Mitchell, Mimi

Mimi Mitchell was born in the Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia. Jim Crow laws lingered in the South long after the Plessy v. Ferguson decision was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1954, so Mimi saw great changes during her youth. "I simply never saw the racial separation until I went to the movies in my late teen years, and recognized, for the first time, the separate drinking fountains and seating areas for 'negroes' and whites! I was confounded both by the segregation and by the fact that I had never been aware of it! I was possessed by a severe mental scotoma regarding race relat...