A Time to Speak: Speeches by Jack Reed

A Time to Speak

William Winter and Jack Reed, photograph by Steve Colston

A Time to Speak speeches by j ac k r e e d

Danny McKenzie university press of mississippi jackson

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the CREATE Foundation. www.upress.state.ms.us The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Copyright © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Lyrics for “New World Coming,” Words and Music by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. © 1970 (Renewed 1998) SCREEN GEMS-EMI MUSIC INC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. First printing 2009 ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McKenzie, Danny. A time to speak : speeches by Jack Reed / [compiled by] Danny McKenzie. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-60473-130-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Reed, Jack Raymond, 1924—Oratory. 2. Reed, Jack Raymond, 1924— 3. Businessmen—Mississippi—Biography. 4. Civic leaders— Mississippi—Biography. 5. Politicians—Mississippi—Biography. 6. Methodists—Mississippi—Biography. 7. Mississippi— Economic conditions—20th century. 8. Mississippi—Social conditions—20th century. 9. Mississippi—Religious life and customs. 10. Tupelo (Miss.)—Biography. I. Reed, Jack Raymond, 1924– II. Title. F345.3.R44M38

2009

080.9762′063092—dc22 [B]

2008029526

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

In memory of Norman McKenzie Sr.— a school man, a church man, a gentleman

CONTENTS

Preface

ix

Introduction

xi

c h a pt er one 1963: A Rare Voice of Reason

3

c h a pt er t wo 1965: Witnessing on Race Relations

17

c h a pt er t h r ee 1956: Beginning to Build Bridges

30

c h a pt er four 1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists

35

c h a pt er fiv e 1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations

44

c h a pt er six 1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education

53

c h a pt er sev en 1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress

65

c h a pt er eigh t 1970–Present: The Need for Leadership

76

c h a pt er nine 1987: The Plunge into Politics

89

c h a pt er t en 1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark

vii

115

Contents

c h a pt er e l e v e n 1948–Present: Always a Businessman

122

c h a pt er t w e lv e 1998–Present: Still Speaking Out

131

Afterword

149

Acknowledgments

153

Index

155

viii

PR E FA C E

While I have been flattered by my son Jack’s and Danny McKenzie’s interest in compiling a few selected speeches I have made over the last fifty years, I expressed from the beginnings my doubt that they would be of general interest outside the family. Nevertheless, they have proceeded and I do appreciate it. (Besides, we have a large family.) As for my public service, it has simply resulted from my lifelong involvement in the local affairs of an outstanding small city with strong citizen leadership and a progressive spirit. This has provided me with ample opportunities to be engaged in almost all aspects of its social, religious, political, educational, and economic life. From time to time this has also led me to related statewide activities (including a brief and unsuccessful foray into politics) which I have enjoyed, and from which I have benefited. The speeches included here reflect certain areas of my involvement in that public life. If I have made a noteworthy contribution in that participation I am grateful, but that is not for me to judge. A few years ago at the request of my wife, Frances, and the children, I wrote a personal memoir just to give my grandchildren a little history of their forebears. One granddaughter expressed disappointment that it didn’t include anything about them. I expect

ix

Preface to hear that same complaint again, because this book doesn’t do that—very often—either. So I would like to say here and now that of far more importance to me than my public life is my private life, which is centered on my family and friends. My love for them, and theirs for me, has affected every action, every public position, and every personal decision that may be reflected in these speeches. I have been unusually blessed with a beautiful and remarkable wife and with wonderful parents and brothers, children, grandchildren, in-laws, and other relatives. I am immensely proud of each child and grandchild and each of their spouses. When I am occasionally asked, “What would you like your legacy to be?,” I reply, “My family, because they are Frances’s and my greatest contribution to society and to the future.” Realizing this, I have been, and continue to be (except for my golf game), a truly happy man. If Danny’s enthusiasm for his subject leads any readers to think that I regard myself as being worthy to be published and read, please know that I continue to have serious doubts about that. Please remember, too, that these speeches were not written with publication in mind. I do, however, hope that they will be of historical, if not rhetorical, interest. Jack Reed

x

I N T RODUC T ION

Had Jack Reed been of the nineteenth century, he undoubtedly would have been in great demand on the Chautauqua circuit— spreading with great cheer his keen intellect, incisive interpretation of issues at hand, and his abiding faith in God and humankind all across our land as did so many great orators of that day. Fortunately for Mississippians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Reed has lived among us, and has shared his significant oratorical skills with us for some six decades now. The art of public speaking is a dying art, due in large part, no doubt, to the electronic and technological “progress” of our culture that has all but eliminated any meaningful dialogue from the public airwaves, serving us so much pabulum in the form of thirty- or even fifteen-second sound bites. Even worse are the incessant talk show rantings of yahoos who received an e-mail from someone who read something on the Internet so it must be true and must be shouted through the nearest microphone, veracity or good taste be damned. It has not totally vanished, though, this art of informing and inspiring, of enlightening and encouraging through the spoken word from behind a lectern. Thank heaven. As I write this there is a young American of mixed race with relatively little political experience who has used his remarkable skills as public speaker to become a serious candidate for the presidency of the United xi

