Mississippi Black Voters Find Voice in ’92

Arthor Camphor has an eighth-grade education and a dream for a better life for his dirt-poor neighbors in this tiny town.

That hope inspired the firefighter this election year to post campaign signs and haul people to the polls.

“Most black people know the conditions we come from--the deep poverty and the ghettos,” said Camphor, whose efforts helped a black defeat an incumbent white lawmaker for a state House seat.

Camphor, who earns about minimum wage, is one of thousands of black Mississippians who found a voice this election year. Voters turned out in record numbers and put more blacks in the state Legislature.

“Things are not slowly changing. They’re rapidly changing,” Sherman Patterson says as he sits in a black Ford pickup truck at the town’s general store. “Politicians got to wake up. We need to be listened to.”

Trailers, clapboard houses and decrepit juke joints and bars line the highways in southwest Mississippi, where Pattison’s 1,000 residents live in the hills near the Mississippi River.

The poverty amid cotton fields and sawmills struck a chord in Willie Bozeman.

More than 20 years ago, Bozeman visited the state Capitol on an elementary school field trip. At the time, just one black served in the 174-member Legislature.

For two decades, Bozeman didn’t go back. One of eight children of a laborer, he worked his way through junior college and was selling insurance when politics entered his future earlier this year.

Legislative districts were redrawn as required every 10 years, and included more predominantly black districts. And in January, Bozeman will be one of 17 new black lawmakers to take seats in the Legislature.

Bozeman, 31, said his district is like a backward “S,” picking up black areas in three counties. Much of the area is rural and poor.

“They didn’t know what a representative was. Some didn’t even know they could vote for a representative,” Bozeman said. “It’s a real bad feeling to see people who live that way.”

One of his biggest campaigners, he said, was his father, Morris, who often talks about the civil rights movement and days when blacks weren’t allowed to vote.

“Politics is a matter of power, and I think for the first time since Reconstruction blacks feel power,” said David Sansing, a history professor at the University of Mississippi.

“For a long time they’ve been on the outskirts of power. They’ve been out on the fringes. Now they are in a position to challenge the white power structure, and they’re going to.”

Blacks will hold 24% of the state’s legislative seats, creating laws for a state that is more than 35% black.

But, with only 32 blacks in the 122-member House and 10 in the 52-member Senate, they still don’t have the numbers to pass or kill measures.

And some white lawmakers have said they fear a black-white split on issues, which could be bitter. Black lawmakers have already united calling for action on some social issues, including AIDS funding. Few whites have joined them.

In Pattison, where unwed pregnancy, unemployment and crime are rampant, residents just want a little respect.

“It’s really sad to see people sitting around under a tree drinking a beer. They’re piled up like ants. They ain’t got nothing to do. No jobs,” Camphor said.

“For a long time, blacks didn’t realize their rights. Most of the black people around here have been brainwashed by the plantation owners,” Camphor said. “Most black people are waking up.”