Delta Politics and the Almost Possible

By Rims Barber

Vol. 5, No. 1, 1983, pp. 4-7

During the recent redistricting process, black leaders felt that it would be impossible for a black candidate to

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win Mississippi’s Second Congressional District as it ultimately came to be drawn. The narrow black population majority makes victory a very long shot for even the exceptional campaign conducted with careful consideration of racial relationships. Yet when Delta Congressman David Bowen chose not to seek re-election in the newly drawn district, black state representative Robert Clark ran and almost won.

Robert Clark was an ideal candidate for the campaign. In 1967 he became the first black elected to the Mississippi legislature since Reconstruction. He has served with distinction as Chairman of the House Education Committee. Clark has name recognition. He brought to the campaign political experience that had earned trust, solid relations with education and labor organizations and a claim on the white Democratic leadership that few could match. The closeness of the race (twelve hundred votes out of 145,000) was in large part attributable to the qualities of the candidate himself.

The District is 53.4% black in overall population. Black voting age population is forty-eight percent. Estimates of registered voters show black strength at forty-four percent. This means that it will take a solid black vote, at or near record proportions, and a high white crossover vote for a black Democratic candidate to win. In Mississippi, black candidates under most circumstances may expect to garner only two to three percent of the white vote. Clark received twelve to thirteen percent of the white vote.

Considering the closeness of the race, almost any shift of counties during reapportionment would have made a significant difference. Had the district not been gerrymandered to preserve the incumbency of First District Congressman Jamie Whitten, Tallahatchie County could have been traded for the two whitest counties (Choctaw and Webster) and Clark could have won. He lost these two small counties by more than the difference between himself and the winner, Republican Webb Franklin. In similar fashion, Franklin won Warren County by more than the final difference

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between the candidates. A split of Warren, similar to that made for state legislative districts would have shifted enough votes, as would a trade that put a small portion of northern Hinds into the Second District.

Victory in the spring, 1982, Democratic primary was crucial. Clark won without a runoff although he had little more than one thousand white votes. A runoff would have been disastrous: there would have been little time to mobilize additional black voters, white support that appeared in the general election would not have materialized for the runoff, and further racial polarization within the party would have occurred. There is a high probability that Clark would have lost a runoff and that blacks would have bolted the Democratic party.

The November general election attracted the second best black voter turnout ever; the highest occurred in the 1980 Presidential election. This time the vote was approximately ninety percent of that record turnout, with between 65,000 and 67,000 black voters. It was thirty percent higher than the turnout for the last off-year election, in which Charles Evers was the drawing card for the black electorate. Approximately forty-two percent of the voting age population of blacks turned out while in 1980 it was forty-five percent. Anything over sixty thousand is exceptional in this geographical area.

The black vote went overwhelmingly for Robert Clark by a margin of ninety-four percent, slightly less than the ninety-six percent bloc vote that Jimmy Carter received in 1980.

There were however, some areas of black weakness. Five counties, historically low in turnout, had less than forty percent of their black voting age population to vote: Coahoma, Sunflower, Tunica, Warren and Washington. Sunflower had the lowest at twenty-eight percent. These five counties contain about forty ‘percept of the black voting age population in the District. Clearly, there is need for voter registration work.

There was a strong white turnout, about ten thousand more voters than had been predicted. As a percentage of the white voting age population, the turnout was about forty-eight percent (compared with fifty-seven percent in the 1980 Presidential race). Approximately 81,000 whites voted (compared to 95,000 in 1980 and seventy thousand in 1978). Doubtless, racial overtones helped the white turnout.

Robert Clark received about twelve to thirteen percent of the white vote. This varied from over twenty percent in counties like Attala and Webster to five and six percent in Coahoma, Leflore and Tunica. In the Hill counties, it appears that Clark received a better white vote in rural areas than in the towns. In the Delta, Clark did better in towns than in rural areas. The work of education and labor groups and the Democratic party paid off with significant numbers of whites voting for the candidate regardless of race. This was a brave first step for several thousand white voters.

The white vote in the District, however, has become increasingly Republican over the past few years. This has been most pronounced when there has been a high white turnout; almost all of the added turnout has been Republican. Historically, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among white voters has been one to two.

Over the last half dozen years, this has shifted to one Democrat for every three Republican whites. And in 1982, half of this diminished number of Democrats voted Republican.

