1963 and 2016: fanatical segregationists creating their own version of reality

James Silver's Mississippi: The Closed Society, originally published in 1964, was an important and influential book on segregation and the civil rights movement in Mississippi. And about the 1963 riot at Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi) when James Meredith was admitted as the first African-American student. (At least knowingly admitted as such. At least one black student had "passed" as white in attending Ole Miss in 1945-6 on a Navy study program.) The University of Mississippi Press issued a new edition of Silver's in 2012.

Since the national Republican Party has "Mississippized" itself in the sense of 1964 - maybe "Ross Barneettized" would be a better term after the treason-minded governor that instigated the Ole Miss riot - Silver's description of the social context and mentality of segregation among whites has newly contemporary relevance.

The night of insurrection at Ole Miss has been called the most explosive federal-state clash since the Civil War. Before the work was done, the Army brought more troops to Mississippi than General Washington had ever commanded at one time, and almost as many as General Sherman had had in the environs of Oxford exactly 100 years before. Several hundred reporters from all news and interpretative media concentrated on the Mississippi campus to ferret out the facts about what had actually taken place and to inquire into the background of the state's turmoil. By and large the reporting was accurate and the interpretation sound and temperate. Those who wished to know have had spread before them a reasonably trustworthy record of events.

This is true for all the world except Mississippi. With their long history of being on the defensive against outside criticism, and with their predisposition to believe their own leaders can do no wrong, the people have been almost completely deceived. The closed society intuitively and immediately projected (in fact, it had foreshadowed) the orthodox version that the insurrection came as the inevitable result of federal encroachment, deliberately planned by the Kennedys and callously incited by [federal Chief Marshal] McShane when he called for tear gas. What did happen in front of the Lyceum Building in that crucial hour before eight o'clock on the night of September 30? Truth cries out that the orthodox Mississippi view is false, that cleverness in shifting the culpability for defiance of law from those creating the violence to those enforcing the law could only succeed among a people suffering from a touch of paranoia. [my emphasis]

Silver notes that there were calls by Mississippi officials for indictment of McShane and other federal officials. White segregationists were very concerned to maintain "law and order" when it came to black people. But they were not hesitant to condemn law-enforcement officials who were demanding that white rioters conduct themselves according to the law. White Lives Mattered to Mississippi segregationists.

Silver addresses the use of tear gas:

Whether Chief Marshal James P. McShane was justified in giving the order to fire at precisely the moment he did is a question for the professionals to answer. It is relevant, however, that between 40 and 50 faculty members and their wives later testified that the marshals had undergone for at least an hour a constant harassment of obscene language and a minute-by-minute heavier barrage of lighted cigarette butts, stones, bottles, pieces of pipe, and even acid. It is a small matter whether the gas should have come fifteen minutes earlier or later, but it is rather ironic that a full-scale insurrection should get under way at the exact moment that the President was appealing to Mississippians on radio and television for fair play, in the name of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. [my emphasis]

I've previously described L.Q.C. Lamar as "a genuine villain who conned gullible Yankees with his 'moderate' talk while fighting for white supremacy and against democracy." JFK had made Lamar one of his "profiles in courage" in his famous book.

Dealing with Ross Barnett, in particular, though, showed Kennedy that his conservative view of Reconstruction was probably deeply flawed. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in Robert Kennedy and His Times (1978) quotes John Kennedy from 06/20/1963 commenting specifically on the murder of Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers: "I don't understand the South. I'm coming to believe that [Radical Republican Reconstruction-era Congressman] Thaddeus Stevens was right. I had always been taught to regard him as a man of vicious bias. But when I see this sort of thing, I begin to wonder how else you can treat them."

"Them" in this case being hardcore Southern segregationists.

Silver rightly notes, "The President had no alternative except the use of federal power when the execution of the order [to admit Meredith] was prevented by state force." That authority was clarified during the Civil War. But even in 2016, their are still political descendants of John Calhoun who would reverse that verdict. Unless they wanted to use federal troops against black communities, immigrants or labor, of course.

Schlesinger also provides this transcript of a telephone conversation between the Governor of Mississippi and the President of the United States:

BARNETT. That's what it's going to boil down to - whether Mississippi can run its institutions or the federal government is going to run things ....
KENNEDY. I don't understand, Governor. Where do you think this is going to take your own state?
BARNETT. A lot of states haven't had the guts to take a stand. We are going to fight this thing. . . . This is like a dictatorship. Forcing him physically into Ole Miss. General, that might bring on a lot of trouble. You don't want to do that. You don't want to physically force him in.
KENNEDY. You don't want to physically keep him out. ... Governor, you are a part of the United States.
BARNETT. We have been a part of the United States but I don't know whether we are or not.
KENNEDY. Are you getting out of the Union?
BARNETT. lt looks like we're being kicked around - like we don't belong to it. General, this thing is serious.
KENNEDY. It's serious here.
BARNETT. Must it be over one little boy - backed by cominunist front - backed by the NAACP which is a communist front? ... I'm going to treat you with every courtesy but I won't agree to let that boy to get to Ole Miss. I will never agree to that. I would rather spend the rest of my life in a penitentiary than do that.
KENNEDY. I have a responsibility to enforce the laws of the United States .... The orders of the court are going to be upheld. As I told you, you are a citizen not only of the State of Mississippi but also of the United States. Could I give you a ring?
BARNETT. You do that. . . . Good to hear from you. [my emphpasis]

Silver's account is also a reminder that rightwing whining about the so-called liberal press has been around for a while:

In the more than a year since then [the riot], politicians, editors, judges, lawyers, educators, churchmen — all the makers of public opinion — have continued the hypocritical tirade of misrepresentation and deceit. It does impress people who are attuned to hearing nothing else and want to hear nothing else. In the 1963 campaign, every gubernatorial candidate started out with a deep hatred for the Kennedys, and the man who screamed the loudest is now Mississippi's governor. While warming up in Florida for the main event, Paul Johnson, then lieutenant governor, spoke on the subject, "The Cause of Freedom Won at Oxford and We Have Just Begun to Fight." President Kennedy, it would seem, had tried "to subvert the foundation pillars of this great government," backed by a "kept segment" of national press, television, and radio grinding out "its slanted story, half truths and prejudiced propaganda." [my emphasis]

And the unwillingness of those fabled moderate Republicans to stand up against Trump and his overt white supremacist Presidential campaign also has a familiar ring to those who have some knowledge about Mississippi-style segregation. Silver writes:

There are moderates in Mississippi who look upon the future with some degree of optimism because increasing numbers of colored citizens are becoming eligible to vote. Unquestionably the promise of tomorrow has some merit, but not because of the assistance of [white] men of good will. The voter registration drives are all conducted by local Negroes and "outside agitators" of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, NAACP, and other organizations. In the courts the chief defender of firstclass citizenship for colored Mississippians is the U.S. Department of Justice. The Mississippi Civil Rights Advisory Committee, which seeks to protect the rights of all Mississippians, has found it well nigh impossible to recruit members.

The most unreasonable and cruel tirade James Meredith had to endure came from a [Memphis] Commercial Appeal columnist. Having, at least privately, expressed some sympathy for a much-maligned individual, this man of good will pounced upon Meredith's first apparent false step (his criticism of the U.S. Army), denouncing him as an "ignoble failure" who had betrayed his race and damaged its reputation beyond calculation. The column was filled with innuendo, falsehood, and bad judgment. Its author, who laid claim to an "overload of grief, compassion and charity," demonstrated hp had none of these qualities when he refused to rectify in any way his character assassination of an innocent man. Once again, the pious, self-righteous man of irresponsibility had failed miserably, even in a mild crisis. [my emphasis]

To quote Arlo Guthrie, "Some things change, you know. Some things don't."

