
          Changing of the Era in Mississippi  ...A Southern
Tragedy
          By Williams, EdEd Williams
          Vol. 10, No. 3, 1988, p. 10
          
          I remember Ross Barnett as a wonderful phrase-maker. In those more
trusting days, nobody thought that he might just be good at delivering
phrases made by witty writers, as John Kennedy was then and Ronald
Reagan is now.
          Barnett was governor of Mississippi when I was a student at Ole
Miss in the early 1960s. I can see him now, standing on tiptoes behind
a lectern, head back, right arm stretched skyward, poised to swoop
like a diving hawk as he pounded home his point. Even after he was out
of office, he continued to give speeches around the state, talking
about Teddy Kennedy ("that grrrrrreat driver, that grrrrrreat
swimmer") or the meddlesome federal_government.
          I still get a lot of laughs telling stories about ol' Ross. There
was the time, for instance, when some Parchman prison trustys assigned
as servants at the governor's mansion took off to Arkansas on an
unauthorized trip that they obviously hoped would be one-way. Maybe
they took the governor's silver with them; I can't recall.
          Ross's comment: "If you can't trust a trusty, who can you
trust?"
          Then there was the time Ross had flown to make a campaign speech in
the Delta. He got out of the small plane and walked into the
propeller, which was, thank heavens, rotating slowly. When he came to
in the hospital, Ross said he had learned that "the front end of an
airplane is like the back end of a mule"--that is, you've got to
watch both of them.
          The islands of Quemoy and Matsu, off the China coast, figured in
one of the debates between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon during the
1960 presidential campaign. The islands were controlled by the Chinese
anti-communists in exile on Taiwan, and the mainland Chinese bombarded
them during the late '50s and occasionally in 1960.
          Statehouse reporters asked ol' Ross what he would do about Quemoy
and Matsu. "I'd appoint 'em to the Game and Fish Commission,"
he said.
          Ross Barnett died recently at the age of 89. He had been a trial
lawyer and a successful one, winning huge (for a poor state) verdicts
in damage suits against power companies and other opponents with deep
pockets. A friend of mine concluded that Barnett, the shrewd lawyer,
had played the dumb ol' country boy before so many juries that he had
finally become a dumb ol' country boy.
          I don't know whether that was true, but I know that when he had a
chance to lead Mississippi into a better future he chose instead to
embrace the bitter past.
          People can sit around all night telling Ross Barnett stories and
leave the impression that he was at worst a goodhearted, amiable
buffoon, but that's only part of the story. He was also a committed
racist. He believed that blacks were inferior, that segregation was
the will of God as well as the law of Mississippi. His rabble-rousing
resistance to the idea that the Constitution applied in Mississippi
provoked a bloody insurrection on the Ole Miss campus when federal
officials tried to enroll James Meredith. Two people died in the
riot. The next day, federal troops occupied the campus to end what I
have always considered the last battle of the Civil_War.
          Barnett was a pleasant companion and in some ways a good and caring
man. But he was an eager servant of the force that for centuries
poisoned his region--racism.
          Perhaps it seems unfair to blame political leaders such as Barnett,
Orval Faubus of Arkansas and George_Wallace of Alabama for reflecting
the passions and prejudices of their time. To me, that is no
defense. One measurement of excellence in political leaders is how
well they grasp the important opportunities and help shape their
times.
          Remember, Ross Barnett was governor of Mississippi at the same time
Terry Sanford was governor of North_Carolina. The difference in the
two men says a lot about the differences in the two states.
          
            Ed Williams is editor of the Charlotte
Observer's editorial pages, from which this article is
reprinted.
          
        
