Meeting the Moment: Operation Shoestring’s Civil Rights History

Operation Shoestring was born out of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement as a response to growing divisions in our city and state as a place to keep children and families safe while creating greater equity and opportunity in our community. Those forces still inform everything we do as we seek to mitigate the effects of systemic bias and support the development of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community that affirms the dignity and worth of all its members, especially its children.

Our work has taken many forms over the past fifty years in response to the changing needs of our community members. However, our vision remains the same: love your neighbor as yourself, and act on that love.

Living our Mission 

Operation Shoestring works as an interfaith organization centered on improving the lives and futures of children and families. Our work can’t happen without the support of individual and corporate funders, local congregations, public entities, and our fellow Metro-Jacksonians. We’re an intersectional coalition based in the heart of Mississippi’s capital city, and our afterschool, summer, and parent programs and services promote education, emotional support, and resilience in our neighbors. When our core neighborhoods can thrive, we all can thrive. We all rise together.

Operation Shoestring: A Coalition from the Beginning

Against the backdrop of the shooting of James Meredith in Hernando, Mississippi, in June 1966, Jackson faith leaders met to respond, and the local NAACP suggested that they engage in voter registration among black citizens in Jackson’s Pleasant Avenue area. Neighbors, however, shared that their most pressing need was a place where children could play. Working with members of the neighborhood, vacant lots were found, consent gained from owners to allow them to be cleared, and equipment was built for three or four playgrounds. 

The relationship that developed between the neighborhood and the volunteers from the Layman’s Overseas Service Board, Millsaps, and Tougaloo morphed into the Community Organization Group (COG). The Community Organization Group aimed at better city services, conducting sessions for youth and adults on consciousness raising and community action. 

The minister at Wells Church, Rev. Russell Gilbert, heard of what had been going on in the Pleasant Avenue community and appealed to the LAOS people to consider working in the Wells neighborhood. The Board met with Rev. Gilbert and Nancy Gilbert on March 18, 1968, and they decided that an effective community organization group should be represented by members from different religious and ethnic groups of the city.  The Ku Klux Klan, which had already burned dozens of black churches across Mississippi, expanded its attacks to include the leaders of the Community Organization Group’s homes for their initial organizing work.

There, Operation Shoestring was born. Focused around Bailey Avenue, and headquartered in the basement of Wells Memorial United Methodist Church, Operation Shoestring very quickly began to fill critical needs identified by the community.

Operation Shoestring’s original Statement of Belief and Intention focused on equity in the local community for people of color. Below are some of the organization’s original principles.

• Fair and impartial treatment must be accorded to all citizens in the enforcement and administration of the law. 
• Every citizen in the city regardless of race, creed, or color is entitled to equal access to employment as he is qualified by training and experience to perform, and to earn the continuation of such employment by his own hard efforts. 
• Communication between the races should be encouraged on every level by our city. This should include all of us whether we be public officials, civic, business, religious, or professional leaders.
• There is no place in the life of our City for hate, discord or violence. All of our citizens should work untiringly and unceasingly to bring out to the fullest the best in us in the way of kindness, compassion, friendliness and understanding that we may all progress through cooperation. 

The scope of Operation Shoestring’s work has grown over the years, but the vision remains the same today as it was when it first began in the basement of Wells Church – love your neighbor as yourself, and act on that love.

Read more history about the founding of Operation Shoestring, in this Clarion-Ledger piece by Jerry Mitchell.