Confederate "Heritage" Month 2016, April 1: Mississippi and the Lost Cause

Ever since my first year of blogging (2003-4), I've been doing a counter-observance of Confederate "Heritage" Month every February. Selecting Andrew Jackson as the "mascot" image for this blog, because he sucessfully suppressed the effort by ur-secessionist John Calhoun in the Nullification Controversy.

This year, Mississippi's Republican Gov. Phil Bryant's official proclamation of Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi inspired Dave Neiwert to do his own version of Confederate "Heritage" Month counter-celebration at his excellent Orcinus blog. His first contribution, It's Confederate Heritage Month! Day 1 deals with lynching, a topic he has researched and written about for years. You should go read it now.

The William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation in Mississippi is also doing the same thing on their Facebook page. William Winter (born 1923) was the Democratic Governor of Mississippi 1980–1984. Mississippi's most distinguished and best Governor since Adelbert Ames (1835–1933), who was a Reconstruction Senator (1870-1874) and Governor (1874–1876) in Mississippi. And, FWIW, one of my main personal heroes.

Adelbert Ames (1835–1933)

I blogged about Ames in three of my 2007 Confederate "Heritage" Month posts: Differentiating the slaveowners and the slave states 04/18/2007 ("Ames was a democrat in the best Jacksonian sense and one of the most serious white leaders of that time about equal rights for black citizens"); The Mississippi Plan 04/22/2007 ("Ames tried to raise a biracial militia to defend the elected government against the [anti-Reconstruction] Redeemers"); and, John Brown's body stays restless 04/26/2007 (Ames "And he did find a 'righteous path'. The Redeemers prevented him from travelling down it.").

It's going to be awfully tempting to just piggyback on these two excellent sources this year!

Donna Ladd reported on the Governor's proclamation for the Jackson Free Press, Mississippi Governor Declares April 'Confederate Heritage Month,' No Slavery Mention 02/24/2016 (Dave also links this article). It currently begins with this update apparently from a couple of days later: "Bryant spokesman Clay Chandler tweeted an updated Proclamations page, which now includes Confederate Heritage Day, as well as Vernon Dahmer Day, Irish Heritage Month and Ronald Reagan Day — but no Black History Month."

Go figure.

Ladd reports:

On Bryant's gubernatorial letterhead, the proclamation starts out by explaining that April is the appropriate month to honor Confederate heritage because it "is the month in which the Confederate States began and ended a four-year struggle." It adds that the state celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on April 25 to "recognize those who served in the Confederacy."

It then explains that it is "important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation's past" and "to gain insight from our mistakes and successes," adding that we must "earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us."

Bryant refuses to take a position on changing the Mississippi flag, saying it should be up to the voters, who decided in 2001 to leave the old flag in place, in a vote that fell largely along racial lines.

Mississippi, along with Arkansas and Alabama, also celebrate Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's birthday on the same day as the federal Martin Luther King Jr. birthday in January.

The Winter Institute's April 1 post links to the Proceedings of the Mississippi Secession Convention of 1861 at the lUniversity of North Carolina's Documenting the American South resource. Page 47 of the linked document includes the full official secession declaration of the State of Mississippi. Which, of course, stress the centrality of slavery in their decision:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery, is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has long been aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the North-western territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.[The reference here is to the Missouri Compromise.]

The same hostility dismembered Texas, and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the territories, and whenever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted the press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom, the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits, and to destoy [sic] our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss or property worth four billions of money [i.e., property in human beings], or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

The resolution vastly overstated the antislavery zeal of the citizens of free states. But exaggerating the intensity of immediate threats was part of the social environment the slaveowners had created in the South.

It's also notable in the next-to-last paragraph, they project the intentions of enslaving them, white Southerners, onto white Northerners: "Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. .... We must either submit to degradation ..." This was also a longer-lasting feature in the vocabulary of white victimization.

Related articles:

The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States Civil War Trust

Dahleen Glanton, Southerners share confederate history Chicago Tribune 03/22/2009

Miss ... the Internet ... and you

At the risk of it sounding like a Ben Carson joke, I remember well growing up in Clarke County, Mississippi and getting interested in news when I was a teenager. The main news magazines at that time were Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report. There was no place in the county that sold Time or Newsweek. US News, I don't know, because my father had a subscription so I don't recall looking for it anywhere. I believe Time or Newsweek were available in the high school library.

I was reminded of that seeing this Wired article by Ralph Eubanks, The Land That the Internet Era Forgot 11/07/2015. The title is a takeoff from an Edgar Rice Burroughs story:

Eubanks tells at some length about the relative shortage of Internet access, which of course affects African-Americans more than whites. Mississippi is currently about 38% black, which as Eubanks notes,is "the largest percentage of African-Americans (...) of any [state] in the union" . He travels around the state with Roberto Gallardo of the Extension Service,a longtime program run by Mississippi State University. Gallardo does presentations in rural areas across the state explaining the benefits of Internet access. Eubanks:

Even when he’s talking to me, Gallardo delivers this message with the straitlaced intensity of a traveling preacher. “Broadband is as essential to this country’s infrastructure as electricity was 110 years ago or the Interstate Highway System 50 years ago,” he says from his side of our booth at the deli, his voice rising high enough above the lunch-hour din that a man at a nearby table starts paying attention. “If you don’t have access to the technology, or if you don’t know how to use it, it’s similar to not being able to read and write.”

These issues of digital literacy, access, and isolation are especially pronounced here in the Magnolia State. Mississippi today ranks around the bottom of nearly every national tally of health and economic well-being. It has the lowest median household income and the highest rate of child mortality. It also ranks last in high-speed household Internet access. In human terms, that means more than a million Mississippians—over a third of the state’s population—lack access to fast wired broadband at home.

Eubanks reports on stopping off in Quitman, the county seat of Clarke County. He describes it as something of a success story on broadband access:

Two days after our initial meeting, Gallardo and I pull up to the city hall in Quitman, population 2,300, a former logging and textile town about 200 miles southeast of the Delta. On its face, the town shows some of the telltale marks of rural decline: An abandoned plant sits right in the middle of everything, and the town has lost an estimated 15 percent of its population—which now stands at around 60 percent white, 40 percent black—over the past decade. The official poverty rate stands at about 24 percent. But still, cars are humming down the streets, and people dot the sidewalks. It’s not bustling, exactly, but it’s alive. And kicking.

In 2013 a regional telecommunications company called C Spire announced that it would bring fiber-optic broadband infrastructure to any Mississippi town or neighborhood that could rally between 35 and 45 percent of its residents to commit to signing up for service. The pitch—which mimics Google Fiber’s business model for getting broadband infrastructure to large numbers of homes quickly—set off a flurry of neighborhood organizing campaigns across the state. (In Eudora Welty’s old neighborhood in Jackson not long ago, I saw yard signs dotting the streets that read “I signed up for C Spire broadband. Will you?”) When C Spire announced the first nine towns that had reached critical mass in November 2013, right there on the list was tiny, out-of-the-way Quitman.

The town’s size turned out to be an asset. The pastor of the local First Baptist Church, Gene Neal, made it a personal cause to get his congregation signed up. Toby Bartee, the local judge and a pillar of the town’s black Baptist church, rallied his congregation as well. Between them, that accounted for a significant chunk of Quitman. For anyone who could not afford C Spire’s $10 sign-up charge, the town enlisted local banks and businesses to pay the fee. When it was announced that Quitman would be getting fiber broadband, Gallardo began showing up frequently too, teaching Internet basics at the library, consulting with town leaders, and generally making sure Quitman could make the most of its state-of-the-art Internet connection.

When Gallardo and I arrive at city hall, Eddie Fulton, the avuncular, white-haired mayor of Quitman, meets us outside and promptly cracks a well-worn joke about Gallardo’s green card. Gallardo plays along gamely, then Fulton grabs me by the arm to tell me about signs of hope he already sees in his newly wired town: There’s the local women’s clothing boutique called Simply Irresistible that has an Instagram following more than triple the size of Quitman’s population; 90 percent of its sales come from out of town. There’s a 3-D printer at the public library, hooked up to the town’s broadband connection.

