Charles Francis, president of the Mattachine Society, which conducts research and offers education programs focused on gay and lesbian policies, noted that a 1964 Mississippi State Sovereignty report targeted Smith and Rust College, which the commission’s investigator called a “place for instructors, who are homosexuals and racial agitators.”
A recently discovered document showing that a Mississippi State commission sought to discredit black civil rights workers in 1964 by labeling them “homos and oddballs” was the subject of a D.C. panel discussion on Monday.
The panel, which convened at the city’s African American Civil War Museum, was one of a series of events associated with the March on Washington Film Festival, an annual event that chronicles the impact of the 1964 civil rights March on Washington organized by Martin Luther King Jr.
mattachinesocietywashingtondc.org 