this as a civil rights violation, and in this instance, I am almost certain they will. With a President-elect Obama, there will be no more Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney. Editor's note:Illuminate, the author of this blog, reveals himself for the first time as a Goodman in the interest of full disclosure.