Mississippi Sorrows by Joseph Bosco

December 13, 2002

Mississippi Sorrows

BY JOSEPH BOSCO

(Xiamen, P.R. China) I wish I could simply be angry at Trent Lott. It should be easy enough. I have been angry at Trent for most of my life, the first couple of decades of which were spent growing up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast way too close to that dangerous neat-freak and everything he believes in. While my house and his house fronted onto the same warm, rich waters of the Gulf of Mexico, we weren't next door neighbors. That dubious distinction belonged to my uncle; and still does, whenever Mr. Lott returns to Pascagoula, Mississippi from his benighted labors in Washington.

No, I have an overwhelming sense of sadness rather than my usual anger at Trent Lott because of all the Mississippians everywhere who despise racism and who had, until Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday, almost quit being ashamed when asked that most basic conversational question: Where are you from?

Believe it or not, there were more than a few native white civil rights activists in Mississippi during those old days Mr. Lott is so nostalgic for. Nowhere near a majority, surely; sadly not even a significant vocal minority. The fear of lethal retaliation was too real. It must never be forgotten that people died in the name of those "Dixiecrats" for which Strom Thurmond was the standard bearer and over which Trent Lott waxed so yearningly. For hundreds of blacks—and a number of whites—the "Mississippi way of life" was maiming, mutilation and murder, and it wasn't just "52 years" ago either. Trent knows this as well as I do, because we most certainly weren't children when it was still routinely happening! But, still, there were plenty of us who were more ashamed than afraid and we tried to fight Trent and his cowardly majority.

Yet even when our side finally won—at least within the institutions of the Republic, if not in the majority of its hearts and souls—we saw in Northerner's eyes that the stigma of being "from Mississippi" was still too palpable to attempt an explanation about "good Mississippians." Some of us actually hid from it. I worked hard to lose my Mississippi accent when I lived in New York City during the 70's. For those who knew the truth I used the excuse first of being a theatre major, and then a working stage actor, for the affected, stilted dialect I foisted off on the world. I also started saying I was from New Orleans instead of Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Of course, young Trent didn't hide anything and he was going places fast by toadying to and parroting some of the most notorious segregationists of that blighted era. So well did he booster the grand old cause that in short order one of the champion racists of all times, Congressman William Colmer, mentored the right-thinking young Trent right into the seat he'd been holding onto until just the right young bigot came along.

Soon my anger towards this "friend of the family" became more personal and focused. With great embarrassment for my district and State, I watched our Congressman cry out the actual innocence of Richard Nixon on national TV only moments before he resigned, waved wanly, and then boarded that waiting helicopter for his final ride into infamy, leaving a sputtering, stuttering Trent Lott speaking his empty trash to an empty house. And once again the world saw Mississippians as not only morally degenerate, but every bit as ignorant as the stereotypical slurs said we were.

So, when Congressman Lott was running for re-election in 1974 virtually unopposed, and certain principled people asked if I would manage the campaign of the first woman to ever run for national office from Mississippi—against Trent—I couldn't say yes fast enough. I didn't do so because I thought there was any chance of winning. That we, or anyone else, had no chance of defeating a racist incumbent holding that particular seat was so obvious that the Mississippi Democratic Party chose not to waste its time or resources. This did not deter a brave young school teacher, Claudia Mertz, and a few good citizens who believed that at least Lott should be forced to defend his voting record. Perhaps we could even make him spend some Republican campaign money.

While we received a tacit nod from the Mississippi Democratic Party, that was all; basically an acknowledgment that Ms. Mertz was running as a Democrat. No money. No volunteers. No politicos making appearances. So with what funds we could raise amongst a small but dedicated group, I was able to load up my car with Ms. Mertz, the printed campaign material we could afford, and gasoline and start touring Southeast Mississippi. We went to every radio station that would let us in the door. Which wasn't many, since very few wished to displease their constituency—white folks who knew only that Lott was against colored folks, and all women folk in politics. But we did get into some, and we got into all stations that had predominately black audiences. And we kept doing it, stopping to talk to every gathering of people we could find who would listen to us without pointing shotguns.

Then came a godsend. A generous white man with vision gave us enough money to buy TV time! We shot a couple of clever spots and things got interesting. Too interesting for Trent; he had counted on not having to spend a dime to stay on the public dole uttering his old-time meanness. His strategy? Very Republican—he cornered my father at a cocktail party at my uncle's house, jabbed his index finger towards his chest and barked: "Frank! You'd best tell that boy of yours to cut this nonsense out—I'm startin' to get mad, and he's gonna get himself into a bunch of trouble!"

My wonderful father, long deceased now, a very principled man of grace and conscience stared at that jabbing finger until it withered back to its cowardly place and answered: "Trent, Joe's a grown man and doesn't ask for my advice much anymore. But, if he did, I would tell him to keep up the good work." Trent stammered and my uncle glared at his older, wiser brother.

Claudia Mertz lost the election, but it wasn't the complete landslide Trent had counted on and he did have to spend Republican dollars. My father wasn't asked back to his brother's house as often as before. But he was proud of me; and I was proud of him. Perhaps as important, I started the long process of overcoming my shame at being a Mississippian.

I was also a good deal more angry with Trent Lott. And I have stayed angry with him—futilely so, to be sure—as he climbed higher and higher up the political and public ladder. And every minute, hour, and day of that climb he has never changed the racism and xenophobia that is at the heart of him and his brethren. His constituents know that—both the racists and the good people of Mississippi. That is why he will always be re-elected no matter how much he periodically embarrasses Mississippi; because, to our great shame, there are still more white Mississippians who believe what he believes and he knows that.

Which is why he could eat Jim Crow while also being defiant, even brazen as he did his patented verbal wink-wink shorthand to his arch supporters at his Friday the 13th press conference at the LaFont Inn in Pascagoula, Mississippi. This is the same LaFont Inn where too many years ago I attended my junior and senior proms—all white affairs, of course. Neither Trent nor I ever went to school with black kids; the difference is he thought that was a good idea. He still does, no matter what he says publicly.

This overwhelming sense of sadness, this darkness hanging on me like a shroud this past week, even here in China, is because no matter what the political consequences will be, whether Trent Lott steps down from his Majority Leadership position or not, many Mississippians are again faced with the choice of being ashamed or lying when asked: Where are you from?

You see, even my Chinese students and colleagues give me "that look" when I tell them where I am from in America. They know what Mississippi is most famous for—and to our great shame it is not William Faulkner, Leontyne Price, Tennessee Williams, or Mississippi John Hurt.

Joseph Bosco is an author and journalist who is currently a Visiting Professor of Literature at Xiamen University, P.R. China.