Last time I was there, as I recall, the Quitman Safeway had a magazine rack. I forget whether I checked to see if they had a print edition of Time or Newsweek. But now people there have an option to access them online at home.

The title of this post, BTW, comes from this:

Sometimes the judicial system works against white racist violence

As this federal court case fro Mississippi illustrates, sometimes the judicial system works against white racist violence: Therese Apel, Women get maximum sentences in hate crime death Clariom-Ledger 04/10/2015.

But that doesn't mean that the system always works, much less that it's free from white racist bias. That's a conclusion that defenders of racial discrimination in the justice system love to use cases like this to make.

And it certainly doesn't mean that there was nothing racial about the crime. In fact, these two defendants pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime in this case.

The partner of the man murdered in this case addressed the defendants at sentencing:

[James Craig] Anderson's partner, James Bradfield was emotional as he reiterated to the court how much different life is without Anderson.

"The days are never the same. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries... On a sunny day, all I can see is Craig out there working in the yard, trying to do everything he could for his family, and you took his life for no reason," he said. "And you didn't want to turn yourself in. You thought you'd get away with it."

He also let Richardson and Graves know he holds them just as responsible as Dedmon.

"You texted everyone that night, but you couldn't call 911? You are as much to blame as if you'd been behind the wheel," he said. "You're babies yourselves, but I don't feel sorry for you. You knew what you were doing."

Both women have admitted to riding in the truck with Dedmon when Anderson was killed. They also admitted to enlisting others to go with them to Jackson, which they called "Jafrica," to assault African Americans.

Upteenth example of how white racism fries white people's brains

TPM's Daniel Strauss reports on a perfect example of the kind of convoluted talk that comes out of segregationists mouths and computers in Hometown Editorial: McDaniel Isn't A Racist Because He Played Basketball 07/08/2014.

It's about a pro-Chris McDaniel, anti-black editorial of July 2 in the Mississippi Laurel Call-Leader-Call. It concludes with, "The more free our society is, the more enslaved it becomes."

It begins with the sneering, "It’s the modern-day scarlet letter ... though it’s probably wrong to make a reference to color to characterize it."

But for segregationists, being accused of racism isn't a "scarlet letter." It's a matter of pride. It lets them whine about being persecuted white people. Or is it persecuted Christians? SegregationThink is confusing in some of its rhetorical twists. But the basic idea is easy: us white folks sure are better'n them blacks.

The Laurel Call-Leader-Call editorial written by the paper's editor Mark Thornton is printed and digital evidence of the kind of mind-rot white racism produces in the Caucasian brain.

Update: I should note that I assumed from the language that the editorial's author is white. I grew up about 40 miles from Laurel and the writer is talking like Mississippi Piney Woods white segregationists talk. An African-American writer performing a white supremacist idea of what a Good Negro should be would typically address himself to "fellow blacks" or something similar. In any case, the editorial was straight-up segregationism aimed at a segregationist audience and promoting white racism and segregation. And, yes, those who share the editorial's outlook are proud of being called white racists despite the phony whining.

Tags: mississippi, white racism

A way I'll never be able to write

I've been reading Molly Walling's Death in the Delta: Uncovering a Mississippi Family Secret (2012). I was struck by this particular paragraph. Because it's a type of narrative that I see often. But I don't think I could ever put together this kind of landscape description:

Our first destination was Greenville, Mississippi. I wanted to see the newspaper article from the Delta Democrat Times and look for other clues. After we skirted Memphis, Highway 61 unsnaked itself into long, flat miles through millions of rows of fresh yellow-green cotton plants, corn, and soybeans emerging from their spring planting. The sky held up an occasional stratus cloud against a cobalt background. In atypical seventy-degree weather, it was a pleasant drive, and we marveled at the levees that rose beside the Mississippi River. Gaudy casinos became more frequent along the way. The occasional crop duster took off from a dirt and gravel airstrip and buzz-bombed a chemical potion onto the farms below. When we arrived in Greenville, it was as if we were wading into the great swamp of deep southern culture tainted by the blight of urban decay.

Okay, I more-or-less know what a stratus cloud looks like. And I have an idea of what a "cobalt background" would be, though I'm not quite sure. Mississippi has some spectacular sunsets, but I'm not sure she's talking about sunsets.

I'm not criticizing her style here. It just struck me that I wouldn't be able to come up with this kind of landscape description on my own. If I were writing that, it would come out something like this:

We were headed for Greenville, Mississippi. I had research to do in the Delta Democrat-Times hardcopy archives and hoped to find some other relevant material. We took Highway 61 that Kate Campbell talks about in her song "Visions of Plenty." It's a long and pretty boring drive through flat fields of cotton and soybeans and who knows what else. The enormous, flat fields stretching out on both sides of the road always give me moments of vertigo for some reason. I've never experienced that driving anywhere else, even on the occasional bridge over some impossibly deep chasm. One thing that Mississippi has over the San Francisco Bay Area is that Mississippi far more often has spectacular sunsets, and the sky was pretty breathtaking that day driving through the Delta. Except when I was distracted by those flashes of vertigo. The levees are pretty impressive to see from the perspective of the highway. I didn't grow up in the Delta, so the levee doesn't carry the kind of mythical associations it seems to for some people who grew up near them. Understandably so, since the 1927 Mississippi River flood when the Delta broke did take on Biblical proportions. There were a lot of casinos along the way, which weren't around when I was a kid. (That's actually what "Visions of Plenty" is about.) They make a lot of money for somebody. But they're kind of a tacky addition to the physical landscape. We saw crop dusters on the way. Maybe it's chemicals from the crop dusters that give me those vertigo moments here. I have a positive image of Greenville in my head as a pleasant little city. But I was reminded as we drove into town that lots of it is run-down and kind of ugly.

Walling's version is more concise and descriptive. Writing about the South is traditionally expected to convey a strong sense of Place and so often features similar descriptions.

Mine is longer, wordier and more "existential"; it conveys more a sense of what I image I would be thinking and talking to a fellow passenger about during a similar drive.

Also, even though I make up neologisms on a fairly regular basis, "unsnaked" would never have occurred to me.

And speaking of Kate Campbell and "Visions of Plenty" that she co-wrote with Tricia Walker, here's their lyrical description the casino culture in North Mississippi:

Sometimes when that Delta sun comes beatin' down
I swear those rows of cotton shine like gold

In fact, shoot, here's the whole song:

Tags: death in the delta, kate campbell, mississippi

The revolving door, Mississippi version

Good ole Haley Barbour has finished up his second and final term as Governor of Mississippi. He gained some national attention with his defenses of the Confederate flag and the White Citizens Council. Now, the present-day Cincinnatus is going back to his plow. In ole Haley's case, his farm is the field of influence-peddling politely know as lobbying. Kate Ackley reports for Roll Call, Haley Barbour’s Back at His Old Firm 01/10/2012:

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), who left office today, wasted no time in lining up his next career move. As expected, the former uber-lobbyist and founder of BGR Group will return to his old firm, the lobby shop announced today.

In a short statement, the firm said it "is pleased to announce Governor Haley Barbour will return to the firm as Founding Partner." Haley did a stint prior to his governorship as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Barbour, a longtime Washington insider known for his Mississippi drawl, remained a presence inside the Beltway even while serving as governor. In 2009, he was elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association, a position that regularly brought him to D.C. And when he considered a presidential run, he had a long list of former colleagues and clients who were ready to line up in support. [my emphasis]

But Ole Haley left something for his former Mississippi constituents to remember him by. He pardoned four murders on his way out the door of the Governor's office, two of them who had murdered their wives. (Ronni Mott, Barbour to DV Victims: ‘You Can’t Trust Us’ Jackson Free Press 01/10/2012)

Jessica Bateman reports in Karen Irby, 207 others granted reprieves by Haley Barbour Jackson Clarion-Ledger 01/10/2012:

In total, Barbour has granted clemency to 41 offenders in prison for killing and many others who committed violent or sex-related crimes.

