Oct. 23, 1913

An NAACP branch was formed in the Seattle-Tacoma area — one of the few branches started west of the Mississippi River. 

A beautician and philanthropist, Letitia Graves served as the first president, and journalist Horace Cayton Sr. served as first vice president. He had graduated from what is now Alcorn State University and married Susie Revels, the daughter of Sen. Hiram Revels, the first Black American elected to the U.S. Senate. She worked as associate editor for the Black newspaper that he began, the Seattle Republican. 

NAACP members protested President Woodrow Wilson’s new policy of segregating Black federal employees. When the racist film “The Birth of a Nation” emerged in 1915, NAACP members sought to stop the showing of the film in Seattle. The effort failed, but they succeeded six years later when the movie returned. This time, Graves convinced the president of the Seattle City Council to have the police chief block the showing of the film. 

In the decades that followed, the Seattle branch challenged discrimination in court and saw its membership grow from 85 to 1,550 members. After protests regarding police brutality and failure to promote black officers, the city of Seattle hired its first Black police chief in 1964. In the years since, the branch has continued to remain active.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Paul Bonds will tell you, “growing up, I didn’t even like coffee. I’d drink it a little in college, not for the taste of it, but mainly to keep me awake.”

That all changed when Bonds had a coffee epiphany. 

“I had a great cup of coffee from a roaster who used to be in business in Jackson about 15 years ago. There was a coffee tasting. I tried an African blend and really liked it. It had a light, fruity flavor that I really enjoyed. After that I was kind of hooked and started trying different roasters around the country,” said Bonds, at his CoffeeBean Fruit Company in Flowood. 

“After that, I started trying to roast coffee beans at home, just for myself. I thought I got pretty good at it. So now and then, my friends would be sort of my guinea pigs. I began talking to my friends about coffee this and coffee that until their eyes glazed over.”

“One of those friends asked me if I’d ever thought about going into some kind of coffee business. My immediate reaction was an emphatic no. But you know what? The idea stuck with me. So much so that I bought a roaster, nothing fancy,” He said, smiling and shaking his head at the memory. “Nothing fancy, just a simple, little cheap roaster and started roasting coffee beans in my garage.”

The BeanFruit Coffee Company name derives from the product itself. The coffee bean is actually a fruit called a coffee cherry. When ripened, they are picked from the coffee plant. Within those coffee cherries are seeds called peaberries. To the naked eye, they look like little beans.

The aromas of roasting coffee beans and brewing coffee fill the senses at the BeanFruit Coffee Company. The noise from various machinery grinding and roasting coffee beans is a fitting backdrop.

 Not only is Bonds importing coffee beans from around the world, his company also ships nationally and internationally. Baristas-to-be are trained on the particular coffee brewer their business uses, coffee brewers and memorabilia is sold, and there is training on how to maintain the equipment. 

“After a while, I’d take bags to the Farmer’s Market. Wouldn’t you know, I gained a following. That following grew and I started to pick up cafes and restaurants as clients, and began selling online. In 2012, I went full time. Who’d have thought, all this from a friend asking one question I couldn’t shake.” 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Oct. 22, 1955

John Earl Reese, 16, and his cousins, Joyce Nelson, 13, and her sister Johnnie, 15, were drinking soft drinks and listening to music from a beat-up jukebox in a poster-plastered café near Longview, Texas, when white men fired nine shots through the window, killing him and injuring his two cousins. The killing was part of a series of shootings aimed at terrorizing African Americans into giving up plans for a new school. 

One black woman was praying at her bedside at her home when bullets came through the Venetian blinds and bullet fragments sprayed her face. The sheriff at the time originally blamed the attack on African Americans, but a prosecution took place after a Texas Rangers’ investigation determined that Joseph Reagan Simpson and Perry Dean Ross carried out Reese’s killing. 

Simpson testified that Ross had been the one that fired into the café, and Ross confessed to authorities, “I held the steering wheel with my left hand and laid the gun (a Mossberg .22 automatic rifle) across the left door. I was going about 85 mph at the time, and I fired nine shots into the café.” 

District Attorney Ralph Prince urged the all-white jury to convict Ross to deter others, but the defense lawyer urged the all-white jury to “call it a bad day and let the boy go on in life.” 

Although all-white jury convicted Ross of murder without malice, he received only a suspended sentence. Neither he nor Simpson spent any time behind bars. 

In 1989, the National Civil Rights Memorial listed Reese as one of 40 martyrs of the civil rights movement. A historical marker in Texas now honors Reese.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.