Debate highlights Mississippi's racial evolution

"Mississippi is probably frozen in time with images from the past," says Charles Reagan Wilson, a history professor at the University of Mississippi and former director of the school's Center for the Study of Southern Culture. "Those are such dramatic images it's hard to forget them, unless you are exposed to the new Mississippi."

Dave Martin / AP Deborah Posey reminisces about her family's racist past.

Deborah Posey, a nurse from Philadelphia, Miss., can't forget. For years now, she has been stopping at the roadside site in her hometown where three civil rights workers were abducted in one of America's most infamous race murders.

"Blood is on the land, and the land cries," Posey says.

So does Posey, 54, as she recounts her unlikely involvement in the case that helped pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and inspired the Oscar-winning 1988 film "Mississippi Burning."

She grew up in segregated Philadelphia, "terrified of black males, don't know why, can't tell you why." Her ex-husband's father, Billy Ray Posey, has admitted he was one of the killers, documents show. Her cousin allegedly hid the car used to transport the bodies. For years she was deeply afraid and ashamed of her hometown, and could not believe that justice would ever be done.

Then, in 2004, she joined a multi-racial coalition planning to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the killings. The group's acknowledgment of the heinous crime and call for justice helped spur the prosecution of 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen, who was convicted in 2005 of manslaughter and received a 60-year sentence.

"I cannot say I've been the same since," says Posey, pressing fingers to her wet eyes.

But before the Philadelphia coalition could begin its work, roadblocks emerged. A debate over calling for a march or a resolution — each one anathema to the opposing racial group — made them realize that a basis of trust and communication was needed.

So for the next six meetings, coalition members simply talked about why they were there.

Dave Martin / AP Neshoba County NAACP President Leroy Clemons says meetings with multi-racial coalition members were emotional. "It was like we lanced this wound," he said.

"Those were the most emotional six weeks of my life," says Leroy Clemons, head of the Neshoba County NAACP. "It was like we lanced this wound and drained the pus from it. For the first time, I understood that white people were just as offended as I was by these killings. And they realized that the black community did not hold them personally responsible."

Clemons and Jim Prince III, editor and publisher of the local newspaper, the Neshoba County Democrat, co-chaired the coalition. They had attended college together at Mississippi State and worked side-by-side at the Democrat, writing stories by day and delivering papers by night.

Writing a new story for county
Their main motivation was to write a new story for Neshoba County.

"We traveled a lot as kids, and you would go places (and say you're from) Mississippi, and people would kind of recoil," says Prince, who is white. "It's something that we have lived with all our lives."

After the Killen catharsis, coalition members turned their attention to other issues — education, jobs, plus the everyday community concerns that can grow from small misunderstandings into full-fledged battles.

When the city approved a bond issue to improve parks, more than $1 million was allocated to build a "fourplex" — four baseball fields back-to-back — in the heart of the black community. The only thing was, the neighborhood league only had eight teams.

"What were they gonna do, play every day?" Clemons says.

The black community identified a better use for the funds: renovating the West Side Community Center and the gym in what used to be the segregated Booker T. Washington school, which had a sentimental attachment for many older black men who once played ball there.

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