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I sure am glad I missed the days of Mr. Positive Mississippi into the governorโ€™s mansion, although it sure was entertaining enough from a distance. Why is it that people who like to talk about โ€œfamily valuesโ€ the most often seem to have the least?

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Why is it that people who like to talk about “family values” the most often seem to have the least? Well put! I had to watch WLBT (due to the existing tension between Bert Case and Fordice) last night when I heard about this. Fordice acted like a total ass and even suggested his dog urinate on the WLBT crew! I bet Pat Fordice feels more and more lucky as the days pass. And some have even been seen boasting about the goodness of this man. Pity…


I was just reading a politics column Sid Salter wrote in the Clarion-Ledger on June 4 and was dumbstruck by one sentence. He says that “while Fordice didn’t mount a campaign in 1991 or 1995 with overt racial overtones, his successful races were grounded in the class struggles.” Huh? No “overt racial overtones”? In 1989, at the 25th anniversary of the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in Sid and my hometown, then-Secretary of State Dick Molpus stood up and apologized to the families of those three men on behalf of the state of Mississippi (the first and only time such an apology has occurred). Then in 1995, when Fordice was battling Dick Molpus for the governor’s chair, Mr. Fordice threw that apology back in Molpus’ face in a debate that I believe Sid Salter moderated, and at the Neshoba County Fair (in my, Salter’s and Molpus’ hometown). On Aug. 3, Fordice chastised Molpus in the Democratรญs home county. The debate was held a day shy of the 31st anniversary of the day the three bodies were found just nine miles from the fairground. “I donรญt believe we need to keep running this state by รซMississippi Burningรญ and apologizing for 30 years ago,” Fordice boomed. “This is the nineties! This is now! Weรญre now on a roll! Weรญve got the best race relations in the United States of America, and we need to speak positive Mississippi! We have the most black elected officials in the nation. Thatรญs Mississippi!” Molpus stood his ground. “I apologized then, and I make no apology to you about that,” he said to Fordice. But Fordice, according to Sid Salter, did not run a campaign based on “racial overtones.”


Hee, the program won’t let you type Dick Molpus…


I know, I got a giggle out of that, too. It blipped the word “screw” elsewhere (as in screwdriver). Perfect software for our region, eh? ;-D

Founding Editor Donna Ladd is a writer, journalist and editor from Philadelphia, Miss., a graduate of Mississippi State University and later the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she was an alumni award recipient in 2021. She writes about racism/whiteness, poverty, gender, violence, journalism and the criminal justice system. She contributes long-form features and essays to The Guardian when she has time, and was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press. She co-founded the statewide nonprofit Mississippi Free Press with Kimberly Griffin in March 2020, and the Mississippi Business Journal named her one of the state's top CEOs in 2024. Read more at donnaladd.com, follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @donnerkay and email her at donna@mississippifreepress.org.