Mississippi City Known for Klan Killings Elects Its First Black Mayor
By ROBBIE BROWN
The city of Philadelphia, Miss., where members of the Ku Klux Klan killed three civil rights workers in 1964 in one of the era’s most infamous acts, on Tuesday elected its first black mayor.
James A. Young, a Pentecostal minister and former county supervisor, narrowly beat the incumbent, Rayburn Waddell, in the Democratic primary. There is no Republican challenger.
The results, announced Wednesday night, were a turning point for a mostly white city of 7,300 people in east-central Mississippi still haunted by the killings, which captured front-page headlines across the nation and were featured in the 1988 film “Mississippi Burning.”
“This shows a complete change of attitude and a desire to move forward,” said Mr. Young, 53, a Philadelphia native who integrated the local elementary school as the only black student in his sixth-grade class in the mid-1960s. “When I campaigned, the signs on the doors said, ‘Welcome,’ and I actually felt welcome.”
Mississippi has the largest number of black elected officials in the country, but they rarely come from majority-white electorates, said Joseph Crespino, an expert in Mississippi history at Emory University. Mr. Crespino called Mr. Young’s victory “remarkable.”
“I think this speaks well to the town of Philadelphia,” he said. “Residents there have lived with the memory and the trauma of the killings for many decades.”
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
“This shows a complete
“This shows a complete change of attitude and a desire to move forward,” said Mr. Young, 53, a Philadelphia native who integrated the local elementary school as the only black student in his sixth-grade class in the mid-1960s.
I wish Mayor Young all the best but he is suffering from a fixed delusion.
He's a politician and a preacher, too
...meaning the new Mayor Young knows how to make conciliatory public statements, as do other recently elected black folk. At 53, he no doubt recalls every insult and slight from the '60s onward. He knows not all the welcome signs are real. Some may be outright fake. Some may be conditional, hoping for bygones to be bygones. "Mayor, remember when I wiped poo on your arm in kindergarten and even the teacher laughed? No harm, no foul, right?"
Yes, but why or what
Yes, but why or what circumstances compels Mayor Young to make conciliatory statements. He did not run a divisive campaign; he did not run as the Great Black Hope. I'm sure that he downplayed his blackness and played up his plans for the town's future. So, again, what objective circumstances required a conciliatory statement on race from him?