
          Congressman Espy from Mississippi
          By Minor, BillBill Minor
          Vol. 8, No. 6, 1986, pp. 1-3
          
          A studious, mild-mannered Yazoo City attorney, thirty-two years
old, wrote Mississippi political history on November 4, when he became
the first black sent to the U.S. Congress from this state since
1883.
          Mike Espy, a former assistant state attorney general, was a
political unknown when he entered the Mississippi Second District race
against Rep. Webb Franklin of Greenwood, a conservative white
Republican and staunch supporter of President Reagan.
          The last black Mississippian to sit in the U.S. House was John
R. Lynch, a Reconstruction-era Republican. Espy is one of the young
breed of black Democrats who have risen in the South in the post-Civil
Rights era.
          The Second District, covering the rich Mississippi River Delta, was
created by the federal_courts as a black-majority district with
fifty-three percent black voting-age population. But the black voter
edge was based on 1980 census statistics, and current estimates place
the ratio of white to black eligible voters almost even. Twice-in 1982
and 1984-Robert Clark, a veteran black state legislator from Ebenezer,
challenged for the Second District seat, each time losing to Franklin
by one per cent of the vote. In both races, Clark got the white votes
thought necessary to win (about twelve percent of all white Democratic
ballots), but his black support fell short.
          Espy's victory--by a margin of 4,850 votes (2.3 percent of the
total)--was primarily credited to his highly organized campaign that
got out the black vote in impressive numbers, but there were several
other important contributing factors, not least among them the
disastrous farm economy in the Delta which many 

white farmers blamed
on Reagan farm policies.
          Several thousand white farmers who formerly supported Franklin are
believed to have "voted with their rumps" by staying home on election
day. However, many other white farmers deliberately went to the polls
and did something they never dreamed of doing before--they voted for a
black to represent them in Washington.
          Espy had won endorsements from influential white Democratic
politicians, among them the sheriffs of Warren (Vicksburg) and Grenada
counties. Generally, more white politicos in the district publicly
identified with Espy's campaign than they had with Clark's. Two highly
regarded young white Democratic state elected_officials, State Auditor
Ray Mabus and Secretary of State Dick Molpus, campaigned in the
district with Espy.
          Espy's $50,000 campaign deficit--small by comparison with most
major Democratic bids for Congress in recent years--was quickly erased
three weeks after the election at a thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner
sponsored by Gov. Bill Allain and Mississippi Democratic Chairman
Steve Patterson. Some of Jackson's biggest bankers and businessmen
came out to meet with Espy.
          When Clark twice failed to whip Franklin, the political wisdom
indicated that blacks would have to wait until after the next census
and another court-ordered redistricting to win the Second.
          Consequently, no "name" black politician would take on Franklin in
1986. Without fanfare, and without seeking the blessing of the black
political elders, Espy quietly gave up his job in the state attorney
-general's office and began to organize his campaign in November
1985. At first, many veteran black politicians resisted Espy. They
felt he had not worked in the vineyard during harder times. Others
were wary because he comes from a somewhat privileged background in
the black_community. (His family for years has owned a chain of
funeral homes and burial insurance companies across the Delta.)
          Eventually, most of the black political veterans warmed up to
Espy's sincere, hard-working style and helped pull him through the
Democratic primary last June over two well-financed white moderates
who aggressively sought black votes. Some, like Mayor Charles Evers of
Fayette, never came around. Evers supported Franklin, saying "I stick
with the ones in power, cause they can help me."
          From the start, many political observers underestimated Espy's
political ability because of his shy, reticient personality. Franklin
discounted the latest black threat after a July poll showed him twenty
points ahead of Espy. After that, Franklin took no more polls. For
that matter, neither did Espy, who conserved his money for his last
three-week media campaign, and to put gas in cars to get voters to the
polls.
          Espy deliberately ran a low-profile campaign through September and
early October, partly to keep down racial polarization and also to
keep his opponent guessing. Then in the stretch, he went head-to-head
with Franklin on farm policy, Social Security, drugs and any other
issue he could tie to Franklin's voting record. He held his own with
Franklin in a televised debate less than a week before the election
(by comparison, Clark, a less-polished speaker, might have been
outmatched).
          Hand-picked by no organization, Espy maintained independence in
running his campaign, in contrast with the 1984 Clark campaign which
was virtually taken over by the AFL-CIO. Nor did Espy allow the
Rev. Jesse Jackson to visit during the general election campaign, a
move that some observers believe could have resulted in last-minute
white backlash.
          In October, Espy had been taken to a National Democratic_Party Gala
in Washington as a guest of white Clarksdale attorney Walter Thompson,
a member of the Democratic National Finance Council. Espy was seated
at a table with Joseph P. Kennedy III, the Congressional successor to
Tip O'Neill. Espy and Kennedy apparently became instant friends.
          The bright young Espy shies away from historic comparisons as the
first black Mississippi Congressman in a hundred and three years, or
as a new hero of his race. He has often said, "I just want to be known
as Mike Espy, 

Mississippian."
          Whether Espy can be Mississippian and Congressman after the 1988
elections is the unanswered question from his victory in 1986. In the
election aftermath, observers debated the size of Espy's white vote
district-wide. Exact figures are unavailable because racial breakdowns
at the precinct level are unreliable in Mississippi's electron
system. Espy's own campaign people and State Democratic_Party
officials believe his white vote exceeded the twelve percent Clark is
believed to have had in the benchmark 1982 race. A spot-check of a
ninety percent white precinct in Warren County, for instance,
indicated Espy got twenty-four percent of the white vote.
          But white civil_rights activist Rims Barber of Jackson
disagreed. Using selected precincts, Barber's analysis indicates that
Espy may have gotten a smaller percentage of white votes than
Clark.
          Because of the importance of understanding the racial voting
patterns, the Joint Center for Political Studies, a black-run research
institution in Washington, is reported to be planning a comprehensive
study of the vote in each of the district's three hundred and
eighty-two precincts.
          Such analysis is especially significant in the ongoing debate over
what percentage of black eligible voters a district must have to be a
"safe" black seat. Espy's electoral margin over Franklin was
whisker-thin, and appears to have been at least partly due to white
voters staying home.
          Whatever the percentage of white crossover votes, the turnout
numbers of 1984 strongly suggest that Espy may have to get twenty
thousand more votes, black and/or white, if he is to prevail in a
re-election bid during a presidential election year.
          
            Bill Minor, a veteran observer of Mississippi politics,
lives in Jackson.
          
        