... 39 prisoners who were granted clemency committed a slew of other violent crimes, including rape, aggravated assault, assault to a law enforcement officer and armed robbery. Thirty-two of those people received full, complete and unconditional pardons from the governor.

At least seven of the convicts who were pardoned committed sex-related crimes, including rape, forcible sexual battery, gratification of lust and attempted enticement of a child for sexual purposes or prostitution. After receiving pardons, they are no longer required to register as sex offenders.

Bateman provides a comparison with the three previous Governors' pardons:

Compared to past Mississippi governors, former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove granted an unconditional pardon to only one person. He granted 25 suspended sentences or restorations of civil rights, which reinstates the right to vote to felony offenders.

Former Gov. Kirk Fordice pardoned 13, and granted suspended sentences or restorations of civil rights to 26 more. Former Gov. Ray Mabus pardoned five, and granted 68 suspended sentences or restorations of civil rights, although he later revoked those rights from 11.

And former Gov. Bill Allain granted no pardons at all, but granted restorations of civil rights to 28.

Ackley' report quotes Sandy Middleton, executive director of the Center for Violence Prevention, on the message Barbour's pardons of the wife-murderers sends:

"The criminal-justice system works here," Middleton said. "Law enforcement did their jobs."

But Barbour's pardons "flies in the face" of the people who work hard to get these offenders away from their victims, she added, in addition to the victims themselves.

"It just puts us back to square one," when it comes to the people at the receiving end of the violence, Middleton said. The message Barbour sends to them is that "You can't trust us, because we're really not going to protect you."

But Republicans are the Family Values party, remember that.

Tags: haley barbour, mississippi, mississippi politics

Two Mississippi disasters: the BP oil geyser and Haley Barbour

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a hack pretending to be a hick

Melissa Block interviewed Mississippi's Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, potential Republican Presidential canidate in 2012, on the BP disaster. Mississippi Governor 'Shocked' By Coast Guard's Gulf Spill Coordination NPR 06/29/2010.

Ole Haley appearing on FOX News Sunday on 06/10/2010 riduled the notion that Mississippi had any worries from the BP's oil geyser. The link is to the video of the interview. The transcript is here and Sam Stein reported on it in Haley Barbour: Oil? What Oil? Press Should Stop Scaring Tourists Huffington Post 06/10/2010. But to get the full effect you need to hear him saying it in his heavy accent. Barbour is a Washington power lawyer. But as a Mississippi politician, he affects a major cornpone accent and attitude, including often pronouncing the name of his state as "Missippi".

Here's what ole Haley was saying from the transcript, except that I've corrected the spelling and added emphasis marks to partially reflect his actual pronunciation:

Well, the truth is, Chris, we have had virtually no oil. If you were on the Missippi gulf coast any time in the last 48 days you didn't see any oil at all. We've had a few tar balls, but we've had - we have tar balls every year as a natural product of the Gulf of Mexico. Two hundred and fifty thousand to 750,000 barrels of oil seep into the Gulf of Mexico through the floor ev'ry year, so tar balls are no big deal.

In fact, I read that Pensacola or the Florida beaches, when they had tar balls yesterday, they didn't even close. They just sent people out to pick them up and throw them in the bag.

The biggest — the biggest negative impact for us has been the news coverage. There has been no distinction between Grand Isle and Venice and the places in Louisiana that we feel so terrible for that have had oil washing up on them. But the average viewer to this show thinks that the whole coast from Florida to Texas is ankle-deep in oil.

And of course, it's very, very bad for our tourist season. That's the real economic damage. Our first closure of fisheries in Mississippi waters came just earlier this week after about 45 days.

So it may be hard for the viewer to understand, but the worst thing for us has been how our tourist season has been hurt by the mis-perception of what's going on down here. The Missippi gulf coast is beautiful. As I tell people, the coast is clear, come on down.

Even last Friday, as large amounts of oil were just offshore and moving quickly toward the Mississippi Gulf Coast, ole Haley was sayin', "This shouldn't be a cause for alarm." (Karen Nelson, CLOSING IN: Oil now 3 miles from barrier islands Biloxi Sun-Herald 06/25/2010).

Three weeks after that ludicrous appearance on FOX News, ole Haley was sounding a bit different (Anita Lee and Margaret Baker, Mississippi officials slam Coast Guard as BP oil hits shores McClatchey Newspapers 06/27/2010):

Mississippi had largely escaped the onslaught of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick, even as shoreline in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida was washed by both thick gooey crude or thousands of tar balls.

But on Sunday, that respite ended.

"The amount of oil moving into Mississippi waters has greatly increased in the last several days, and the prevailing winds that cause the oil and its residue to move in our direction are predicted to continue, at least until the middle of the week,” Gov. Haley Barbour said in a statement. “We continue to press the federal Unified Command and BP to increase the amount of resources available to attack the oil beginning as far south as possible, through the passes, into the sound, and in the mouths of the bays"

Barbour, who once confidently predicted that the oil would skirt Mississippi, rushed back to the state on Friday from a fundraising tour he was making on behalf of Republican candidates. Sunday said the state was prepared to move alone if the federal government couldn't provide more resources.

The Biloxi Sun-Herald, which endorsed ole for election and re-election as Governor, raked him over the coals for his strange behavior in face of the oil disaster in this editorial last Saturday: A Crude Awakening: It’s time to stop daydreaming and face up to this nightmare 06/26/2010. They even addressed the distraction aspect of the pious gesture of official prayer days over the oil catastrophe:

We would give anything if a prayer or an advertisement could make this all go away.

But neither media bashing nor media buys will stop the oil or preserve our way of life.

That requires the unrelenting attention of everyone connected to mitigating this catastrophe, including all the governors of the Gulf region.

They were very explicit in condemning ole Haley's callous, irresponsible attitude toward the disaster:

What happened offshore at the 30-mile and 10-mile lines of defense? What happened to the assurances that oil would be spotted and stopped long before it threatened either the Sound or the sand? [See the FOX News interview linked above for a version of Haley's hot air over this.]

And why, with more than two months to gear-up for this possibility, were officials still scrambling for gear at the last minute?

Why did it take such a crude awakening to shatter the daydreams of Gov. Haley Barbour and others entrusted with the safety of South Mississippi?

Perhaps if he had gone to that “photo-op” with the president and other Gulf governors in Louisiana weeks ago Barbour would have developed a greater sense of the peril and addressed it with more urgency and vigor.

With the smallest coastline on the Gulf, Mississippi’s ecology should have been the most defensible.

Yet an underestimation of the potential threat, particularly by Barbour, has left us more vulnerable.

Given the volume of oil, even the most aggressive preparations and advocacy by Barbour and other state officials likely couldn't have prevented devastating consequences. But aggressive preparations and advocacy were not what ole Haley and his state administration provided during the first two months of the BP oil geyser:

Barbour’s focus has been more limited: he has spent much of his time being an advocate for the state’s tourism industry — and for the oil industry which threatens it. And, of course, he has been playing a very active role in Republican politics.

This is not to begrudge the governor his standing in the GOP. His political connections and how they might help Mississippi was one of the factors in his favor that twice won him this newspaper’s endorsement. However, his travels to distant places and engagement in political fundraising during these days of crisis on the Coast are questionable, even troubling. Barbour’s priority ought to be with his constituents in Mississippi.

No small part of Barbour’s responsibility is securing and sharing accurate and trustworthy information about all aspects of the oil spill and its threat to Mississippi. From BP’s inexcusable inaccuracy about the size of the spill to the hidden-from-view cleanup efforts for the last two weeks on Petit Bois Island, facts have been too hard to come by.