Introduction States. I have no idea if Senator Barack Obama will take residence in the White House, but I do know his ability to connect with an audience in a public setting is something that has not been experienced since . . . well, at least since the days of Ronald Reagan and, before him, John F. Kennedy. That is what this book is all about: leadership through the art of communication. It is what Jack Reed, Jr., had in mind when he first approached me with the idea, and it is the central idea I have tried to maintain throughout the process. Its pages include large segments of speeches (and a few in their entirety) that Reed, a prominent businessman from a prominent northeast Mississippi family, has delivered over the years on public education, racial reconciliation, community development, and leadership itself. Interwoven are conversations in which he shared with me what prompted the particular speeches and the responses to them. Though it is biographical, it is not intended to be a biography. Neither is it a history of a particular time in Mississippi’s history, though it includes slices of Mississippi history. Rather it is a look at how one man, a private citizen, uses his abilities as a public speaker to try and make Mississippi a better place—for all its people. As a civic leader, Reed spoke out on the absolute necessity of strong public schools when many were trying to shut them down. As a Methodist lay leader, Reed spoke out on the senseless racial divide within the church. He spoke out forcefully during a time when only a handful of white Mississippians had the courage to speak out at all. Having grown up in the hills of north Mississippi during the fifties and sixties, I know that to be an indisputable fact. These issues—public education and racial reconciliation— along with economic development were the central theme of his one foray into politics, an unsuccessful run for governor in 1987. Well, it was unsuccessful in that he didn’t win the election, but on the other hand his campaign travels around the state allowed him to share the “Tupelo story” with thousands of Mississippians and offered them a glimpse of the leadership that has made his lifelong hometown a model for community development. Reed and I spent many afternoons together, riffling through xii

Introduction his collection of speeches and talking about the Whos and Whats of the times. They were enjoyable sessions and always included a great number of laughs, usually from Reed poking fun at himself. His speeches were carefully written out in impeccable grammar and syntax—as might be expected from a Vanderbilt University English major—but, alas, when he delivered them his jokes were usually off the cuff. His speeches always included a large dose of humor, no matter the gravity of the issue. Reed is a really funny man, but his one-liners rarely made the pages of his transcripts, and I hate not being able to give the reader a full measure of his considerable wit. I think, too, that our sessions were so meaningful for me because I am the son of a school superintendent and a church lay leader. Norman McKenzie devoted his life to education and to the church, and his struggles with the Holly Springs schools and the Presbyterian Church mirrored the difficulties Reed was addressing at the same time with the Mississippi Economic Council and the Methodist Church. While I love history and welcome any opportunity to visit with those who helped make it, I suspect the conversations Reed and I had allowed me to revive conversations of long ago with my father. Those memories are dear to me. In these pages you will find several mentions of the late George McLean, the longtime owner and publisher of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and the man considered by many to be the very source of northeast Mississippi’s regional economic success. McLean is the strongest connection between Reed and me; to this day he considers McLean his mentor in many things, and the five years I worked with McLean during the 1970s were, in a lot of ways, the most meaningful of my life. Few are those who can honestly say they worked on a daily basis with a true visionary. And it was through Mr. McLean and his newspaper that I was able to first meet Reed and over the years get to know this remarkable man, hear him speak out, and come to see clearly what it means to be a leader. I will be eternally grateful to Jack Reed for the opportunity to work with him on this book, and I cherish his friendship even more. Danny McKenzie xiii

A Time to Speak

c h apt er on e

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason “We must support public education and keep our schools open!”

There comes a time when a person just has to do what his heart, what his soul tell him to do. For many, it is the defining moment in their lives. For most, those moments are private. For others, they are public. Jack Reed can pinpoint his “defining moment” of statewide civic involvement, and it was public, very public: January 22, 1963—when, as president-elect of the Mississippi Economic Council, he stood and spoke to hundreds gathered in the grand ballroom of the venerable Heidelberg Hotel in downtown Jackson for a luncheon and a “citizens action clinic.” Among those assembled on that cold Tuesday midday were dozens from the Mississippi legislature. They would not stay for Reed’s entire speech. Then thirty-eight years old, Reed spoke for nearly twenty minutes, urging Mississippi’s leading businessmen to become actively involved in the electoral process—the 1963 elections were at hand—and to get others involved. He quoted Confucius; he quoted Will Durant; he quoted Woodrow Wilson; he quoted Edmund Burke; he quoted Horace Mann. For good measure, he even quoted leaders of organized labor, a measure clearly designed to grab the attention of his antiunion audience. It worked.

