Mississippi proves former governor wrong

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 49

Mississippi proves former governor wrong

By

DAN EVEN

of AP

(through NZPA) Jackson

Mississippi during the turbulent summer of 1963 became a symbol of southern resistance to integration in the United States and a bloody battleground of the civil rights era.

Ross Barnett, governor at the time, vowed integration would never come to Mississippi, which had a 43 per cent black population. He said mingling of the races had “absolutely ruined every civilisation.” History proved Mr Barnett wrong. Mississippi today has more elected black office holders than any other state — from local supervisors and sheriffs to a judge of the state Supreme Court and, taking office recently, a member of the House of Representatives. “There is no comparison between then and now,” says a state representative, Robert Clark, who in 1967 became the first black elected to the Legislature in this century. “Anybody that says different is a fool.”

Blacks, now roughly 36 per cent of the state’s populaton, have made great strides, but officials say they still lag far behind white Mississippians in income and employment.

Still, experts see the emergence of a fragile black middle class in the

state. Minority-owned businesses won 12 per cent of contracts awarded by this city in the last fiscal year, meeting a goal set by Jackson’s minority business programme. That amounted to about to about sUS3million worth of business. “That shows you what can be accomplished if public policy is set,” said Leslie Range, a board member of the programme and president of a consulting firm. “Most of our problems in Mississippi are economic, with the problems particularly acute in the black community,” says Reuben Anderson, the state’s first black Supreme Court justice. “We don’t have any more problems than another state when it comes to racial problems.” That was not always the case. After James Meredith in 1962 become the first black to enroll at the University of Mississippi, ' riots killed two. The following year, a black civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, was assassinated. A year later three civil rights workers were killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Today, the fight for full equality between blacks and whites still takes the form of sit-ins, like those of the ’6os, but activists are also taking their battle to courtrooms, the polls and the marketplace.

“We can’t keep on marching and praying to make change occur,” says Medgar Evers’ brother, Charles, who became the first black mayor of a biracial town when elected in Fayette in 1969.

"People can march until they drop, but holding back the dollars and votes is something that will make an impact” The nation has 6424 black elected officials, with 521 of them in Mississippi, according to figures from the Joint Centre for Political Studies in Washington. Louisiana follows with 488. Illinois has 426, Georgia 416, and Alabama Black advances in Mississippi have come with increased minority voter registration. In 1954, when the Supreme Court ordered public school desegregation the state had about 22,000 blacks registered, and an estimated 8000 voted.

This year, the centre estimates, 85.6 per cent of voting-age blacks are registered, more than 400,000. Increased black registration and participation have been cited as main reasons for the election of a black lawyer, Mike Espy, in Mississippi’s second congressional district in November. The first main election break-throughs came in 1967 when Mr Clark won a state house seat, and in 1969, when Charles Evers was elected.

The killing of Medgar Evers and the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act heralded a revolution that began transforming rigidly segregated Mississippi into a different society. “There wasn’t a single black elected official in the stae when Medgar was killed,” Charles Evers reflected.

Economically, the gap hasn’t been bridged. Figures from the 1980 United States Census show that whites earned 2.3 times the amount blacks did in the state. In 1979, white per capita income averaged SUS64B4, compared with SUS2B33 for blacks ($12,800 and $5666.) Over all, Mississippi’s per capita income ranks last in the nation.

Unemployment among the state’s blacks remains high, estimated at 30 per cent in most parts of Mississippi. Unemployment for Mississippi over all was 11.5 per cent in November.

A lack of jobs for young blacks breeds a new despair, says Dr Alferdteen Harrison, a professor of history at Jackson State University. “It’s a tragic circle. We preach and preach more education, but when blacks leave schools in Mississippi, they can’t find a job,” she says. “The expectations are there, but no jobs.” Black leaders say recent school boycotts, sitins and lawsuits are evi-

dence of a renewed activism by blacks who realise attitude changes cannot be court-ordered, and believe economic and political equality are yet to come.

“I think it’s a new civil rights movement stemming from the shortcomings of the 19605,” said a civil rights worker, Cleve McDowell. "Blacks are trying to complete the movement that began in that era — trying to nail down particular lights that weren’t won then.” Mr McDowell said the 1980 s movement is aimed at greater employment opportunities, better education and more representative in government One of the most visible examples of this renewed activism is the 37-day boycott of white-owned businesses in Indianola. Indianola, whose school district is 93 per cent black, now has its first black superintendent and first majority-black school board.

Last (northern) spring, blacks picketed downtown stores, causing a drastic drop in sales, and staged two school boycotts until a newly hired white superintendent resigned and their candidate, a black principal who had worked in the district for 20 years, was appointed.

“It was a lesson for both blacks and whites,” said Walter Gregory, who was elected the district’s first black board president after the boycott