End Near for Racist Politics in Mississippi?
JACKSON — When U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith took the microphone on a chilly Nov. 2 in Tupelo, Miss., she could not possibly have known what lay ahead for her campaign. Wearing a long coat, she stood in front of a statue of Elvis Presley when she told the crowd that if her friend Colin Hutchinson "invited me to a public hanging, I would be on the front row."
The two reporters in the audience—which included Wayne Hereford, an African American broadcast reporter for WTVA—did not seem to think a whole lot of the comment at the time.
Maybe it was a bit crude or "frontier bravado," Tupelo's Daily Journal reporter Caleb Bedillion would later write in a mea culpa column, but "reporting these remarks didn't occur to me."
"More bluntly put, however, I heard what I heard because I am white."
Read more: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/nov/28/end-near-racist-politics-mississippi/