May 04, 2005 News & Views » From The News Desk

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Racist Tide Still Swelling 

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This is how it was reporting on the South 40 years ago. Bill Minor, a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayne, was dispatched to Philadelphia, MS. The story: 400 whites had surrounded the Neshoba County courthouse and were attacking two television camera crews. "You had to be careful," Minor recalled recently as we sat in his Jackson, MS, home. "Those boys would kill you. Some still would if they had the chance. If the segregationists could hem you in, they knew getting stories out on civil rights people would be hard."

Minor's career arcs back to 1947, when his first story was about the funeral of the inflammatory racist US Sen. Theo Bilbo. "He was worse than some, but not that much different than many."

And, Minor, still a syndicated columnist, watched it all. "I was there when (former Gov.) Ross Barnett (in 1962) stood in the door at the University of Mississippi and turned James Meredith away. I remember Ole Miss was playing Kentucky. The stadium was a sea of Confederate flags. The stands exploded when Barnett said, 'I love Mississippi. I love our customs.' The thought hit me, 'This is what Adolf Hitler would do.'"

I met Minor on a recent trip through Mississippi and Alabama — I was looking for signs of race reconciliation. Some were there — in the form of Minor, former Mississippi Gov. Bill Winter and Jerry Maxwell, a reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger whose 17 year crusade resulted in indictments of race terrorists in cases 40 years old.

But progress is threatened. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour — whose campaign material always seemed to feature the Rebel flag — is intent on rolling back funding that has modernized the state's school system and provided medical care for the poor. The wink-wink message: The GOP doesn't spend money on blacks.

Minor allowed that the racist vote in Mississippi still runs about 2-1 — the split that in 2001 defeated eliminating the Confederate battle flag from the state's banner. "Racism is back in vogue, and not just in Mississippi," he said. "Take Atlanta out of Georgia, and it's not that much different than Mississippi."

Senior Editor John Sugg — who says, "Roach repellent works fine on racists" — has more on Southern style on his blog, www.JohnSugg.com. He can be reached at john.sugg@creativeloafing.com

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