
          An Insider's Account of Race and Politics in the Delta.
          Reviewed by Cooper, MichaelMichael Cooper
          Vol. 11, No. 6, 1989, pp. 17-19
          
          Even Mississippi by Melany Neilson (Tuscaloosa:
University of Alabama Press, 1989. xiv, pp. 199).
          Part memoir and part campaign history, Even
Mississippi is worthwhile reading for its insider's account of
race and politics in the Mississippi Delta of the early 1980s.
          Melany Neilson grew up in the turbulent wake of the civil_rights
movement, but her earliest childhood memories are surprisingly similar
to those of previous generations of white, well-to-do Southerners. She
recalls the droves of black field hands working the family cotton
plantation and lovingly remembers the family's warm-bosomed black
maids. Her father, Ed Tye, was a planter turned lawyer. The men of the
family had been lawyers and planters in the same county for several
generations.
          The Neilsons were one of the prominent families of Lexington, the
county seat of Holmes County, which is on 

the eastern edge of the flat
alluvial plain known as the Delta. Welfare, cotton, and pulpwood are
the country's economic mainstays. Three-fourths of its 23,000
residents are black.
          The civil_rights movement redrew the lines of segregation in Holmes
Country. Neilson remembers her third grade teacher, with trembling
voice, telling the class that the following year, 1968, colored
children would be coming to the school. That was the year that
Neilson, along with nearly every other white child in town, enrolled
in newly-formed Central Holmes Academy. The year 1968 was also
significant because Mississippi seated its first black legislator
since Reconstruction. He was Robert Clark from Holmes County. His
election and public school desegregation added to the tension that was
as palpable as the Delta's August heat. "Every man in town, white
and nigra," Neilson recalls her father saying, "is hating
someone for something."
          While growing up, Neilson recognized the schism between blacks and
whites, but she accepted the status quo and anticipated living her
life as a traditional belle. But her life changed dramatically while
she was a graduate student in journalism at Ole Miss when, pretty much
on impulse, she applied for a job in Robert Clark's 1982 campaign for
Congress. In Ed Tye's opinion Clark was a "good nigra," but that
didn't keep Neilson's mother from asking, "Will you have to ride in
the same car with him?"
          Despite her mother's and her own apprehensions, Neilson joined
Clark's campaign just days before the Democratic primary, a contest
against two white candidates which Clark won with an encouraging 57
percent of the vote. In the general election Clark faced Republican
Webb Franklin, and race was the dominant unspoken issue. Responding
off the record to a reporter's criticism that he was too timid with
whites, Clark replied, "A black_man reaching for a white_woman's
hand'll scare a lot of 'em. So will talking about race."
          While Clark couldn't make race an issue, his opponent could and
did, in ways subtle and not so subtle. Franklin began a stump speech
before a mixed audience with the comment, "I didn't just fall off a
watermelon truck." One of his campaign posters featured his
photograph next to one of Clark with the caption, "The choice is
yours for Congress." Part of the inspiration for this poster came
from a poll which found that a quarter of the voters didn't know Clark
was black.
          But, hearteningly, the book shows that modern-day Mississippi
politics isn't divided completely by race. At a fundraiser in a posh
home in Biloxi, Clark pressed the flesh with a crowd of successful men
and women, white and black, who contributed some $5,000 to his
campaign. In the Delta, at an all-black fund raiser where the fare was
fried catfish and hush puppies, the hat was passed and filled with
sweat-darkened dollar bills. The contributions were enthusiastic but
meager until two white farmers drove upend handed over two checks for
$500 each.
          These and other insider accounts of race_relations and politics in
the Delta make Even Mississippi interesting
reading. But readers interested in Deep South politics may be
disappointed that there is so little about Robert Clark's
fourteen-plus years in the state legislature. Neilson's summary of his
legislative career reads like a press release. Clark is a pioneer
black politician who has been a state legislator now for more than
twenty years. A book that is in part about his political aspirations
should have said more about his record.
          Another bothersome aspect of the book is that Neilson's prose
doesn't always make the reader feel the gravity of her
experiences. Much of Even Mississippi is about
the emotional trials of a young white_woman from an old Delta family
who violates deeply-rooted race, caste, class and gender taboos by
going to work for a black politician. Not long ago, such behavior
would have meant, at best, life-long ostracism. The Delta is an
insular world that few outsiders understand.
          Even Mississippi is strong, though, on
recognizing human decency and courage. Neilson's work for Clark took a
heavy toll on her family. In the dead of night they received
threatening telephone calls. Ed Tye's law practice lost
clients. Mrs. Neilson, tired of the condescension, quit the Garden
Club. Her parents had misgivings, but they didn't try to rein in their
daughter. Ed Tye even endorsed 

Clark in a television commercial.
          Despite solid victories in the primaries, Clark lost two bids for
Congress, in 1982 and 1984. Webb Franklin won both elections because
of a low turnout of black_voters and his appeals to racism and
conservatism. But in Clark's defeat there were hopeful signs for the
future.
          In 1982, Neilson was the only white staffer working for Clark. His
campaign also attracted a few white volunteers from northern
colleges. In 1984, she was one of two white staffers, and they were
aided by many volunteers, including several local whites. Having
Mississippians work for a black candidate was a significant change and
contributed to the overall pioneering effect of Clark's two
campaigns. His trail blazing probably helped Mike Espy defeat Franklin
in 1986 to become Mississippi's first black congressman in the
twentieth century.
          In its description of race_relations and politics in the Delta,
Even Mississippi provides a good sense of how slowly racial attitudes
are changing. That point is painfully clear in the book's evocative
epilogue, which describes Neilson's wedding, at which Clark was a
reluctant guest.
          On her wedding day, Neilson recalls, everything in the church, its
trappings and the guests, was glaringly white--except for Clark
standing uncomfortably in the back row, neither speaking nor being
spoken to. At the reception in the Neilson's white-columned home, he
entered the back door. The only other black_people there were the
maids. Clark chatted briefly with the police chief, met Mrs. Neilson
for the first time, and then slipped quietly out the back.
          
            MICHAEL COOPER is researching the life of Hazel Brannon
Smith, former editor and publisher of the Holmes County
Lexington Advertiser.
          
        
