Mississippi's Largest Paper Endorses Obama

If Colonel Robert McCormack, the longtime publisher of the arch-Republican Chicago Tribune is spinning in his grave as a result of that paper's endorsement two weeks ago of Democrat Barack Obama, imagine what sort of posthumous somersaults the brothers Thomas and Robert Hederman must be doing after this morning's editorial in the Mississippi paper they controlled for a half century through the middle deacdes of the twentieth century.

No major media organ was more intransigent in its support for segregation and its opposition to the civil rights movement than the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi. Typical of the paper's attitudes on racial questions was its headline after the 1963 March on Washington at which Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech:

WASHINGTON IS CLEAN AGAIN WITH NEGRO TRASH REMOVED

In the days when the Hederman brothers owned the paper, it frequently warned of the dangers of the horror of "miscegenation."

This morning the Clarion-Ledger endorsed a mixed race man who identifies himself (as the Hederman brothers would have identified him) as black for president of the United States!

The times, they have a-changed.

Historian Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts & Letters at Millsaps College and the author of The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 (Random House). His latest book is Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America (Crown).

Comments

[Bebe68]

I live in southern Mississippi, having moved here from my hometown of New Orleans a few years ago, and this endorsement surprises me less than some might think.

The Democratic headquarters here on the coast has done a booming business, giving out and selling Obama signs, buttons and bumper stickers.

I admit to having been surprised the first few times white people - like me - came in [when I was volunteering] to ask about Obama material. Okay, I wasn't just surprised; I thought they were Republican "plants".

But gradually, I came to realize that many white people here do look past skin color to vote for the best candidate.

It gives me so much hope to ride through rural areas of this part of the country and compete with my husband to spot the first Obama sign, and then another and another.

With the grace of the good people of America, tomorrow is going to be a day for the history books.

I will feel forever fortunate to have lived to see it...(fingers crossed!)

[maxfax]

Excellent commentary, thanks for you sharing your insights. Indeed, tomorrow will be historic for our country.

[uheardme]

The bandwagon has left! Too late!

[Herb1843]

I was born and raised in Mississippi and was there during the assassination of Medgar Evers, the murders of the three civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, and the integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith. Exercising your First Amendment Rights was like bungee jumping without the bungee cord.

The Clarion Ledger, for all practical purposes, was the house organ of the KKK, so it's good to see its rebirth into something professional journalists can respect and be proud of. The only corrective to the ariticle I would add is that the paper turned the corner into sunlight a long time ago, and not just with this endorsement. Still, it's good to see.

(The state's still gonna go for McCain, but this speaks well for the future of Mississippi.)

[OutragedMom]

"The times, they are a changin..."

[Dorksforobama]

I keep telling people that racism is going to finally FINALLY start finding it's way out the door. No one believes me but I have faith that our children, who are multi-cultured, many-colored can end the silliness and predjudice that has lasted entirely too long in this country.

Our children have black and white and brown and rainbow colored parents. Our children will also have many colored/cultured children. This world is getting too big wide open and transparent for racism/sexism to be tolerated.

I am so happy to read this article. Not only are we electing a man of color to be our president, our roots in racism are being unearthed and are drying out and dying. Hallelujah and Amen!

[GREGy]

help me with this

Is it more racist to vote against a man because he is black, or against him because he is not black?

I think it's about equal, and we don't need affirmative action for the presidency.

But maybe as a Republican, I am not race aware enough. I vote for the person, not the color.

I'm voting for McCain.

[robXdion]

To even ask this question in the 21st century after 2 years of campaigning and seeing the character of these two men really shows you are wrestling with some serious racial issues that you try to turn around on others. Good luck with that.

[pir anha]

it's not that simple. i don't believe that a majority of black americans are voting for obama because mccain is white. i think that if mccain were also black, he'd still be losing this election -- because the economy is tanking (and that always puts the governing party in jeopardy), because he's too closely associated with bush and much of the country has had enough of bush policies, because he picked sarah palin whom much of the population considers not competent enough for the job, because he's perceived by many as too erratic at a time of crisis when steadiness seems very important.

no doubt some blacks will vote for obama solely because he's black, some women will vote for the mccain ticket just because palin is female. but most people are not single issue voters; they weigh many more concerns. the enthusiasm of the black community shouldn't surprise you though -- obama's achievements encourage the dreams they have, of education, of equal rights, of prosperity, of being able to show their children that yes, if they work hard, they too can become anything, even president. why should that not count as a viable reason, one among others?

we all have such reasons, whether we're conscious of them or not. i am more likely to vote for somebody who's like me. that doesn't mean i'll vote for them based on a single trait, but rather an aggregate.

[Waltb31]

I'm Black, and I voted for Obama.
I have also rejected Alan Keyes, Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, and Cynthia McKinney.
I have voted for Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Kerry. I will not vote for a product of nepotism (the white quota system) who finished 5th from the bottom of his class, and received his entire naval career status from his daddy the Admiral.
McCain is an intellectual featherweight; the product of nepotistic privilege. If he had to compete on a level playing field, he would have been a retired blue collar worker.
So deal with your own bigotry.

