2015/9/22-Mississippi House Speaker Phillip Gunn sent a strong message to voters who will not vote Republican.  The message: You’re Out.

“When it comes to leadership positions (in the Mississippi Legislature), who do we pick?  We’ll be picking people who share our values, who want to move to the same direction we want to go, so we pull out the roster from our team and we pick leaders from that list,” Gunn told a crowd at the Neshoba County fair in July.  “Your man, because he’s a Democrat, is not on that list, so your district has no influence in the direction of this state.  Your district has no influence in shaping policy.  Your district has no leadership role because you have chosen to send a Democrat.”

Gunn’s statement takes on a racial component in Mississippi where the population votes heavily based upon race.  While there are many white Democrats in the state, almost all blacks vote exclusively Democratic.  Critics say his announcement is a proclamation to rob blacks of a voice in a manner comparable to the Jim Crow years.

“I can’t say I haven’t heard worse, but it reminds me of what I’m used to,” said Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood.  “He’s talking about locking out the most loyal people in the U.S.  In a state with 3 million people and one-third being black, you paint yourself into a corner with statements like this.  We need to be open-minded to accept people.”

Gunn, at the time, was being confronted by a crowd of angry white voters hostile to the idea of removing the Confederate battle emblem from the canton corner of the Mississippi flag.  Critics called for state leaders to remove the Southern Cross — long a symbol of segregation and apartheid in Mississippi — in the aftermath of the horrific massacre of nine black church patrons in South Carolina by a white supremacist.

The Republican speaker, who had stated earlier that he supported updating the flag, drummed up his segregationist credentials by promising to remove Democrats — and therefore black politicians — from positions of power in the upcoming legislative session.

“If you want your district to be in the game, if you want to have influence on shaping policy in this state, if you want to have a role in the leadership of this state, then you need to vote Republican. … if you don’t have a Republican as your representative right now, you need to get one as fast as you can and send him to Jackson,” Gunn said.

However, critics say blacks will not easily vote Republican just to get a black face at Gunn’s table because state Republicans traditionally stand against many of the progressive ideas that make up the foundation of black ideals, including a higher minimum wage, strong health-care laws, reliable childcare and safe family planning.

Aside from the countless political differences, many Mississippi blacks also can’t bear to vote for a political party that has become the new home for segregationist Dixiecrats — as demonstrated by the historic party switch of infamous segregationist South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, who switched parties in 1964 because of his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Segregationists continued to hijack the Republican Party throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s, to the point where today the GOP is the only major political party running candidates willing to repeal 14^th Amendment citizenship status to people born in the U.S.

Rep. Earle Banks, who is a member of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, said Gunn’s statements sound revoltingly familiar.

“It’s the same exclusionary tactics of the Jim Crow years, except now it’s couched in partisan politics to keep it legal,” Banks said.  “It was the most horrible speech I’ve ever heard.  He’s essentially announced that he’s locking out the Delta and all the black representatives coming from there.  I mean, what was he thinking?  I’ve never heard any of those speeches from (former speakers) Tim Ford or Billy McCoy.  It’s not all about the benefit of Mississippi anymore.  He’s all about the benefit of Republicans now.”

Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald, director of the Children’s Defense Fund’s Southern Regional Office, said she was not surprised by Gunn’s promise, and said she believed he knew his exclusionary tactic would overtly jettison black legislators.

“It is their nature to keep a certain people down, and that certain people happen to be the base of the Democratic Party,” Fitzgerald said.  “When Gunn says he’s not allowing us at the table, he definitely knows he’s pointing his finger at me and my children.”

Fitzgerald said the Mississippi GOP was insulated enough now by a significant majority of white votes to divulge its true nature.

“That’s what the Republican Party has been stacking itself up to do ever since reapportionment, and now I think that they have gotten so emboldened that they can say what’s in their DNA, and their DNA is all about exclusion,” Fitzgerald said.

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Source: NAACP Staff