(Photo from the Institute for Southern Studies)
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour wants you to believe that the South's great struggle with segregation was over by the time he came of age. His supposedly post-racial cohort "led the change of parties in the South," from Democratic to Republican, he says in an interview published yesterday by Human Events.
"My generation ... went to integrated schools," Gov. Barbour continues. "I went to integrated college -- never thought twice about it."
That didn't sound quite right to us, since Mississippi schools integrated only in 1970, years after the 62-year-old Barbour would have graduated from Yazoo City High School. He then went to Ole Miss, which admitted its first black freshman in 1964, according to Dr. Charles Eagles, an Ole Miss history professor and author of The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss. That likely would have been either the year Mr. Barbour started at Ole Miss, or the year just before.
Another educator and civil rights historian tells us she knew Haley Barbour personally in Yazoo City. JoAnne Prichard Morris, co-author of Barefootin': Life Lessons from the Road to Freedom, taught a course in humanities in Yazoo City in the 1960s. She started in the white high school and transferred to the black one in 1969.
"Anybody who graduated from high school before 1970 in Mississippi did not go to an integrated school," she said. "Giving Haley the benefit of the doubt, he probably feels like he is of that generation, but he's not."
We'll have much more on this on the show tonight.
To Sally Dodge: You hit the nail on the head. We live in Biloxi, MS and I have lost count of how many times other white people have made racist statements to me - assuming incorrectly that I agree with their prejudice because I happen to be white as well. Racism is alive and well in 2010.
I live in Mississippi but grew up in Boston and lived all around the northeast, the racism you hear up north is just as embarrassing. Have any of you gone to the North End or South Boston ? Haley has issues and I wouldn't vote for him but to imply he is remotely racist, is a farce. What he said was wrong, but aren't we splitting hairs by saying he overlapped with desegregation while at Ole Miss or HS ? Move on.
Well there seems to be a lack of fact checking on all sides.i'll begin with the last ,Yes Lincoln's Republicans were radicals and that Republican Party was founded for one reason only to "end slavery".However the "Corporate Republican " Party came into existence when "Teddy Roosevelt " and the Progressives left.
Now I have never lived in Miss or the South but in 1960 when in the USAF and we had a dispute and I don't even think it was racial,but the Mississippi born and educated white airman told me "where I come from you would'n't dare talk like that."Believe me what was occurring is he was telling me and others to do something and I recall telling him I just was not going to do that.I suppose his mind was I was being "insolent".
finally for this post I find "mickey mouser" just that . What world does he live in,not this one,no one moved to the South after WWII after Vietnam ok. He exculdes the SW from his claim of 88% I hope he includes Texas in his Bible Belt altho it is commonly thought of as the S/W. So what has he been smoking 88%.??That leaves 12% for California,New york ,Illinois , Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,Ohio ,Indiana and Michigan.What of the rest of the states out of the Bible Belt. If you remove Texas and Florida no other Bible Belt State is in the top thirty. Enough said the Bible Belt including Texas and Florida are probably barely 30% of US population. I doubt that any of the bible states other than those 2 have ever had as many citizens in their entire State as the New York Metro Area.
Haley said his generation, what generation was standing up, were there not any of us Mississippians fighting for equal rights ? Please, MS has/had problems but to put it on HB's back is pathetic ! I expect better reporting from Rachel than this. As far as Manchester HS is concerned, would Rachel send her children to a Jackson, Mississippi public school ? Doubt it, we seek higher education, don't fault us for that.
Check out/recall Haley Barbour's interview with Candy Crowley on CNN Sunday State of the Union show earlier this year April 11 2010 when he states that the subject of slavery in today's politics amounts to 'trying to make a big deal out of something doesn't amount to diddly". Real real scary interview. Spine-chiling interview when reading the transcripts makes it even worse. Please link to the interview on CNN.
My family moved to a small town outside of Orlando, Fl. in 1967. I had attended grade school in Seattle, Washington. When I saw the signs for blacks and whites on bathrooms and water fountains, I thought I had been transported to another planet. I will carry the emotional scars from being bullied and beat up until the day I die. I made the fatal error of befriending the only three black kids who were in the 7th grade class that year. Full disclosure, I'm considered Caucasian but have Creole ancestors from Louisiana.
Haley is serious when he says he went to an integrated school; 2 black folk in a school of 5,000 is his idea of an integrated school.
While I am usually a Rachel Maddowite, I was surprised to hear her say that she had "fact-checked" and was absolutely sure that no Mississippi high school was integrated in the 60s.
I'm not sure exactly HOW many blacks were there, but I know for a fact that my high school in Gulfport, MS was integrated in the late 60s. Furthermore, the hatred that was so infamous to the rest of the nation never seemed to rear its ugly head on the coast. I lived in a racially-mixed neighborhood and we all got along well, as far as I can remember.
Having said that, I am embarrassed to have HB as a representative of my state. His bungling of the BP situation was appalling.
Ms Maddow has never let accuracy get in the way of her "reporting." I graduated from a fully integrated Mississippi HS in 1968, and there were other cities that were ahead of mine.
My husband went to the same high school as Haley, but two years later, and the school was segregated until his senior year in 1967/68. JoAnne Prichard Morris was one of his teachers. Mrs. Morris is the widow of author Willie Morris, a Yazoo City native who wrote about the integration of YC schools in his book "Yazoo". I highly recommend reading Willie's books.
I'm turning off comments and going to bed.