Yazoo: Integration in a Deep-Southern Town

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9 THE DECELLS Herman DeCell is the state senator from Yazoo, Sharkey, and Issaquena Counties. In 1967, he was elected by about 350 votes out of 12,000, and he concedes that his active stand on behalf of the public schools and his generally moderate position on race may hurt him when he comes up again in '71. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, a pleasant and thoughtful man in his forties, full of life's vicissitudes as an intellectual in the tough arena, but also aware of the need for good enjoyment and civil talk. He has deliberated a great deal about politics and social change and, like his wife, is passionately devoted to making Yazoo a better place. His wife, Harriet, is a handsome blonde who teaches in the high school, where their daughter Alice is editor of the school paper and a leader among the liberal white students. It is rumored around town that Alice has read Soul on Ice. 51 Willie Morris There is a dinner party at their house the night before the integration deadline. 1 am straight down from New York, and the Mississippi accents all around are exceptionally warm and reassuring to one who has spent a winter in the chill East. Mississippi accents of both races are probably the most soft and tender of all the American ways of speaking, and if one does not watch it they will mesmerize you and lull the brain, so that you will listen very closely without paying attention. The DeCells are the only people in town who subscribe to the New York Times. "I thought the library subscribes," someone remarks, and Harriet replies, "Well, we give the library our copy." A couple of the nationals are there, and it is a pleasant evening, with good food and sophisticated conversation . The lines of civilization are very thin indeed, but here in this house, at the edge of the delta, these people who are involved deeply in politics and in the realities of their town have made for themselves a place of civility and grace. We speak at some length about this town which we know best, about people out of the past whom we all remember, about the intrigues and passions and foibles of fifteen years ago. The senator, who is apprehensive that an established dual school system, public and private, black and white, might become the reality here, believes there are several good reasons why Yazoo has been acting more reasonably than other delta towns. Owen 52 Yazoo Cooper's chemical plant with its six hundred employees , the enlightened local industry, is one reason. There has not been as much civil rights friction here in the past as in other places. An active white group drove out the Klan some years ago. And the weekly newspaper has been consistently responsible. "If it weren't for Bubba Mott [the editor]," Herman says, "we might have the National Guard at every desk tomorrow." The high school up to now has had about 15 per cent Negro enrollment under freedom-of-choice. Harriet describes one white teacher of somewhat conservative views "who goes on for hours about how nice her bright Negro children are and how raunchy her bad white children are." From her experience, teaching in the Negro school and the tokenly integrated white school, she believes that if all the white and black students had to be divided into three groups by testing and grades, the top group would be almost entirely white with a few exceptions, the bottom would be black with a few exceptions, but in the vast middle group there would be a strong overlap amounting to about half and half. I ask her what she has felt most strongly about what has been happening here: "I have a consciousness that small things fit together into big puzzles, and that one is responsible for one's actions and had better be ready to accept it. You get tired of getting up every day and wondering if 53 Willie Morris you're being challenged by your environment. You can live in a small town and be sorry for yourself that the world passes you by-and suddenly you realize that the world isn't passing you by at all-that it's all here. We've got a lot of friends in big cities, and they seem to be...