For those who have paid attention to Mississippi’s official response to the oil spill, it is clear that the governor set the tone that has permeated every pronouncement by those in authority, particularly Dr. Bill Walker, director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. Both Barbour and Walker have taken the media to task for doing its job, probably not the most effective use of their time and talents.

The frantic scramble for resources to defend the Coast this weekend is evidence of the too-little-too-late approach to this crisis.

Which brings me to his interview with Melissa Block on NPR. Ole Haley is now blaming the fedrul gubment (of course!), "Unified Command, BP, whomever," for not anticipating the magnitude of the problem. But ole Haley is still sticking to his talking points from the FOX News interview!

BLOCK: Governor Barbour, I'd like to talk to you a bit about your own response to the oil spill because you have been criticized for seeming to minimize how bad the problem is. You've accused the media of exaggerating how much oil is on the beaches and you've been urging tourists to come down. You said the coast is clear. The coast is no longer clear, I guess.

Gov. BARBOUR: Well, the people on the beach today in Mississippi and almost all the tourist areas, there hadn't been one drop of oil. We've had a small amount of oil. What we've tried to do is tell the public the truth. And the truth is that the national news media, particularly television, has given people the impression that the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast was ankle deep in oil.

The news media coverage did not differentiate from what was happening in Louisiana and what was not happening in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. Even the president of the United States came down here and said exactly what I said. You know, the coast is beautiful, the beaches are pristine, the water is clear as a bell. And people shouldn't be canceling their vacations.

Yet because of the news coverage, millions, billions, perhaps, of dollars were lost by people in the tourism industry in my state, Alabama and Florida. That's not to minimize the size of this catastrophe, but it is to simply tell the truth.

BLOCK: Governor Barbour, I wonder if that's a fine line to walk. On the one hand you're worried about not having enough skimmers. You're worried about what might hit the beaches. At the same time, you're saying, come on down, the water's fine.

Gov. BARBOUR: Well, ma'am, it's not a fine line to walk. All you got to do is tell the truth. Just lay the facts out for people and people can make their own decision.

The facts on the day ole Haley was doing that interview were reported by Donna Melton of the Biloxi Sun-Herald in Oil hitting beaches by the ton 06/29/2010:

Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team workers scoured the beaches in Harrison County [Mississippi], scooping more than a ton of contaminated sand mixed with tar patties, mats and balls into clear-plastic garbage bags.

Tar balls are weathered oil; patties are just like balls, but newer and with a more liquid consistency. Tar mats can be a combination of the two mixed with debris such as sediment or plant matter.

The state departments of Marine Resources, Environmental Quality and Health extended the beach advisory in Harrison County from the Gulfport Small Craft Harbor east to Azalea Avenue in Biloxi.

According to a jointly issued news release, the beach in this area had significant amounts of tar mats and tar patties. The heaviest concentrations were between White Avenue in Biloxi and Cowan Road in Gulfport.

Accompanying the article was this photo of the beach at Gulfport, on the day ole Haley was telling NPR, "You know, the coast is beautiful, the beaches are pristine, the water is clear as a bell."

The truth-telling Governor then went on to talk about how the BP oil catastrophe proves ... that the free market works, by Galt:

Well, look, in every part of the government there is a role for good regulation that is properly done. But the idea that more regulation is necessarily better, I think a very suspect idea. In the case of this well, I believe it will be shown that if the regular protocols had been followed, that this well wouldn't have blown out. We'll see what the facts are.

But I am comfortable that's what the facts are going to be. And that if there had been somebody from MMS on the well to make sure they had done it, well, maybe that wouldve made a difference. But I think right now every oil company in the world says, I don't want to pay $100 million a day to cut corners on drilling a well. And that's where I believe the market system works. Nobody's got more to lose in this deal than BP.

Mississippi, still the poorest state in the Union, needs the very best advocacy and representation from its public officials. Haley Barbour certainly hasn't provided it. But Haley's a good ole boy. And he shore has a downhome accent, don't he?

Tags: haley barbour, mississippi, mississippi politics

Clinton in Mississippi

The Mississippi caucuses this coming Tuesday are the current battleground for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Leah Rupp reports in Clinton: 'I'm here for you' Clarion-Ledger Online 03/06/08:

On Thursday evening, Clinton spoke to attendees at the state Jefferson-Jackson-Hamer dinner. That's a good updating of the Democratic Party tradition: Jefferson the anti-slavery slaveowner and democratic leader, Jackson the slaveowner who was an enemy of the secessionists and the chamption of white workers' interests, and Fannie Lou Hamer who was a civil rights leader in the state. Good combination.

Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told Democratic Party faithful at tonight's Jefferson Jackson Hamer Day dinner that improving health care and pulling American troops out of Iraq remain high on her list of priorities if she's elected.

Clinton has taken some flak for a comment that gave Clinton opponents a chance to say she was dissing Mississppi. Campaigning in Iowa last year, she was heard to say (Oh, That's Change Alright National Journal blog 03/05/08):

I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here...when you look at the numbers, how can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That's not what I see. That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism. That's not the openness I see in Iowa.

No, Mississippi's probably not that big on "the communitarianism", whatever exactly she meant by that.

As Rupp reports, Obama supporters found it a useful statement to bash:

Obama supporters went on the attack during a news conference Wednesday at his campaign headquarters in downtown Jackson. Former Gov. Ray Mabus and Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree criticized Sen. Clinton's remarks to an Iowa newspaper last fall that noted a lack of women elected to higher office.

While campaigning in Iowa, Sen. Clinton told the Des Moines Register she was surprised Iowa and Mississippi had never elected a woman as governor or as a member of Congress. ...

The comments drew an immediate rebuke from Mississippi Republicans, but some voters said Sen. Clinton was only telling the truth.

Mabus said Mississippi voters should elect more women but added Sen. Clinton was trying to "curry favor with Iowa ... it's also pretty clear she didn't ever expect to have to be in Mississippi."

Sen. Clinton, who opened an office this week at 500 Capitol St. in Jackson, apologized after her comments drew media attention. She called Republican then-Sen. Trent Lott and apologized. His spokesman at the time, Lee Youngblood, said Lott accepted her apology.

I should mention here that my hometown of Shubuta, Mississippi, was the first municipality in the state to elect a female mayor, a wonderful woman named Florence Busby. (I believe it was in 1967.) At 92, she's still a hardcore Democrat. I remember back during the 1996 Presidential election, I said something mildly nice to her about the Republican candidate Bob Dole and she chewed me out, which I surely deserved.

State Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Dowdy, a former Congressman, is mentioned in the article. The last time Trent Lott ran for re-election to the Senate in 2006, Dowdy was quoted in the press as saying that if Lott decided to run for re-election, he would favor the Democrats not even putting up a candidate against him! For the good of the state, of course. This is from the Democratic state party chairman!

They need to get a real "fighting Dem" as the head of their state party. The Dems have a shot at Lott's Senate seat in the special election this year after Lott resigned to become a lobbyist. But if they had mounted a strong campaign against Lott in 2006, they probably would have lost, but they would have better positioned the Democrats in this unexpected opportunity. What a boneheaded notion! Instead, they had a nominal Democratic candidate that I understand was pretty much invisible to most voters.

Tags: florence busby, hillary clinton, mississippi, mississippi politics, wayne dowdy

More on "third parties"

Annie Devine, Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rev. Ed King, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates at the 1964 Democratic National Convention

Dave raised an interesting question in the discussion on third parties: what if any legitimate role is there for third parties in the American system, short of a political crisis causing a large national split in either the Democratic or Republican Parties?

I'm not sure what the answer is to that question. But it made me think about signficant roles that third parties have played in recent decades.

A party doesn't have to start out as a national organization. Those that do are typically centered around a particular leader, such as Teddy Roosevelt (Bull Moose Party), George Wallace (American Independent) or Ross Perot (Reform). When the leading figure leaves the party or loses interest, those parties normally fade into insignificance rather quickly.

