Civil rights activist's wade-ins chronicled in new book

Author Amy Lemco details the struggles to desegregate Biloxi Beach in her new book, “Wading-In: Desegregation on the Mississippi Gold Coast.”

/ Photo contributed

Amy Lemco has been a storyteller for a long time.

“I always liked stories. I always wanted to be told stories at bedtime that were family stories,” said the Monmouth writer. “I have tape recordings of me just making up stories when I was about 5.”

But other means of creative expression soon proved diverting.

“I did everything that was art. Painting and drawing, pottery, storytelling,” she said. “I have no musical talent, but if I did I’d be into that. Dancing. Anything that’s artistic, I’ve done it.”

Including acting.

“I took drama in high school,” she said. “But I was writing at the same time. And so, at the time, I’m writing stories, stories that you read aloud.”

She then got serious about her writing. Published her first book, a spoof on fairy tales, before turning 14.

Fast forward a few decades. Lemco no longer writes fairy tales. Far from it. Her new book chronicles a Black man’s effort to desegregate his part of the Deep South.

Gilbert Mason was a Mississippi doctor. He was also a civil rights activist who organized a series of wade-ins in the 1950’s and 60’s to desegregate Biloxi Beach. The first two wade-ins were peaceful. The third was not.

Lemco chronicles Mason’s efforts in her book, “Wading In: Desegregation on the Mississippi Gold Coast,” which was published recently by University Press of Mississippi.

According to Lemco, hurricanes had caused severe erosion at Biloxi Beach, resulting in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers being called in to restore and protect the shoreline in 1953.
“That work was paid with (federal) tax dollars, so Biloxi Beach became a public beach,” and thus subject to federal desegregation laws, said Lemco. But that didn’t change a thing on the beach. Instead, “what was happening was by practice, it was still being segregated,” Lemco said.

Mason knew the law. So he pushed back with nonviolence. He decided to go swimming there with a friend.

“The police officer showed up. Said you can’t swim here. (Mason) said show me the law. There was no law. Mason and his friend left,” said Lemco.

The doctor tried to get more people to show up for the second wade-in, but nobody followed his lead. So Mason went swimming by himself and was promptly arrested, said Lemco.

“Which was good for (Mason) because now there was proof that Black people were being forced off the beach,” she added. “It got the Black community behind him, now that he was arrested.”

Violence was waiting at the third wade-in.

“This time the white community was ready. They were riled up and ready for violence. Which is just what local law enforcement wanted,” said Lemco. “So basically the police did not want to arrest anybody because they knew, behind closed doors, they had no legal standing. So what they wanted, what everybody wanted, was for the citizens to take care of it.”

Which they did.

According to Lemco, the community brought weapons, beat people off the beach, and caused injuries. She added white airmen from nearby Keesler Air Force Base tried to help the swimmers and were also injured.

The riot drew national attention and NAACP involvement.

“And now there’s tons of news coverage about it nationally,” said Lemco.

Lawsuits followed. Court proceedings and legal maneuverings took five years and yielded no decision. Tired of waiting, a fourth and final wade-in was staged.

“At some point, the Black community is like, well, we’re just not gonna wait for you indefinitely to have an answer. So they had a final wade in,” said Lemco. “(Some) 50 people were arrested because, at that point, they had the FBI there watching the police. They clearly cannot let another attack happen by the citizens. So they arrested the people.”

And this brought years of legal wrangling to a close. The beach was officially desegregated. The Black community’s reaction to its victory was subdued.

“I don’t think there was a day that everyone went out to celebrate the desegregation of Biloxi Beach,” said Lemco. “I have interviewed some of the survivors who were there. I think it was kind of quiet.”

Maybe because other significant developments were heating up the South.

“When the wade-ins first began, that was at the beginning of when all the civil disobedience was starting to happen, stool sitting and things,” explained Lemco. “By the end of it, you had huge things that were taking up a lot more attention than this tiny little grassroots thing. You’re having marches over the bridge in Selma, and the murder of Martin Luther King. Where everybody was getting hosed and the dogs, and that was being nationally broadcast.”

It’s possible Mason and King met in person several times.

Medgar Evers, head of the Mississippi State NAACP chapter, was to be part of the fourth wade-in. But he was assassinated before it happened. Mason was pallbearer at Evers funeral. King, Jr. attended the funeral.

“(Mason and King) met again on a flight,” said Lemco. “(King) autographed Mason’s fraternity card; they were members of the same fraternity.”

Mason has not been forgotten. Markers and a mural at Biloxi Beach commemorate him and the wade-ins. There’s also a Doctor Mason Day in Biloxi, along with a research festival named in his honor.

(Publisher's note: This article originally appeared in the Polk County Itemizer-Observer. It has been slightly edited for publication in the Monmouth Free Press.)