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195 THINGS TO BE DONE As the Community Development Foundation worked to recruit more small and medium-sized industries to Northeast Mississippi, a huge liability became apparent: the area’s roads. The two well-traveled highways that intersected in Tupelo, the north–south U.S. 45 and the east–west U.S. 78, were both narrow two-lane roads that meandered through the small towns speckling the land. Cars, waiting for a chance to pass, backed up behind slow-moving trucks laboring over hills.Although bypasses skirted a few of the larger towns,much of the travel was stop-and-go along store-lined main streets with angle-in parking for the locals. The two highways were woefully inadequate to serve the shipping needs of the area’s burgeoning industries,much less make it easy for casual and business visitors to reach Tupelo. By contrast, new interstate highways ran through Jackson, the state capital, and through Meridian and Hattiesburg, the major cities in the southeastern part of the state.When it came to new highway construction, Northeast Mississippi, which never had much clout with the state legislature, was ignored. In early 1971, McLean decided that the roads needed improving, and he gathered a group of influential leaders to do just that. The result was a new group with the catchy name of Highways: Our Pressing Emergency, or HOPE, to lobby the state into building four-lane roads in areas not served by the interstates . While his attention in the past had been locked on Northeast Mississippi , this time McLean and the other HOPE organizers realized that if they had any chance of succeeding in the state legislature, they needed a wider base of support.McLean,who served as the HOPE chairman,led the way in rallying business and government officials from around the state to push for a major road program. By late June,he had amassed enough support to charter eight Greyhound buses that carried supporters to the steps of the state capitol, where they were joined by other supporters, some eight hundred people in all, to lobby 11 196 Things to Be Done the legislature for highway action. The legislators were impressed but made no promises.1 HOPE kept up the pressure. McLean gave speeches, wrote letters, and made personal visits to people whose support he wanted.Typically he emphasized the future. In August, for example, he wrote to E. G. “Cotton” Sellers, publisher of the George County Times in the far southern part of the state, who had agreed to coordinate efforts there.2 “HOPE is committed to the proposition of encouraging the Governor, the Legislature and the Highway Commission to put into operation a major highway construction program that will adequately serve the people of Mississippi in the years ahead,” McLean wrote.“This cannot be done in four or even in eight years. But it should be accomplished in the next ten to fifteen years.”He noted that HOPE was not involved in the details of routes and finances but would leave that up to local leaders and politicians—in Tupelo,Jack Reed headed the Lee County Committee.“I appreciate your willingness to serve as Chairman of George County,” McLean wrote to Sellers.“I hope and believe that by united effort we can accomplish our goal of reducing traffic deaths and accidents and increasing industrial, commercial and tourist growth.” McLean was so involved in his lobbying in Jackson that the frequent 175mile one-way trip from Tupelo became a serious waste of time.He and Keirsey rented an apartment in Jackson, where he worked on the highway program four days a week. On Fridays, he and Keirsey returned to Tupelo, where he met briefly with Journal editor Harry Rutherford and business manager Bill Stroud. On Saturday mornings he worked with his secretary, Johnnie Kelso, to handle the correspondence. He and Keirsey returned to Jackson on Sunday after church. They kept the Jackson apartment for more than six months and used it as a base while he rallied support for the highway program. He recalled the effort involved: My wife drove me all over the state, and we spoke and did everything humanly possible.We called on every major group in the state of Mississippi to actively work for this objective, not for Northeast Mississippi or Jackson or the Gulf Coast or the Delta or Southwest Mississippi, but for the state of Mississippi. . . .And on that theme, we got the...

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