Haley Barbour's Prophecy

My eyes have been glued to the TV screen watching the returns for Alabama's special election to fill the senate seat vacated by US Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.

With over 70% of the vote in earlier in the evening the race remained too close to call. It was exciting to follow the count. I am delighted with the result.

I have never lived in Alabama, so I am not qualified to draw a lot of conclusions about tonight's senate election. But I know Mississippi well. And I want to call attention to a forgotten prophecy.

In 1993, Haley Barbour of Yazoo City, Mississippi became chair of the Republican National Committee. Washington's journalists found this a surprising development. "Doesn't it seem strange," they asked, "that you, from a state in the solid democratic South, have become chair of the Republican Party?"

Barbour, exhibiting his normal aplomb, replied "why, not at all. Where Mississippi has been is where the country is going."

Haley Barbour's prophecy was not good news, especially for those from Mississippi.

I know where Mississippi has been, and I don't believe the country really wants to go there. Even the people of Alabama welcomed having Mississippi next door as an example that things could be worse.

I know where Mississippi has been, because I watched it go there since 1940.

I never met Haley Barbour, but I know his home town well. My father was born there in 1915, my grandparents were born there in 1880, and my brother was born there in 1941. One of my great uncles was owner, editor and publisher of the Yazoo City Herald.

In 1940 Mississippi, elections were for white people.  So were sidewalks.  In those days, political parties were deemed to be private organizations who could determine their own membership. Across the South, the Democratic Party only allowed white members. This scheme was abolished by the US Supreme Court in 1944.

Jim Crow remained alive and well. Education for black children was optional, and the facilities were abominable.

Black lives really didn't matter. I learned this in 1945 when I overheard adults talking about a lack man who was "shot while trying to escape. They found 29 bullets in his body.

I didn't believe the "shot trying to escape" story.

I entered first grade in Greenwood, MS in 1943. I graduated from Ole Miss in 1958.

I have stories to tell.

Mostly I don't want the United States to go where Mississippi has been.

I fear our present leaders want to take us there. Bad idea.