Clyde Kennard

Dear friends:

I am writing to you for your help in seeking justice for the late Clyde Kennard . The historian, John Dittmer said of Clyde’s incarceration: “That is the saddest story of the whole movement.”

There is a large campaign afoot to clear Clyde’s name. This means that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour will have to take a stand (he has a policy of not granting clemency to anyone). The Mississippi Parole Board has agreed to hear the case, and Steven Drizin and The Center for the Wrongfully Convicted at Northwestern University Law School are providing legal representation.

A group of Illinois students are coordinating part of this effort. Check out their site at www.clydekennard.org. They are urging that letters be sent to the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood at [email protected].

My concern for Clyde’s case is deeply personal. My sister Dorie and I joined the Hattiesburg, Mississippi NAACP Youth Council in 1958. Clyde Kennard was our president and Vernon Dahmer was our founder/advisor. Medgar Evers was present at our first meeting.

As you may know, Clyde was jailed on false charges of receiving stolen chicken feed because he tried to apply to the now University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. Clyde was sent to Parchman penitentiary and despite a campaign to have him released, Governor Ross Barnett did not do so until he was near death with cancer. He died shortly thereafter in Chicago.

When I was a student at Tougaloo College, I led a campaign to free Clyde from prison when he was terminally ill. The late Larry Still of Jet magazine wrote a piece about Clyde’s incarceration that got national publicity and help from Dick Gregory, Martin Luther King, Johnson Publishing Company, and others.

Now, Governor Haley Barbour is going to honor Clyde Kennard on March 30. He does not intend to grant clemency nor does he intend to expunge his record. I always said that my life’s work would be to work to clear Clyde’s name. Many others feel the same. Let us all take this on as our civil rights cause. I will send new information as I receive it.

Three Stevenson High Schools students, Mona Ghadiri, Agnes Mazur and Callie McCune are working on a unique collaboration with Professor Steven A. Drizin and the Northwestern University School Of Law Center On Wrongful Convictions, to convince MS Governor Haley Barbour to issue a posthumous pardon and expungement of the record, so as to clear Mr. Kennard’s good name for the record. They have also created a documentary for National History Day Contest as a result of their research; Carrying The Burden: The Story of Clyde Kennard. Check back (www.clydekennard.org) to see when you can request a free copy. LETTERS OF SUPPORT FOR CLYDE KENNARD’S CLEMENCY

Julian Bond – Chairman of NAACP

Raylawni Branch – One of First Two African American Students at Southern Mississippi

Taylor Branch – Pulitzer Prize Winner Historian

John Dittmer- Mississippi Historian andAuthor

Ron Hollander – Journalist, Professor and Mississippi Activist

Hunter Gray – (John R. Salter, Jr.) Civil Rights Leader and Friend of Medgar Evers

The Innocent Network

Dorie Ladner – Civil Rights Leader and Friend of Clyde Kennard

Joyce Ladner – Civil Rights Leader and Friend of Clyde Kennard

Jim Loewen – Author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and “Mississippi: Conflict and Change

Marion Wright Edelman – Civil Rights Pioneer and President of Children Defense Fund

Gwen Patton – Civil Rights Activist and Author

Glen Pearson – Hattiesburg Physician and Friend of Clyde Kennard

Monte Piliawsky – Author of Exit 13: Oppression and Racism in Academia

Hans Sherrer – Publisher of “Justice Denied: The Magazine for the Wrongfully Convicted”

Congressman Bennie Thompson

Patricia M. Thompson – Founder of “Repaying Our Ancestors Respectfully” (ROAR)

CLYDE KENNARD
COMPLETELY
EXONERATED IN A
MISSISSIPPI COURT

FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON CLYDE
KENNARD CHECK www.clydekennard.org .

ROAR extends a “Special Thanks” to all who responded to Dr. Joyce Ladner & Dorie Ladner’s request to send letters of support to MS Governor Haley Barbour and the Mississippi State Parole Board. The Ladner sisters have worked, feverishly, for over 40 years to clear their friend, Clyde Kennard, name. Additionally, three Stevenson High Schools students, Mona Ghadiri, Agnes Mazur and Callie McCune worked on a unique collaboration with Professor Steven A. Drizin and the Northwestern University School Of Law Center On Wrongful Convictions to exonerate Kennard.

May Our Brother, Clyde Kennard, Finally Rest In Peace!

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