Editor’s note: The Old Gold series provides a look at University of Iowa history and tradition through materials housed in University Archives, Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.
Eric Morton had an important job to do during Freedom Summer in 1964. As materials coordinator for the voter registration project in Mississippi, he oversaw delivery of information flyers, registration forms, and other materials across the state, a risky and dangerous undertaking. At the time, only about 7 percent of Mississippi’s adult black residents were registered to vote, and attempting to do so meant intimidation, physical threats, and even violence perpetrated by white segregationists.
An African American man who grew up in Detroit, Morton (1934–2015) was very familiar with racism in the country that he served as an enlisted member of the U.S. Armed Forces during the Korean War in the early 1950s. He joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in about 1962, and for the next several years was on the front lines in the Deep South, participating in voter registration drives and other civil rights–related activity.
Readers of Old Gold might recognize Eric Morton’s name. An Old Gold column from 2015 recounts how his papers arrived at the University of Iowa Libraries’ Department of Special Collections the year before.
His papers bring directly to us the exhilaration and pain that the civil rights movement came to represent for those who fought bravely for rights that, by any measure, should never have been denied in the first place. One example is a letter Morton received from a family friend whom we know only as “Mrs. Roche,” a letter written soon after Morton and UI student Steve Smith were detained by a posse near Canton, Mississippi, late on the night of July 15, 1964, while delivering materials to Greenwood, Mississippi:
Friday (July 17, 1964)
Dear Eric,
Please excuse this writing paper, but I am sure you will understand.
My ears have been glued to the radio listening to news and when I heard of trucks being stopped and workers being arrested on such ridiculous trumped up charges, my fears for you mounted. Then when Kathleen called and told us of your misfortune, my fears became a reality.
It just doesn’t seem possible that such conditions could exist in a so-called civilized country. I hope and pray your work will become a reality very soon, not weeks,months, or years from now.
Do be careful, cautious, take care of yourself.
If you need anything, please let me know. I will try to do what I can.
I realize you are very busy, but I would like to hear from you.
Lovingly,
Mrs. Roche
The letter is one of several documents from the Eric Morton Civil Rights Papers on display at the Coralville Public Library in Coralville, Iowa, during January, on loan from UI Libraries and open for viewing during the Coralville library’s service hours.
“The documents tell part of the story of Freedom Summer, when over a thousand mostly white college students, including some from Iowa, went to Mississippi as part of an effort to register black voters,” says Laura Crossett, the library’s adult services coordinator. “This seemingly simple act exposed them to some of the harassment, oppression, and violence black Mississippians experienced every day.”
Old Gold was honored to meet Eric Morton in 2014 and to receive his papers on behalf of the UI Libraries. The simple but significant act of faith—the act of entrusting one’s papers to an institution—allows us to remember and reflect and renew.