The hotheads and traitors in control of South Carolina, seceded on December 20, 1860, soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Although Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee didn't follow suit until the following spring, the state that jumped to follow South Carolina's lead first was Mississippi-- where Lincoln hadn't even been on the ballot-- seceding January 9, 1861. Mississippi was one of the 7 original states to form the Confederacy. The government of Mississippi issued a proclamation explaining why it had decided to secede: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth." It claimed the U.S. of "advocated negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst." The entire document is about Mississippi's devotion to slavery.The institution of slavery was formally abolished by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution after it was ratified by Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia in December 1865. The same week those 3 states voted to ratify, Mississippi rejected the 13th Amendment (December 5, 1865). 130 years later-- on March 16, 1995-- Mississippi's legislature finally certified the 13th Amendment. Most studies of racial prejudice and bigotry in the U.S., find Mississippi in the #1 or #2 spot. The 1988 Academy Award winning film, Mississippi Burning is hardly a work of fiction-- and hardly ancient history. Mississippi's political establishment is riven with KKK sympathizers. Mississippi's White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, widely considered the most militant and the most violent of all the KKK groups tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center, started up in the 1960s and are still active all over the state. They're the Mississippi Burning fellas. KKK supporter Chris McDaniel nearly unseated Thad Cochran-- first elected in 1978-- garnering 184,815 votes to Cochran's 191,508 in the primary runoff, although McDaniel and his supporters made a reasonable case that he did in fact win and that Cochran is only still in office because of widespread, systematic voter fraud. He has refused to concede.Mississippi's Republican Establishment is an unapologetically racist bastion, even if they don't all go to work in sheets with pillowcases over their heads. Kay Steiger, writing for ThinkProgress Sunday, focused on one state Rep. Gene Alday, former mayor of Walls in DeSoto County. Alday has been in the news lately because, like so many Republicans, he opposes funding public education. He's just more forthright than many of them about why.
[Alday] said he opposed putting more money into elementary schools because he came from a town where “all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”In an interview with the Clarion-Ledger regarding education funding, state Rep. Gene Alday (R) stated his opposition to a push to increase funding to improve elementary school reading scores. Alday implied that increasing education funding for children in black families would be pointless.Alday continued, saying that when he was mayor of Walls, MS, that the times he’d gone to the emergency room had taken a long time. “I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots,” he told the newspaper.
Monday Rep. Alday informed the Clarion-Ledger that he's not a racist. "I'm not a bad person, and that makes me look like an evil person. I didn't do anything wrong. The guy made me look like a fool."Mississippi's Republican Governor Phil Bryant was concerned that people would connect Alday's remarks with other Republicans and with Mississippi in general. He said that "Alday is solely responsible for his remarks. I strongly reject his comments condemning any Mississippian because of their race. Those day are long past." People all over the state are calling on Alday to retire.UPDATE: Lucky for Ramarni Wildred-- and mankind-- this 11 year old doesn't live in MississippiRamarni Wildred has a higher IQ than Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Albert Einstein. He plans to study at Oxford and become an astrophysicist. His prospects would be a lot dimmer if he lived under an inherently oppressive, racist government, like Mississippi's.
