Journal Gazette | 10/26/2005 | Civil rights soldier... -
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Published on: 10/26/2005
Last Visited: 10/26/2005
George Smith has a long memory.He remembers being pushed to the ground and spit on by the owner of a sandwich shop.He remembers being clubbed by police for sitting in the front row of a public bus.
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Smith, one-time director of the Congress of Racial Equality in Meridian, Miss., is one of many local people mourning the death of a woman many consider the mother of the civil rights movement.
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"Rosa Parks was one of the reasons I joined the (civil rights) movement," Smith says.
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Smith and other civil rights workers continued to test these laws for years.
"In the state of Mississippi, the Civil Rights Act didn't mean anything," Smith says.