Wharlest Jackson Jr. isn’t sure he’s ready for what he’s been waiting on.

Closure may be around the corner, but 38-year-old wounds are now as fresh as ever.

An 8-year-old boy in a family of girls, Wharlest Jr. said he lost his best friend and his breadwinner when his father Wharlest Jackson died on Feb. 27, 1967, when his truck exploded from a planted bomb.

&uot;It did a lot to my life,&uot; Jackson said. &uot;My mother didn’t know what I was going through as a kid. I hated the people that did it. It began to destroy me as an individual.&uot;

Young Jackson didn’t understand much of what his dad did at work, but he knew the promotion was a big one. He knew it was referred to as a &uot;white man’s job&uot; at Armstrong Tire, and he knows now that there were threats.

Family friend and neighbor Renza Grennell was working at her gas station on the corner of Woodlawn Avenue when she heard the explosion.

&uot;It was storming when it happened,&uot; she said. &uot;It was really a shock. I had no idea who it was.&uot;

Grennell’s husband went to see what had happened and came back with news Renza didn’t want.

&uot;It was an unbelievable case. The whole community was very upset about it,&uot; she said.

Jackson had gotten in his car at the tire plant and was on his way home from work.

Wharlest Jr., now 47, said he relives the pain every day, but he never stopped hoping for justice.

So Thursday’s news that his father’s case would be investigated by the U.S. attorney’s office wasn’t a complete surprise.

&uot;I kind of expected it,&uot; he said. &uot;I just always believed that it was going to resurface. You can’t do something like that to somebody and not get justice.&uot;

The hope he’s always found in little things like Barnaby Jones on TV and detective movies grew with real life justice when Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was convicted in June in the deaths of three civil rights workers, Jackson said.

&uot;You see bad guys getting caught and you never lose hope,&uot; Jackson said. &uot;To see those trials and people being prosecuted, it kind of gives you hope too.&uot;

Hope and forgiveness won out over hate and despair years ago, and now the biggest battle is moving on, he said.

&uot;God made a change in my life. Now I’m praying for healing.

&uot;I really thank God for my praying mother who found Christ and learned to forgive. It’s something I had to learn to, like riding a bicycle, like learning how to use a tool. I had to forgive.

&uot;Forgiveness doesn’t make a person right for what they’ve done, but it makes you free.&uot;

Jackson’s not so sure investigators will be able to find the people responsible for his father’s death, but he’s not giving up hope.

Jackson returned to Natchez and the home he grew up in three years ago. He’s now happily married and spends his time working demolition and mentoring young people who work with him.

&uot;I love to give a lot of myself in those situations,&uot; he said. &uot;I’m trying to let my daddy’s legacy not be in vain.&uot;

Jackson has a sister in Natchez and another sister in California. His mother left Natchez for California several years after her husband’s death.