A close contest is painful to lose and prompts a lot o. second guessing. But the challenge in the Second District of Mississippi is to build the coalition that can bring victory and adequate representation for the District’s people. Certainly, some factors would have made the difference in November’s outcome:

• Had the District been constituted with a slightly higher percentage of black voters.
• Had the black voter turnout matched the record of two years ago (and it might in 1984 if Reagan runs for reelection).
• Had the black bloc vote been just two percentage points more consistent.
• Had the white vote not been stirred by the opponent and voted in such strong numbers.
• Had a greater number of whites been able to leap the racial barrier and vote their usual Democratic pattern.

Other factors, not so demonstrable, could also have made a difference: had there been a stronger Democratic party structure across the District; had the coalition across racial lines been built more solidly; had there been less fragmentation in the campaign; clearer lines of communication, less conflict over strategies; had there been more clear Democratic programmatic alternatives consistently put before the voter; had more effort been targeted at the weak black turnout areas.

The fact is that the election was so close that almost any favorable change in reapportionment, registration turnout or Democratic party loyalty could have altered. the results. Of particular importance, however, is a strengthened and deepened partnership with blacks and whites in the campaign. There are questions to answer about campaign strategies: How can white and black staff be better coordinated so that both races feel a participation and ownership in the cause? Can campaign appeals be made to one racial community without agitating the other–would a traditional black rally to increase voter turnout scare off potential white voters? How should time be budgeted to produce the best results–how much time ought to be spent on the ten to fifteen percent of the white vote that a black candidate might get?

Across the lines of race there is, at present, a growing sense of interdependence in Mississippi’s Second District. Both blacks and whites are understanding that the kind of education provided their children makes a difference to everybody; that health care, from Medicare to the building of hospitals, makes a difference to everybody; that economic development and the survival of farming make a difference to everybody.

Out of Holmes County in the Second District in 1982 came both the Eddie Garthan trial and congressional candidate Robert Clark. Carthan’s case stood for recent black attempts to gain local political power in the face of the long history of white supremacy (see “Black Political Participation and the Challenge of Conservatism,” in Southern Changes, August/September 1982). Clark’s. candidacy gave hope for a new future of inter-racial

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politics. For a while, past and future came together in Holmes County. In a room of the county courthouse, the Carthan case was suspended one day so the election could be conducted. As things turned out, Carthan was acquitted and Robert Clark lost by one percent of the total vote. Clark says he is “inclined to try again.”

Rims Barber is project director for the Childrens’ Defense Fund in Mississippi. He is a member of the Southern Regional Council and has been active in civil rights issue in Mississippi for eighteen years.

Mississippi Makes Up Its Mind

By Rims Barber

Vol. 5, No. 2, 1983, pp. 8-9

The passage of an educational reform package by the Mississippi Legislature was an important victory for public involvement. Pushing the legislature to act on the education issue involved a broader based public effort than any other issue in recent Mississippi history. Such interest and effort made the legislature accountable, forcing it to act in ways that were beyond its normal, narrow political framework.

Governor William Winter focused the issues in a manner that captured the public. He developed a campaign that led people to demand reforms in education because they were right and good and possible.

In his state of the state message at the opening of the January 1982 legislative session, Governor Winter had called for creation of kindergartens, a state lay board of education and passage of compulsory attendance legislation. Exhorting the legislature to help move Mississippi out of fiftieth place among the states in per capita income, Winter called for a long term commitment to improve education. To pay for the program, he asked for an educational trust fund generated from the revenues of an increase in the oil and gas severance tax. “It’s boat rocking time,” he said, trying to motivate legislators to vote for a significant change. But the legislature only gave its approval to the state lay board, placing it on the November ballot as a constitutional amendment.

Kindergarten died on the house calendar in February 1982 as Speaker Buddie Newman adjourned the house even as members tried to gain consideration of the measure. Black legislator Leslie King condemned Newman’s action in “ignoring the will of this body.” Efforts to revive the kindergarten measure failed and the trust fund was defeated. Representative Robert Clark, chairman of the education committee, said that many representatives “turned chicken” on the issue of kindergarten when the money proposal was before them. He predicted that “this is the one last chance we’ll have in the next six or eight years to enact kindergartens.”

Clark would be proved wrong, but only after an intense public campaign initiated by Governor Winter which led to the special session in December. In the fall, the governor conducted a nine-city campaign of education forums, emphasizing the need for Mississippi to make a breakthrough in education or forever be lost in last place among the states. Almost twenty thousand people attended those forums, building support that helped pass the constitutional referendum, finally creating the state lay board of education and setting the base of support for the education reform package voted on in the special session.

