Writer recalls 1965 request for help

To the editor:

While we remember the events in Selma and on the Selma to Montgomery march from March 21-25, 1965, we in Cedar Rapids should know of another event here at the same time, March 23-31, when a few visitors from Holmes County, Miss., came to solicit help for the poor in their county.

Now, why would people from Holmes County in the heart of Mississippi come to Cedar Rapids for help in March 1965?

The connection began during Freedom Summer of 1963 when a University of Iowa student, Michael Kenney, went to Holmes County to work on voter registration. He discovered that many people in Holmes County had cousins and other relatives in Waterloo. They had begun migrating there before World War I to work on the Illinois Central Railroad, and then continued in a chain migration, eventually working in packing plants. Kenney tried to get help from these relatives, but as they were also quite poor, they could not launch a sustained drive.

Dr. Percy Harris and his wife Lileah had relatives also in Black Hawk County. Dr. Harris had grown up in Holmes County and knew the situation there.

Jeremy Brigham

Cedar Rapids