On the Spot

Mississippi officials feel strongly that the Northern press, through "sensationalism," has been misrepresenting the facts on segregation in their state. Last week Mississippi invited 20 small-town New England editors and publishers to come down at the state's expense to learn "the truth about what segregation is, and why." For seven days the editors toured the state as guests of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, set up by the legislature with $250,000 to protect the state's "way of life." The commission's pressagent, Hal DeCell, 32, promised "to show them whatever they want to see, because we have nothing to cover up."

Before the Yankee editors got started, Mississippi's Governor J. P. Coleman explained that segregation would continue in Mississippi "for at least the next 50 years. We don't intend to obey the Supreme Court's decision because it is not based on law." But, he assured the newsmen, "there is no tension or malice or ill will between the races. I have not heard of any trouble where [Negroes] have voted." Most Negroes do not vote, he said, because of unwillingness to pay the poll tax or failure to pass a literacy test.

As the chartered bus sped from Jackson along the historic Natchez Trace, some of the editors were surprised to find no segregation in places of business. Editor J. Clark Samuel of Massachusetts' Foxboro Reporter was struck by "fine colored schools" and the sight of Negroes and whites "living in compatibility." Publisher John C. Bond of Massachusetts' Rockland Standard noted "a real effort to lift the level of the Negro educationally."

But the editors found that Mississippi did not live entirely up to Governor Coleman's billing. Items: P:Mound Bayou, the biggest (pop. 1,350) all-Negro town in the state, votes in every election, Vice Mayor I. E. Edwards said, but the ballots are never counted by election officials at the county seat.

P:In some areas, said Mound Bayou's Postmaster C. V. Thurmond, it "would be suicide for a Negro" even to attempt to vote. One minister who came to Itta Bena (pop. 1,725) to meet the editors said that when he had voted, his house was burned. P:In Cleveland (pop. 6,747) wealthy Attorney Ben Mitchell earnestly told the group: "The Negroes are just naturally and inherently inferior to white people."

P:In Natchez (pop. 22,740) Negro leaders reported that the White Citizens' Councils have added to segregation practices. "We used to all pay taxes at the same window," said one, "but now they have one marked colored and the other white."

Midway through the tour, Editor Paul Cummings Jr. of New Hampshire's Peterborough Transcript told a Southern colleague: "I wasn't sure what to believe before I made the trip. Now I find the worst is true. We don't condemn you for practicing segregation. What we can't understand is how a people can be denied the right to vote in the U.S. To me this is unbelievable. I just couldn't believe it until I came down here and heard it first hand." Then Editor Cummings turned to Pressagent DeCell, who also edits a weekly, and demanded: "Why did you people do this? Bring all of us down here, I mean. Doesn't it just show you up?"

"We just wanted to let you see for yourselves that Mississippians are not like the pictures painted by some Northern publications," replied DeCell.

"But we've only found out that basically those stories we read are true," said

Cummings. "Oh, they are sensationalized, but according to what we were told today, they are basically true."

As the end of the tour approached, a few of the New Englanders, like Editor Samuel, thought that "there will never be integration, Mississippi's way of life will remain as it is." But most of the editors felt that segregation was doomed even in Mississippi--though many believed that it might well linger as long as Governor Coleman's 50 years. Said Editor Cummings: "Equal justice must come. Our system makes no allowance for 47 states and Mississippi."

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