MISSISSIPPI

By SYLVESTER MONROE

Some are calling the June 3 mayoral election in Jackson, Miss., a win-win situation. Either way, the last of the old civil rights cities will have as mayor its first black or its first woman. The wonder is that just a month ago, neither seemed possible. MAYOR KANE DITTO was the easy favorite to win a third term, but in a six-way race, the white two-term incumbent was trounced by HARVEY JOHNSON, a 50-year-old black urban planner. Johnson must now defeat G.O.P. primary winner CHARLOTTE REEVES. (A third and distant candidate is independent Ivory Phillips, a black woman.) The other wonder of this election is that though Jackson has a black majority, race has not been a dominant factor. Reeves, a white woman, handily defeated black civil rights activist James Meredith in the G.O.P. primary. Jackson voters seemed less concerned about color than about rising crime and other problems.

--By Sylvester Monroe