Excerpt from a note from Willa Cofield (Northeastern NC wars)

 Alston vs. Butts was/is our major voting rights case, brought by us in U.S, District Court at Raleigh.  We won that -- breaking the Deep South complex of segregationist resistance to voter registration and voting by African Americans and Natives, not only in Halifax County, but, by extension, across the entire Northeastern North Carolina Blackbelt.  Willa, of course, was a major figure in that whole struggle -- along with a vast number of other courageous grassroots people. Our attorneys were Morty Stavis of New Jersey, Bill Kunstler of NYC, and Sam Mitchell of Raleigh. Phil Hirschkop, Arlington Va., was of much assistance, a finishing up law student at Georgetown and very soon to become a practicing civil rights lawyer. Professor Chester Antieau, Georgetown law school and students from Georgetown and Duke, were of considerable assistance in the case, and its aftermath. The NC Civil Rights Exhibit looks promising.  (H)
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You are the only person I know who beat the Klan and lupus.  What an achievement!  

I am deep in the Alston v. Butts complaint.  Thanks for being such a great historian.  The NC Civil Rights Exhibit is going on Tour next week and there is a big reception in Raleigh to kick it off.  Imagine that story being told with no mention of the courageous work in northeastern North Carolina.

Keep well and give my best regards to Eldri.

With every good wish for your continued health and happiness,
Willa
 
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org  (social justice)

See the new expanded/updated edition of my "ORGANIZER'S
BOOK." It's the inside story of the rise of the massive Jackson
Movement -- careful grassroots organizing, bloody repression, sell-out 
and more.  It also covers other organizing campaigns of mine through
 the decades since Mississippi. It's replete with grass-roots organizing
examples and "lessons."  And it has my new 10,000 word 
introduction.  Among a myriad of positive comments and reviews:
 ". . .a local activist's important account of the deleterious effects
the involvement  of national organizations can have on indigenous
protest movements."  (Historian David Garrow.)
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

See the related:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm