Reconstituting Whiteness: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission

3. "The True Facts about Segregation": Denial and the Public Relations Campaign

63 Chapter 3 “The True Facts about Segregation” Denial and the Public Relations Campaign From 1956 to 1968, the MSSC invested heavily in its public relations program, which was most intensely developed under the leadership of Erle Johnston, who initially joined the organization as public relations director in 1960. The intent of the program was to use public relations strategies to win non-southern sympathy following the Brown decision and to soothe in-state white audiences following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Most strategies were part of the public discourse, as they were available both to direct audiences (the intended recipients of any mailings or speeches) and to peripheral audiences (those who could learn about materials via press coverage or widespread distribution). Even in later years when speeches were given to all-white audiences in Mississippi, their content was covered in widely available newspapers . Backstage strategies reveal how these documents were constructed and provide insight into how identity work was developed for elites as consumers of their own performance. Intended audiences determined how the MSSC presented its “message from Mississippi,” but the tools used to construct the message reflected the particular relational context of the MSSC from 1956–1963. Initially, under Coleman’s administration, the MSSC was resistant to federal intervention, although its alliance with the Citizens’ Council was strained by Coleman’s comparatively moderate defense of segregation. 64 Reconstituting Whiteness public relations efforts under the Coleman administration Although investigator Zack Van Landingham spoke more than twenty times to Mississippi audiences about the MSSC’s work during the Coleman administration, the organization mainly directed its message toward non-southern audiences. As Governor James P. Coleman wryly noted, the goal was to show northerners that Mississippi “doesn’t fry Negroes and eat them for breakfast.”1 Walter Sillers, a Mississippi legislator and a member of the MSSC board and the Citizens’ Council, explained that the “battle” for Mississippi “must be won in 31 states north of the Mason and Dixon line.”2 Significantly, the MSSC considered its main opponent to be not the civil rights movement but the federal government. The MSSC sought audiences in the North and other parts of the country to convince them that segregation was a necessary and just means of organizing Mississippi society. It argued that other states should respect Mississippi ’s right to practice segregation, and that growing federal decisions against it should be viewed as signs of constitutional decay. The Tenth Amendment, which guaranteed states’ rights via federalism, was under attack. This emphasis dominated the embryonic public relations program during the Coleman years, corresponding with Coleman’s own ideology of “practical segregation” and commitment to the principles of federalism. In its first year and a half, the MSSC sent more than 200,000 mailings to audiences outside the South, targeting radio and television stations, newspapers, and legislators. Hal DeCell, the public relations director, and Ney Gore, the MSSC director, tried to initiate a coordinated public relations program throughout the South. DeCell also worked to make contacts in multiple media outlets throughout the country, having the most success with newspaper publishers. He claimed that the commission had “achieved a reputation among national communications media of being factual and fair,” and that he was consulted by all kind of publications, including Ebony and Jet magazines.3 Repeatedly, the MSSC emphasized how fair and balanced its public relations program was, soliciting other voices to convey just how fair and balanced segregation was. This strategy, and the resultant distribution of materials written by northerners and conservative blacks, shows how other voices were enlisted to lend legitimacy to the MSSC’s denial of racial inequality, black unrest, and white complicity. One of the first acts of DeCell, also a newspaper publisher, was to invite newspaper editors from the northeastern United States to Mississippi. “The True Facts about Segregation” 65 As ambassador for the state’s defense of segregation, DeCell felt that these men should see for themselves how well segregation worked in Mississippi . Once they understood the state’s desire to protect its right to segregate , they could share this enlightened view with audiences throughout the Northeast. In October 1956, twenty editors toured the state at the expense of the MSSC and, according to their subsequent articles, were given fairly free reign to talk with whomever they liked. As a result of this trip, the MSSC published a thirty...