Part One
On Sunday, June 28th, 2020, the Republican supermajority Mississippi House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill removing the state flag that had flown over Mississippi’s public buildings for 126 years. The Republican governor signed it into law two days later. It was the last state flag in the country to bear a Confederate symbol. Previous efforts by black legislators to introduce such bills died in committee. In 2001, in a state referendum, Mississippians voted 2-to-1 to keep that freighted and offensive symbol.
Success has many parents, as they say, and there will be many who will take credit for this monumental accomplishment; but it was far from certain. I know that as late as Friday night, June 26th, we still were not confident we had garnered the remaining 4 votes we needed for a 2/3 majority in the Senate to suspend the rules in order to consider a bill on the flag. We’d spent days attempting to sway a few Republican senators identified as persuadable, but went to bed Friday night uncertain. But that weekend, it got done.
How did this happen?
In November, 2018, in the wake of Mississippi’s senatorial election, I declared that Mississippi was now a purple state, in a late-night Facebook post. I was shocked the next morning to see that the post had almost 2,000 “likes” and had been shared almost a thousand times—far more than my typical 30 likes and no shares (insert smiling/crying emoji here).
Some commenters questioned my declaration; after all, the senate contest had been 3-way race, with two Republican candidates and one Democrat. The Republican candidates split the conservative vote, with the “establishment” candidate emerging to move forward to the run-off. Some chalked up Mike Espy’s winning of 38 counties to the in-fighting within the Republican party in Mississippi.
But I stand by my assertion then, even though Hyde-Smith won over Espy in the late November run-off. In the run-off election, Espy lost to Hyde-Smith by less than 8 points. By comparison, Trump won the state in 2016 by almost 18 points. Espy cut that lead by more than half. When you look at the actual vote count, Espy lost by less than 69,000. Hinds County alone, which contains the capitol city of Jackson and is predominantly black, has over 149,000 voters, almost 70,000 of whom didn’t vote in the 2018 run-off and Espy won the county by 43 points. Even more striking are the vote totals in several predominantly white counties. In DeSoto County, near the Tennessee state line, Espy lost by less than 8,000 votes. And more than 62,000 voters in that county failed to vote. In Madison County, a suburb county adjacent to Jackson, Espy lost by less than 3,100 votes, in a county with 73,000 registered voters, almost 30,000 of whom did not vote in the run-off.
With appropriate support and a well-run campaign with grassroots engagement, Mike Espy could win (as we may see come November this year in an Espy/Hyde-Smith rematch). And while 2019 election results were disappointing for many of us, there were signs, as in 2018, reflecting that shift has been occurring in a state from which no one expects surprises. In typically red DeSoto County, a Democratic African American woman won a state legislative seat. To win an election, Republican candidates running for statewide offices must now win a near unanimous support of white voters. The cracks in the facade are beginning to show.
Written by guest blogger Dr. Susan M. Glisson. Susan is co-founder of Sustainable Equity, LLC. She has worked for more than 20 years to change conditions that have created a legacy of inequities. Mississippi is her home.
Come back tomorrow for Part Two of A Tremor in the Middle of the Iceberg.
* The title for this three part series about Mississippi is taken from a Bob Moses’ quote. Bob Moses, age 85, is an American educator, civil rights activist and hero, known for leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on voter education and registration in Mississippi at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.