[lvdragonlady]

You are allowed to vote for whomever you like. This is America after all.
Racism only comes into play when the 'only' reason you are voting for McCain is because Barack is black.

[JimBozo]

As a thinking human being, after intense study, I vote for the best candidate. That's why I'm voting for Barack Obama, and I'm caucasian. One of my black neighbors got into our elevator recently, wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: "Obama- the new black", I complimented him on it, but added, "It could just as well have said: Obama-the new white". And I wasn't kidding.

I'm proud to share the same (human) race with Senator Obama.

[lvdragonlady]

Racism will never completely disappear but if it just fades a little bit as time goes by then things will improve even more for everyone.

[SeanGardner]

Mississippi is a sleeper this year. The high number of energized African-Americans and young people means he will likely win or lose the state by t-h-a-a-t much. I truly believe this.

Georgia and North Carolina should provide political watchers with a taste of what might happen in Mississippi on Nov. 4th.

[jchurch27]

I concur. I think there are going to be a few surprises in the South by tomorrow evening.

[jamie461]

The newspaper has come a long way. The people of Mississippi? Not so much.

[Herb1843]

There were, in fact, many people like myself (white) in Mississippi at the time, but unless you lived there during that era you can have no idea of the dangers that expressing a liberal opinion could expose you to.

I was rightfully outraged at the age of 16 when I learned of the beatings of the Freedom Riders and naively started to write a letter to the editor of our local paper. My father saw the letter before I could mail it, and he explained in rather graphic terms that he and my mother could, at best, lose their jobs. The White Citizens Council (the public face of the KKK) controlled the state for all practical purposes, and people like me could be crushed and forgotten. We wouldn't have caused one ripple of difference.

I could be wrong, but the more I've thought about it in the years since, I don't believe change would have happened without the intervention of (as they were called) "outside agitators." Mississippi, as James W. Silver put it in the title of his 1963 book, was a "closed society" and unique in the sense that it created a class of emigees, a term normally applied to people of a foreign country driven out by political or religious persecution.

The inner conflicts of whites in Mississippi in that era is more complicated than your brief comment suggests. Who, after all, works for the Clarion Ledger if not "people" who live there?

[robXdion]

It's not that complicated. The whites in MS (and elsewhere) are conflicted in their need to feel superior over blacks versus the shameful dehumanizing treatment it brings. Anything else is the same disingenuous lies and denial they have told themselves for decades. Before we sneer at China and other human rights abusing nations, it would help Americans of all colors to look at themselves.

[Emlyn]

I was in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi in 1965 and 1967. I saw things there that I still remember. Nasty things to blacks. Thank God, times have changed and for the better.

[robXdion]

Not buying it. This is a face-saving gesture because they see the entire world knows the history and character of that region. If they really want to stand up and change things, they should do an expose on their own state and challenge those attitudes, like the Confederate battle flag depicted in their state flag and the statues dedicated to Klansmen throughout the state. It shouldn't take Obama for them to hop on the racial equality bandwagon in the 21st century.

[ignorancecosts]

As a lifelong Mississippian, and an almost daily reader of the Clarion Ledger (only online now, as I cancelled my subscription long ago) , I can say that you haven't a clue about the Clarion Ledger. Their entire purpose is to push the liberal left agenda, which includes stoking the 'us against them' mentality. If you have read the paper for any length of time, you will see that it is NO surprise for the paper to endorse Obama.

[robXdion]

I don't care what their agenda is and I don't need clues. I know where they reside and they would be better served to change the racist attitudes of their own state instead of trying to bask in the Obama-glo for attention. As a matter of fact, if you live there, you should try to change it too.

[robXdion]

I don't need clues. They should challenge the racism in their state instead of riding the Obama bandwagon. That's sophomoric and opportunistic posing.

[Yola]

Oh s h y t! We better go get out lives straight because judgement day must be coming!

[janinei]

we SHALL overcome!!

[newpotusplease]

I love Mississippi and Louisiana-- I don't understand how they could stay red after Katrina- it just escapes me...

[Dottedvoile]

WOW! america IS changing...bit by bit.

[mm29464]

I am sitting here as i read this with my eyes welling up and tears running down my face. This is huge and unbelievable.

I am from the South, studied at Ole Miss, and am a historian of the South. This paper was as virulently pro-segregation and anti-civil rights as one can possibly imagine. i am just amazed and am ever awed by the currents of history. obama's lifespan is almost exactly that of freedom summer to now. the deaths of schwirmer, goodman and cheney; fanny lou hammer and all of the brave folks who organized the mississippi freedom democratic party as a counter to the whites only party; medgar evers; emmitt till; and all of the countless souls who fought for social justice and equal rights under the law...this just boggles my mind. the times really are a changin'. glory, glory, hallelujah!!

[PlantGod72]

Thank you for that moving reminder of just how far, and from where we have come!

[L3ftofC3nter]

The Clarion endorsed Obama??!! WOW!!