One of the third parties that had significant influence was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), formed in 1964. This was a vehicle by which state civil rights activists challenged the reactionary white power structure that dominated Mississippi's Democratic Party. They famously challenged the seating of the all-white slate of delegates from the regular state Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic convention.

The initial challenge was unsuccessful. But the origin of what was widely called the "New Left" in the 1960s is conventionally dated from the formation of the MFDP. In Mississippi, the MFDP provided a way for mainstream and liberal activists - you wouldn't believe the range of things that counted as "liberal" in Mississippi in those days! - to organize and run candidates for office. They were particularly successful in electing African-Americans to local offices. In fact, last I heard, Mississippi to this day has numerically and proportionally more black elected officials than any other state. One of many paradoxes you find there.

In 1968 and 1972, the MFDP was seated at the National Democratic Convention as Mississippi's official delegation. Eventually, the state's "Regular" Democratic Party capitulated and merged itself into the MFDP essentially by recognizing that the MFDP was the official state Democratic Party. There was still some theatrical drama in the situation in 1975 when then-(Regular) Democratic Governor Cliff Finch appeared before the state MFDP convention, an unprecedented level of recognition by the Regulars.

The MFDP has long since disappeared as an independent party organization. Because its functional reason for existence was make the state Democratic Party play by the rules of the national party. Once it had achieved that, it had effectively merged with the state Democratic Party.

In a larger sense, the MFDP's creation and continued political battles provided a wider reformist inspiration for liberal and radical activists and dramatized how the national Democratic Party could be a serious impediment to some kinds of reform goals. And the Democratic President make the Vietnam War a huge issue by his foolish escalation of the conflict in 1965, which also eventually pitted many liberal activists against a Democratic President who was as liberal as Franklin Roosevelt on social programs and even more so on civil rights.

The MFDP grew up in the particular political situation of Mississippi in 1964. It's no exaggeration to say that Mississippi functioned as a police state at that time, certainly in relation to black political activists, would-be black voters and whatever whites from there or elsewhere supported them. Complete with extra-legal goon squads tolerated by and even conspiring with state and local officials. There was even a public agency called the State Sovereignty Commission whose basic function was to dig up dirt to discredit civil rights activists.

The Regular Democratic Party was effectively the one party in a one-party system within the state. There was a nominal Republican Party run by hidebound reactionaries. And a few whites who for one reason or the other didn't support the segregation system and all that came with it would register Republican. But the only elections that really mattered were the Democratic Party primaries. The general elections were essentially a formality that ratified the Democratic Party candidate.

In that system, the MFDP was acting as the only liberal opposition party (the Republicans had become a force in the state by the early 1970s) and became a real competition to the Regular Democratic Party. The MFDP also benefitted from the fact that it was eventually supported by the national Party and therefore were able to gain legitimacy from one of the two major national parties. And it had a concrete goal that was urgent enough to a significant portion of the voters that they looked to the MFDP as a viable and necessary political organization that actually had some possibility to get their candidates elected, at least at the local level. Very much related to the latter, the MFDP's base consisted largely of African-American voters who had been only recently enfranchised by the overcoming of the state's voter-suppression methods and who therefore had not built strong historic ties of loyalty (emotional or patronage-based) to the Regular Democratic Party.

I can think of other examples of third-parties or similar groups that played a significant role in politics over a long period of time. New York state has both Liberal and Conservative Parties alongside the two major parties; my impression is that the Conservatives have been more influential. They generally endorse the candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties, respectively. But we could say that they helped create a political space for more explicitly ideological themes to be discussed and popularized.

The Libertarian Party has been around for decades now. I know in some conservative districts in California in three-way contests, they've pulled enough Republican votes to make it a competitive race between the two major party candidates. But their influence nationally has come more from the closely-related Cato Institute, which has played a notable role in propagandizing and lobbying for business deregulation.

This generalization doesn't fit neatly with the MFDP. But I would say that third parties can play significant roles as parts of "alternative infrastructures", something the right has been much more successful in building the last 40 years than the left has. But to have more influence than the numerous tiny parties on the left and the right that normally scarcely even make a "blip" On the larger political scene, such groups have to be realistic about which of the two parties actually holding office are more likely to support their positions. And to which public constituencies they want to appeal over time.

Tags: mississippi, mississippi politics, third parties

Porkbarrel (Katrina) politics in Mississippi

Chris Kromm and Sue Sturgis take A harder look at Haley Barbour's post-Katrina miracle in Salon 05/25/07. Rightwing Republican Governor Haley Barbour has raked in the cash for Katrina relief. But it's taking quite a while for that famous Republican "trickle-down" to get there for ordinary citizens.

They quote Roderick "Rocky" Pullman, president of the Board of Supervisors in hard-hit Hancock County on the Mississippi Gulf Coast:

The recovery is proceeding so slowly that, almost two years after the storm, most of his neighbors still can't get mail. Before Katrina, the majority of Pearlington residents used post-office boxes; but since no post offices -- or any other major city, county or school buildings in Hancock County -- have been rebuilt, they have to drive an hour round-trip to Bay St. Louis to pick up a letter.

"We've been asking for three post offices to be erected in Hancock County for well over a year now and have got no response whatsoever," Pullman says. "Those are the kind of things that really bother you. It's hard to get people to feel good when they have to spend the amount of money they do with the price of gasoline just to get their mail."

Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee with close ties to the Bush administration, has definitely proved more successful than his maligned Louisiana counterpart, Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, in one respect: lobbying Washington for cash. In fact, Barbour's ability to steer a lopsided share of Katrina money to Mississippi has touched off a firestorm of outrage in Louisiana, which suffered considerably more destruction from the storm.

In the everything-is-partisan-politics administration of Dick Cheney and George Bush, Mississippi's two Republican Senators (Trent Lott and Thad Cochran) have no trouble getting federal money appropriated. But getting results for ordinary voters is another thing.

Interestingly enough, Mississippians have consciously hoped for pork-barrel appropriations for the state, leading them to return creeps like Thad Cochran (among other things, one of the most hardline torture supporters in the Senate) and Trent Lott to office time after time, seniority normally leading to increased clout.

For the residents of Hancock County, Barbour and Mississippi's ability to capture the lion's share of Katrina relief dollars makes the slow progress in their area all the more demoralizing. The county's 911 system still operates out of a trailer. Damaged wastewater and drainage systems frustrate hopes of a return to normalcy; earlier this month in Waveland, 16 miles east of Pearlington, a 9-and-a-half-foot alligator was found swimming in a drainage ditch next to a bus stop at 8 o'clock in the morning. Mayor Tommy Longo says the creatures freely roam throughout devastated residential areas.

Indeed, Hancock County was one of three Gulf Coast areas recently singled out as having "severe problems" by the Rockefeller Institute on Government and the Louisiana Public Affairs Council, with the towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis flat-out "struggling to survive."

Most important, Hancock leaders say, Mississippi leaders and their federal allies have failed to use their clout to tackle some of the most obvious barriers to rebuilding.

I wouldn't pretend that enough white voters are likely to shift their support to the Democrats in Mississippi or other Deep South states that they are likely to make a major dent in the Republicans' current Solid South block.

Two of Mississippi's four Congressional Representatives are Democrats, though one of them often votes with the Republicans. And the Republicans sure aren't develivering very well for working people in the South, especially not in the hurricane-damaged areas of Mississippi.

But the Republicans are the White People's Party, i.e., they oppose laws and programs that might particilarly benefit blacks. And as long as that remains a major criterion for significant numbers of white voters in those states, the Republicans can continue to hold the most important statewide offices.

But Kromm and Sturgis give us a good snapshot of what Republican rule in the Deep South looks like in practice. And what it will continue to look like as long as the Republicans remain in their current authoritarian, neosegregationist mode.

