Party of Lincoln?
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AMILE WILSON
mary contest for lieutenant governor. in and wave a magic wand to fix everything “I don’t think the Republicans are go- any more than we were.” ing to be quite as lock stepped as they were Maybe it was holiday spirit, but under Haley (Barbour) members of both parbecause he did all their ties said in December thinking for them for that enough common eight years,” Holland ground exists to do the told the JFP. hard work of running Gunn and what his the state without being role will be is the bigger disagreeable. question mark. “The state of MisMartinson called sissippi has been here him the leader of the a long time. We have House conservative periods where things caucus. “Philip is a very go well and periods even-tempered, mild where things don’t go Bay St. Louis Democrat David man, but he’s got a back- Baria served in the state Senate so well. The majority bone of steel,” she said. but ran successfully for a House of the members will be “He’s quiet, but I don’t seat in the 2011 election. Despite Republicans and that’s think he will rule as an his party losing control of the fine; they won the elecHouse, he doesn’t regret the autocrat. I think he’ll be decision, saying that he’s in no tion. I’m sure they’ll do more like a moderator. worse position than he was under whatever they think is Now, he’s not a moder- the GOP-ruled Senate. the right thing to do,” ate person—don’t get Brown said. me mistaken on that.” Baria, who said evWith majorities in both houses and the eryone at the Capitol wants to create jobs governor’s mansion, it’s safe to assume that in the state and see Mississippi prosper reRepublicans have an opportunity to impose gardless of party identification, put it more whatever vision of Mississippi they want. plainly: “We probably won’t be able to agree “I’m an optimist; I look to be pleason what the problems are,” Rep. Brown antly surprised.” said. “They’re not going to be able to come Comment at www.jfp.ms.
Lessons from the Past
by Donna Ladd
T
hink it’s strange that the now-lilywhite Republican Party was the choice of freed slaves in the 19th century? It’s simple, really: It was a very different Republican Party. The then-pro-slavery and segregationist Democratic Party (then called “Dixiecrats” in the South) basically switched parties with Republicans in the 1960s after conservative Barry Goldwater led the national Republican Party away from supporting issues considered friendly to African Americans, attracting former white Democrats who were disenchanted with their national party’s support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As then-President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, put down his pen after signing the legislation, he turned to his two aides, Bill Moyers and Jack Valenti, and said, “We have lost the South for a generation.” In essence, the Party of Lincoln became the Party of Strom. (Strom Thurmond was the segregationist leader of the Dixiecrats.) To his credit, President Johnson signed the act anyway, making segregation and Jim Crow laws unconstitutional in schools, the workplace and facilities that serve the public, and prohibiting unfair and unequal voter-registration requirements used to keep African Americans from voting. In the years following, first Richard
Nixon and then Ronald Reagan employed what is now known as the “southern strategy” to get white southerners to vote for Republicans based on not-so-veiled racism such as (inaccurate) rhetoric about “welfare mothers” and Willie Horton. Political strategists Haley Barbour and Lee Atwater are famous for perfecting the strategy for Republican candidates. In 2005, then-Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman famously apologized to the NAACP at its national convention for trying to lure white voters by exploiting racist beliefs. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization,” Mehlman said. “I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.” Sadly, many candidates continue the practice of wink-wink racism to this day, by campaigning against “welfare mothers” and (presumably black) teenage mothers and in support of potentially discriminatory and costly voter-identification laws, despite overwhelming evidence that it is excessive and unneeded regulation. This continued use of the southern race strategy Mehlman apologized for perhaps explains the GOP’s ongoing challenge to diversify its ranks.
Republicans have not controlled the Mississippi House since Reconstruction. And they were very different Republicans.
by R.L. Nave
January 4 - 10, 2012
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because he was a Democrat. called the Provincial Freeman. “In the organization of the Later, Shadd moved to Vicksburg, House, the contest was not between Miss., winning a seat in the House in white and colored but between Dem1871 and serving until 1876 when ocrats and Republicans. No one had Democrats wrested control of the been elected, at least on the RepubliLegislature. That same year, Democan side, because he was a white man crats redistricted Lynch out of his or because he was a colored man but congressional seat as well. because he was a Republican,” Lynch After Reconstruction, Lynch went wrote in his memoir. on to serve as Republican State ExIn 1871, Lynch was tasked with ecutive Committee chairman and as reapportioning the state’s six congresa delegate to the Republican National sional districts. He faced two options. Convention. In 1884, Lynch became The first was to make six Republican the first African American to deliver districts but with his party having only the keynote address at a major party’s slim majorities in two. The other opnominating convention, and he later John R. Lynch was born into tion, which he eventually favored, was slavery and served as one of the traveled the world as an officer in the to make five Republican districts and last Republican House speakers U.S. Army. concede one to Democrats. Later in life, Lynch became disenin Mississippi before Democrats His time as speaker was brief. assumed control of the body and chanted with his once-loved RepubliAfter Lynch ran successfully for Con- held it for more than a century. Isaac can Party. Of his disappointment, he gress, another African American Re- D. Shadd (not pictured), also African wrote: “The author is of the opinion publican, Isaac D. Shadd, became American, replaced Lynch as a that a large majority of the colored Speaker of the House. speaker. Americans will affiliate in national Little about Shadd’s life, much elections with the Republican party less his time in the Legislature, is known. Born in Delaware, when that party will again assume the championship of huShadd and his sister, Mary, immigrated to Ontario, Canada, man rights regardless of race or color.” sometime between 1850 and 1851 around the time ConLynch died in 1939 in Chicago; Shadd in 1896, regress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. portedly in Greenville. Together, the siblings ran an antislavery newspaper Comment at www.jfp.ms. PUBLIC DOMAIN
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hen Republican John R. Lynch won a seat in the Mississippi House, the Legislature had a lot of important rebuilding to do after the Civil War, including schools and other public buildings. In fact, state government needed to entirely reconstruct and reorganize itself. “To accomplish these things, money was required. There was none in the treasury. There was no cash available even to pay the ordinary expenses of government,” Lynch wrote in “Reminiscences of an Active Life,” his memoir, available at the Leland Speed Library at Mississippi College. Born in 1847 to a white father and mixed-race slave mother in Louisiana, Lynch managed a photography business in Natchez. His first education came as a result of eavesdropping on lessons taught at the all-white school across the alley from his shop. In April 1869, Gov. Adelbert Ames appointed Lynch justice of the peace; he was 21. The same year, Lynch became the youngest House speaker and the first black man to hold the leadership post. Even as a Republican in a state that the party of Lincoln controlled in the years after the war, Lynch’s nomination for the speakership was far from a sure thing. In “Reminiscences,” Lynch recounts how several members of his caucus refused to support his speakership. It took several days and a personal plea from Republican former Gov. James Alcorn, who by then was serving in the U.S. Senate, to break the deadlock. The fracas did not embitter Lynch, who remained a staunch loyalist through his life. He reportedly later declined to serve in the Cabinet of President Grover Cleveland