People began to work for the changes they believed would bring about progress for all Mississippians. To accomplish this, they overcame their sense of narrow self-interest and saw the interdependence of all the state’s people.

The governor moved Theodore “The Man” Bilbo’s statue, one symbol of the past, out of the main corridor of the capitol building and the people helped move the legislature beyond the vestiges of that past.

Much of the recent history of Mississippi school matters has been tied up in the racial dilemma. In the 1950’s, the state responded to the Brown decision with a series of changes in the laws that were an attempt to stave off the potential effects of desegregation. In the 1960’s, school desegregation came and along with it the private school movement.

Following legal desegregation of the public schools, segregated academies blossomed across the state, leaving a fourth of Mississippi’s school districts virtually all-black (although whites still controlled the school boards). Several districts lowered their local tax support of public schools. Half the black principals in the state lost their leadership positions. With significant numbers of voters no longer committed to the public schools, many legislators faltered in their support for public education. Resolutions were passed calling for an end to busing. A try at enacting kindergarten in 1972 failed in the face of race-baiting opposition.

Throughout this period, many educational leaders continued to call for reform. In 1967, Mississippi commissioned a significant study which concluded that “our children are not receiving as effective an education as they need . . . our economic development goals cannot be achieved unless we greatly strengthen our total educational system.” Despite this and similar urgings

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that Mississippi make educational reforms, there was a hardening of the lines of resistance that left the studies collecting dust.

Finally, in the 1980s, time had healed some of the old wounds and the governor seized the opportunity. The victory came in spite of last minute rantings on the floor of the legislature against the evils of integrated schools and the clear attempt to make “those people” pay for “their education.”

A price was exacted by those good ol’ boys who would put off the day when all Mississippians can reap the benefits of a healthy and common society. Compulsory attendance will only apply to six and seven year old children this year. Kindergartens will be delayed until 1986 and will stand repealed in 1990 unless the people maintain their pressure on the legislature. The taxes will fall more heavily on the poor and the middle classes than on the monied interests in the state.

In the end, the leadership of the legislative branch did not want the political heat that they felt would surely come if they had not passed the reform package. House leaders had been badly burned in the spring when their killing of kindergarten received national attention. ABC-TV’s program “20/20″ focused on Mississippi’s failure to place the education of children above special interests such as the oil and gas industry. The legislators” behavior also spurred political activity with the formation of a progressive political action committee (Mississippi First) which had the goal of “electing a better legislature.” At the fall education forums, Mississippi First asked people to sign “Yes, I’m tired of our legislature taking a last place approach to Mississippi’s future.”

The state’s press provided clear reporting and strong editorial support. For the week prior to the special session, the statewide newpapers ran a series on educational reform issues. During the session, the Jackson papers promoted passage of the package and editorially targeted legislators who did not support it.

The mechanism for significantly improving Mississippi’s educational system is now law. In November 1982, the state’s voters passed a constitutional amendment to replace the ex officio state school board with a new lay board of education in 1984. The Educational Reform Act contains a means of empowering the new board to make improvements in school curriculum, accreditation, teacher certification, professional development and to take a hard look at the need for school consolidation.

The Act also establishes an enforceable compulsory attendance law, kindergartens and teacher aides for the first three grades. This, with the improved program for vocational education passed last spring, should provide the framework for progress.

This is not to say that all the problems are solved. The new state board of education must have the vision, aggressiveness and independence to carry out the mission set forth in the new law. The people must apply their new found strength in holding the legislature accountable for the general welfare of the community to see that the reforms are implemented. There must be a fight on financing, for the law leaves a gap that must be filled. The kindergarten issue must finally be put to rest with the removal of the repeal provision.

In Mississippi, people who were never involved in politics are now involved. They can make the difference not only in improving our educational system but in areas of health and welfare and justice for all. We cannot live as a divided people, leaving one segment or another of our population behind. Perhaps, on this foundation, Mississippi is now ready to build.

Features of the Educational Reform Act
• Kindergarten in all school districts by 1986, supported by forty million dollars annually
• Compulsory attendance beginning with ages six and seven in 1983 and adding one year until age fourteen
• Salary increases for teachers of one thousand dollars, taking Mississippi off the bottom rung of the teacher pay ladder
• A performance based school accreditation system
• A study to consider consolidating small schools and small districts
• A commission to set new teacher education and certification standards
• A program of professional development for school administrators
• Authority granted to the state lay board of education to compel compliance with the new standards

Rims Barber, a member of the Southern Regional Council, is project director for Childrens’ Defense Fund in Mississippi.