Tags: katrina, mississippi

Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 28: Confederate "heritage" in Mississippi, 2001

Antislavery fighters in Kansas, 1856

It's been almost six years since Mississippi had a statewide referendum on an issue that was essentially all about neo-Confederate hype and the Lost Cause viewpoint of history and politics. It was a vote on replacing the official state flag, which consisted of three stripes with a replica of the Confederate battle flag in the upper left corner. The proposed new flag would be very similar except it would replace the Confederate battle flag with a cluster of stars.

A native Mississippian like me could hardly fail to appreciate - or maybe "recognize" would be a better word - that there was something distinctively Mississippi about that vote. It came about through some quirk in the law that led the state Supreme Court to hold that the old flag wasn't technically the official state flag.

So there was a statewide vote held in April 2001, in which the flag was the only issue on the ballot. It's rare, maybe even unique, for a state to vote on an issue that is essentially purely symbolic. The very fact that the vote at all was being held was bad public relations for the state. The fact that the Confederate state flag won was bad PR, too. In that sense, it was a no-win decision.

Small states in the US, like small countries in the world, tend to make the news only when there's a natural disaster (we read plenty about Mississippi after the Katrina disaster, though not as much as about New Orleans) or something politically obnoxious happens. On the other hand, once the occurence is over, the national press tends to quickly forget about it.

So it's unlikely that Mississippi suffered any measurable damage from it. There weren't even any formal boycotts over it, because those are basically only meaningful for tourist events like large conventions and trade shows, and Mississippi doesn't have the kinds of facilities to attract those kind of larger events. Their main tourist draw is casino gambling, and that business isn't that subject to boycotts because it tends to be individuals or small groups coming for that. There's also some Civil War tourism, but that's also not that subject to boycotts. Are people not going to go the federally-run national park at Vicksburg because the state flag inlcudes Confederate symbolism? Not likely.

The Confederate battle flag became a symbol of white resistance to integration in the 1950s. It wasn't strongly associated with Lost Cause memorials or white-supremacist politics prior to that. But now it's about the only Confederate flag popularly known. It's sometimes erroneously called the "Stars and Bars". But the "Stars and Bars" flag was the official flag of the Confederacy; the one that's most known now is the battle flag. Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion sing a song of his called "Gervais" about South Carolina's well-known Confederate flag:

An eye for an eye and we'll go blind
That's what the man said and it stuck in my mind
We've hearing the ringing off these walls today

Still flying the flag upon Gervais
Was a battle flag, now we can put it away

Given its racially-charged symbolism, it's not surprising that the vote tended to split heavily along racial lines, though African-American voter turnout there is generally lower than among whites. Of the 16 counties with a black population of 60% or more, only three (Quitman, Sharkey and Issaquena) squeaked out a majority to retain the Confederate state flag. Of the 57 counties of 50% or more white, a grand total of two (Madison and Oktibbeha) voted for the replacement flag. And in the eight counties with 50-60% black population, five voted for the Confederate state flag. It's hard to read those results as other than heavy black opposition for the Confederate-themed flag and heavy white support, with a lower proportional black turnout accounting for the pro-Confederate-symbol vote in the five of eight counties with 50-60% black population. (The Jackson Clarion-Ledger published these results from the Associated Press online - "Totals by majority race" www.clarionledger.com/news/flagvote - but the link has expired.

Of the counties where I lived in Mississippi, Clarke County voted 65% for the Confederate-themed flag, Forrest County voted 63% for it, and Hinds County (where the capital Jackson is) voted 65% against.

The campaign for the Confederate state flag was most actively supported by the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), which was then in the process of largely being taken of by hardline white-supremacists (not that they were exactly a human-rights group before!), and the crackpot League of the South, which actually advocates secession now, which is actually a minority position among today's neo-Confederates. The Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor group to the White Citizens Council, also pushed the Confederate-themed flag.

Sadly, the pro-new-flag side struck a high-minded, Chamber of Commerce tone. And lost. When the Confederate side was using a simple slogan with emotional resonance like, "It's mah heritage!" and the American side is saying things along the line of, "It would be much preferable for the state to project and more respectable image by selecting a more appropriate state flag", good grief!

They would have been better off to run an in-your-face campaign. They could have runs adds in heavily black areas showing the Confederate flag and photos of lynch-murders to encourage black turnout. They could have done pitches to white voters along the lines of, "Are you patriotic Americans or Confederate-loving fools who hate America?" Or use ads showing some of the more crackpot positions of the League of the South, the SCV and the White Citizen's Council and tag lines like, "Do you really want to vote for white supremacist scumbags like this?" They might still have lost. But it couldn't have been any less effective than the bland, politely and losing Chamber of Commerce approach.

What the election did do, though, is provide a public debate, directed at ordinary voters, not at historians or activists for far-right groups, that aired the issues that neo-Confederacy is really about. Here I'll give some examples from the letters-to-the-editor section of the Clarion-Ledger, with the reminder that letter-to-the-editor are often eccentric and that the Clarion-Ledger editorially supported a new flag. Tomorrow I'll mention some of the other more elaborated arguments.

One fine American patriot, Lilliane Bobbitt of Cleveland (MS) wrote in a letter published 04/10/01:

The flag with the St. Andrew's cross [the Confederate-themed state flag] was designed to commemorate all the soldiers, black and white, who died defending Mississippi from Union soldiers.

You seem to think we should discard this symbol just because blacks are unhappy with it.

I am astonished how a whole race will let themselves be manipulated by liberals and others who have no interest in them or in the welfare of our state. Until recent years there was little mention of or notice given to our state flag. But, more than 40 years ago blacks began to push, demand and boycott guided by agitators like Jesse Jackson.

Our flag is not only a symbol. A spiritual force surrounds our flag just as the American flag and the Christian cross are surrounded by a spiritual force.

No race has the right to push their selfish ends to the destruction of another culture.

Surely, you know this.

Dadgum, how could them liberals ever imagine that support for the Confederate battle flag was about "hate" instead of "heritage"? Or that it might have something to do with white racism? Where do these dang liberals git such ideas?

Cartoonist Ramsey Marshall captured the moment after the vote (from the Clarion-Ledger 04/20/01)

Also on April 10, R. Charles Van Buren of Jackson shared his thoughts on Christian respect:

According to The Clarion-Ledger (NAACP planning strategy in flag vote, Feb. 6), the Rev. Dolphus Weary, a member of the state flag advisory commission, believes we should change our state flag and justifies this with a biblical mandate, "If there's something that offends your brother, you need to move it off the table."

Now, I have heard the Rev. Weary preach and I consider him to be a brother in Christ and a good man. However, has he considered the other side? I, and many others, feel offended by the statements and attitudes of many of the flag opponents. Particularly the implication that if I support the 1894 flag or the displaying of other symbols of the confederacy, I am a racist. The many untruths and half truths put forth about the flag and great Americans such as Robert E. Lee offend me greatly.

Are not my feelings and the feelings of those who share my views just as important as anyone else's?

What can be done if people on both sides of the issue feel offended and angry?

Well, what could have been done if the issue had not been hijacked by radical's was a simple compromise for which I would have voted - replace the [Confederate-themed] 1894 flag with one of the older state flags, particularly the 1861 flag which celebrates our heritage. I am now forced to choose between two positions which I dislike. I will not give in to radical hate mongers so I will vote for the 1894 flag and pray that in the future we are offered a true compromise that will defuse this issue.

Gol-lee! You just cain't help but feel sorry for those pore white folks who're picked on by that there n-double-a-c-p, can you?

This is the kind of dissembling horse-poo that segregationists raised to an art form. Or maybe a full-blown neurosis. "Ah don't have nothin' against black folks. Some of my best friends are black. Ah just don't like them radicals like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton tellin' me whut to do." Yeah, right.

