Mississippi town breaks with its past to elect first black mayor

[SpartanDem]

James Young is just old enough to remember the era that seared his small Mississippi town of Philadelphia on to the national consciousness.

The infamous murders of three civil rights activists in 1964 laid bare the bitter racism and official complicity in the lawlessness underpinning segregation in the south, and years later prompted the film Mississippi Burning.

But the racists soon lost the struggle to prevent Philadelphia's black residents from voting and this week it resulted in exactly what old Mississippi had tried to prevent – the election of Young as the town's first African-American mayor with white votes helping deliver him victory

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/22/philadelphia-mississippi-race-segregation-mayor

[ccharles000]

1. k/r

[maddezmom]

2. did you see this video?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/05/22/mississippi.black.mayor/index.html?eref=rss_topstories#cnnSTCVideo

:hi: I had to get the kleenex box but they were good tears.

[proud patriot]

4. thanks

:hi:

[Name removed]

3. Deleted sub-thread

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[Shell Beau]

5. ????