Based on actual events from Mississippis Civil Rights Movement, Justice for Ella is a story of two womenone black, one whitewho fought and won against seemingly insurmountable meanness. For Ella Gaston and Jewell Mc Mahan, the fight was about justice, in a time and place when it was rarely bestowed on either black people or women.
On a Sunday afternoon in 1959 in Shuqualak, Mississippi, Ella and her husband Nelse were arrested in front of their children and hauled off to the notorious Noxubee County Jail. The Gastons were simply in the wrong place at the wrong timecaught up in a manhunt for Nelses cousin who had allegedly beaten up the city marshal.
The court appearances and legal wrangling that followed resulted in Ellas being found guilty of intimidating an officer and the all-white Mississippi Supreme Court reversing and remanding her conviction on grounds of racial prejudice in testimonya first. To avoid retrial, Ella and Jewell engaged in multiple cat-and-mouse games that placed Ella sick in the hospital, Jewell standing guard, and would-be tormenters at bay. Eventually, the women prevailed, Ella remained free, and the story faded away into obscurityuntil now.
Justice for Ella tells just one of hundreds of stories experienced by nameless foot soldiers who risked everything so that all Mississippians could live as first class citizens in the Land of the Free. It is a story that needed to be told.
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Pam Johnson advocates for women, workers’ rights, social justice, and progressive public policy. A former news editor, schoolteacher, assistant secretary of state, and nonprofit executive, she holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Southern Mississippi. Pam and her husband, Bill, live in Brandon, Mississippi.
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