3

3
their goals and values, and hosts their leadership in his Senate office in Washington.³

Among his many gifts, Aaron Henry knew people. He loved people, and when he could, he forgave them their weaknesses. He was known for overlooking a person's bad traits in favor of that person's good ones. But, as Sam Simmons tells us, "The one person who I heard [Aaron] say was 'just no good' was Trent Lott."

Simmons said Doc Henry "could talk about all those Republicans and Conservatives, but the only one I heard him describe as just an excuse for a human being was Trent Lottt."

Aaron Henry - what a great judge of people you were!

We know the story Sam Simmons told because Connie Curry has interviewed him and many others for her forthcoming book on Aaron Henry - it will be called The Fire Ever Burning. Her book, together with others by historians John Dittmer and Charles Payne about the Mississippi movement, will help tell Aaron Henry's story.⁴

Even here in Mississippi, he is not as well known as other freedom fighters.

He may not be as famous, but Aaron Henry was just as formidable - we need to acknowledge his importance, not just to Clarksdale, not just to Mississippi, but to the United States.

John Dittmer writes, "Aaron Henry was among the last of that generation of black leaders who came out of World War II dedicated to cracking open Mississippi's 'closed society' ".

A few days ago, my mother sent me a Christmas letter my parents had received from a friend in the army in 1944. He wrote:

"... The recent elections posed a problem in the
cases of men who couldn't understand how the election
laws of their states kept them from voting. As one
soldier expressed himself, "A man feel pretty bad getting
ready to go across the water to fight to give the folks
something his own wife don't have in Mississippi."

The letter ends by saying, " ... many of us have had built into us an understanding and feeling about democracy we never had before. That understanding is essential to the making of a good