Finally, in the April 12 paper, one Tip H. Allen, Jr. of Starkville pleaded for sympathy for those sadly persecuted white people:

Flags are symbols. In the eyes of the viewer they are regarded as either good or bad symbols. The U.S. flag is perceived by most as a glorious symbol, yet it has had a darker side: It flew over slave ships in 1788 to 1808.

Supporters of the present Mississippi flag with the battle emblem view the emblem not as a symbol of hate, or slavery or segregation, but as a symbol of heritage.

Walter Lord in his book The Past That Would Not Die notes that of the 78,000 Mississippians who joined in the fight for Southern independence, only 28,000 returned. A majority of the soldiers in the Confederate army came from families who did not own slaves. Soldiers of the Confederacy regarded themselves as fighting for country, not slavery.

Significant progress in race relations in Mississippi during recent years has come from a spirit of tolerance on the part of both races. White Mississippians have recognized the importance of African-Americans preserving their heritage. There were no protest marches or threats of boycotts when scores of street names were changed to honor Dr. King or when Black History Month was established.

Now, supporters of the [Confederate-themed] 1894 flag ask for a similar display of tolerance in permitting them to honor an important part of their heritage. Alleged economic gain or political correctness should not bring down the 1894 banner.

Got that? The Confederate flag had nothing to do with racism. But the American flag does!

Is it any surprise that people who become accustomed to this kind of through-the-looking glass thinking can also believe other incredible whoppers like Dick Cheney's claims about the Iraq War?

Tags: mississippi, neo-confederate

Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 6: And they didn't even have FOX News back then!

"Then" in this case being 1963, when Mississippi's Democratic segregationist Governor Ross Barnett, one of the most notorious of all the Jim Crow era governors, appeared at Western Michigan University and gave an speech which was taped. James Silver, in his famous book Mississippi: The Closed Society (1966 edition) gave a long excerpt from the question-and-answer period.

During the speech itself, Gov. Barnett denounced the now-legendary peaceful pro-civil-rights March on Washington that year as "mob action". Mob action was something Barnett knew about, and he knew that the march was no such thing.

He also offered this Pat Buchanan-esque historical observation:

Hitler offered the people of Germany a short cut to human progress. He gained power by advocating human rights for minority groups.

Here's the excerpt that Silver provided:

QUESTION: Mississippi in 1962 paid $275 million in federal taxes and received federal money up to $650 million. Do you consider this an intrusion on state rights?

BARNETT: I think you're incorrect. You're wholly incorrect in the figures. Wholly incorrect.

QUESTION: Are you against integration in the armed forces where there is no fear of mongrelizing the races?

BARNETT: It's best for both races to be segregated in order to maintain the purity and integrity of both races.

QUESTION: If you are so insistent on state rights, why doesn't Mississippi have civil rights legislation?

BARNETT: Well, we don't need any civil rights legislation in Mississippi. Let me tell you this: The Negroes in Mississippi are a lot better off than in many of the other states. Ninety per cent of the Negroes finishing high school and college remain in Mississippi because they love our way of life. You take Jackson State College there in Jackson. I think it's better equipped than most any other school in Mississippi. They won the national championship in football. And it was my privilege to issue fifty-two certificates of appreciation to the Negroes of the football team. Last December, right in the governor's office — because we spent moremoney on their school facilities than on the whites', in many instances.

QUESTION: I'm wondering if you consider Negroes people in Mississippi.

BARNETT: I would say that the Negroes, the Indians, the Eskimos, and all the whites—ninety per cent of them are against Kennedy in Mississippi.

QUESTION: Who should interpret the Constitution if not the Supreme Court?

BARNETT: The Supreme Court reversed what it had been holding for nearly a hundred years, and said that they would follow the advice of Gunnar Myrdal, who admits he's a socialist, instead of following the law of the land.

QUESTION: Do you condone the use of violence?

BARNETT: I am unalterably opposed to turmoil, bloodshed — and we have practiced it — we've tried to. [This sounds like a Freudian slip - Bruce]

QUESTION: How does a Negro get to be registered [to vote] in Mississippi?

BARNETT: He has the same rights that a white man has to vote in Mississippi, and you'll see that if you go down and watch the registrars. They treat the Negroes just as fairly as they do the white people. [This was horse-poop, as everyone at the time well knew.]

QUESTION: Would you be as willing to address an integrated audience in the South as you are here?

BARNETT: Well, I'd have to get the invitation first and study it a little while.

QUESTION: Why did you attempt to cancel [James] Meredith's graduation?

BARNETT: Because two federal judges said he was not qualified. And the Army said he was a troublemaker. In fact no white man in the United States could have entered Ole Miss with his qualifications.

QUESTION: The Jews were a minority group in Germany. Do you call what they got human rights or an equal opportunity?

BARNETT: I don't know whether they had equal opportunities or not. I suppose they did [fading away to very faint] ... probably did.

I should point out here that Silver offered this excerpt to his readers as a self-evident illustration of "what a clown Mississippi once elected to her chief office in time of crisis."

From today's perspective, Barnett sounds a lot like like the typical commentator on FOX News or Republican hate radio.

Silver described Barnett this way:

No account of Mississippi political bankruptcy would be legitimate without passing reference to the symbol of intransigency, Ross Barnett. Unable to succeed himself [as governor], Old Ross began his 1967 gubernatorial campaign about the time of his repudiation in Paul Johnson's inaugural address. He continued to titillate the emotions of frenzied right-wing audiences throughout the country, including crowds drummed up by the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race, and to amuse college groups who came to hear him in order to prove that such a phenomenon really did exist in the twentieth century.

Today, of course, all they have to do to hear such specimens of humanity is to flip on the Rush Limbaugh show, head to the Free Republic Web site or watch any random few minutes of FOX News.

The Americans for the Preservation of the White Race were a violent pro-segregation group active in Mississippi during the early 1960s. Today we would call them a Christian terrorist organization.

The main white surpremacist group in Mississippi then was the White Citizens Council. This fine group of Christian white folks still exists today under the name of the Council of Conservative Citizens. Various prominent Republicans, including Senate minority whip Trent Lott and the current Mississippi Republican Governor Haley Barbour have kissed up to the Council in various ways in more recent years. Sad to say, Mississippi previous Democratic Governor even did a bit of such kissing up. So did former Congressman Bob Barr, who is being celebrated by some liberals today for his "libertarian" criticisms of the Cheney-Bush administration. His new persona has yet to excite much enthusiasm from me.

Silver quotes from a speech Barnett gave to the White Citizens Council, apparently also in 1964, after his term as Governor was over. When he refers to "enemies", he means among other advocates of racial integration and other supporters of the American form of government and the rule of law:

The secret purpose of our enemies is to diffuse our blood, confuse our minds and degrade our character as a people, that we may not be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ... It is their purpose to liquidate us socially, religiously, politically, economically, or, as was done by the revolutionists in Russia and Red China, we are to be slaughtered.

Sounds like a normal day on the Michael Savage show, huh?

Back then, this kind of talk was self-evident Southern bigotry and hickness. And this kind of talk came mostly from Democratic politicians. Today, this kind of thing is mainstream communication in the Republican Party. How the times have changed!

I saw Barnett live once, speaking to a classroom of college students around 10 years after these quotations. The ensuing decade did not seem to have brought even a glimmer of enlightenment to the man.

I'll close with a more literary quote than Ross Barnett could have produced. This one from Herman Melville's "Shiloh: A Requiem", about the battle commemorated in the stamp pictured here today. It was part of Melville's Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866). Referring to the church around which the battle of Shiloh ranged, Melville reminds us that no matter how glorious the cause, the goal of war is to produce dead bodies. A goal it always achieves, and often in great abundance:

The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there -
Foemen at morn, but freinds at eve -
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
Whyile over them the swallow skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.

Tags: civil war, james sliver, mississippi, ross barnett, shiloh, us civil war