3

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason Then, in a little more than two minutes, Reed helped save public education in Mississippi. It had been only four months since the chaotic and deadly integration of the University of Mississippi. Reed was distressed over what had happened at Ole Miss, over the violent reaction to inevitable social progress. He was equally disturbed about the pall over Mississippi brought about by the actions of Governor Ross Barnett, Lieutenant Governor Paul Johnson, Speaker of the House Walter Sillers, and many other state officials—and their behind-the-scenes henchmen. The cacophony coming from the state legislature to close all of Mississippi’s public schools— elementary schools through graduate schools—rather than integrate them had reached a crescendo. On that January day, speaking boldly and forcefully, Reed told his audience that Mississippi must not only keep its public schools open but that it should actively promote public education. He insisted on academic freedom and support for boards of trustees among its institutions of higher learning. Reed, whose four children were already in Tupelo public schools or about to enroll in them, called for peace and order, and he did not mince words, telling his audience, “We must not directly or by implication condone violence of any sort whatsoever!” Before he could finish, most of the legislators had walked out. They were not alone. Undaunted, Reed stayed the course for the remainder of the luncheon, and in the following weeks would deliver the same speech with the same emphasis to several other MEC “citizens action clinics” throughout Mississippi. The reaction from around the state was immediate, and much of it bitter, even threatening, as Reed had known it would be. “I was very nervous before I gave that first speech,” Reed says. “The ballroom floor was full, and I knew not everyone would agree with me . . . My stomach was uneasy. I was young and I had never dealt with much public criticism. “I was speaking to some people who were hearing me for the first time. I was from up in Tupelo, and that Jackson crowd didn’t care about Tupelo. They seldom came up here. I felt like I was a 4

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason stranger in a foreign land to some extent—that was true a good deal of the time of the relationship between Tupelo and other parts of the state.” Reed had not told MEC officials what his remarks would be. Only his wife, Frances, and his brothers (and business partners), Bob and Bill, knew what he would say. His brothers were “cautiously supportive,” he chuckles now, “but I knew there would be a good many others in the MEC who would try to stop me from saying it—they would think it would be too controversial. And I think a good many of them thought so after I made the speech. “But what I said in the first half of the speech was totally supportive of what we were trying to do in the MEC, and I did that as well as I could by urging people to take action. Then I thought it was just the best opportunity in the world to make the rest of the speech.” He eased into what he knew would be the controversial part, and people in the audience began sitting up straight. Their eyes and their full attention turned toward Reed. Things were about to get really interesting: In last week’s papers, one editor was quoted as saying that “eight of eleven persons in the chemistry department (including the department head) and the Director of Institutional Research at the University of Mississippi are reported to be planning to leave.” It is a fact that we are faced with the threat of at least some personnel at Ole Miss leaving. It is a fact that the entire system of public education is indispensable to the economic welfare of all the citizens of this state. It is a hard and unpleasant fact that integration has been forced upon us once, and will very likely be forced upon us again, and it is a fact that as concerned citizens we have a personal responsibility to face up to this situation. In this area I personally believe that our course should be as follows: • We must not directly or by implication condone violence of any sort whatsoever! • We must insist on impartial administration of the laws! • We must maintain peace and order and insist that our officials,

5

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason our neighbors, and our schoolchildren from kindergarten to college do likewise. • We must support public education and keep our schools open! • We must support our boards of trustees of all our schools and let them run our schools without being abused by citizens in or out of public office! • We must insist on academic freedom under a responsible administration and do nothing to jeopardize the financial support or accreditation of our schools! A responsible citizen who sincerely wishes to see Mississippi prosper and realize her full economic potential can hardly do less! No serious person underestimates the difficulty of the controversial nature of these problems, but they do have to be met. We all want the freedom to do as we please. We want states’ rights to be respected. We want to be left alone to handle our own affairs. This is perfectly natural and not new to this generation. Woodrow Wilson had this to say about liberty, but few understood it as Wilson did. He knew that liberty was the source of America’s greatness, but he also knew that liberty undisciplined was like a horse unbridled. “Liberty,” Wilson wrote, “is not itself government. In the wrong hands, in hands unpracticed, undisciplined, it is incompatible with government.” Democracy, he was saying, is organized self-restraint. And if we fail to discipline ourselves we shall be compelled to submit to the discipline of others. It might be good for us to think about that as we wrestle with our problems in the days ahead.

There were more general remarks to follow, but not everyone in attendance bothered to listen. The exodus from the Heidelberg had begun. Within that twenty-minute speech, Reed had spoken only two minutes about Mississippi schools, “but that was all a lot of people heard,” he recalls. Truth be told, if all his listeners had heard that day was his plea for public education, that would have been fine by him. In the fall of 1962, James Meredith had become the first African American to enroll in the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss” 6

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason to practically everyone in the South), and a small but bloody battle between the U.S. government and the state of Mississippi had been fought on the beautiful Oxford campus over his registration. Nearly 31,000 troops had been mobilized in Mississippi and more than 15,000 had been stationed in the Oxford area. Two civilians were killed in the riot and nearly 250 U.S. marshals, Mississippi National Guardsmen, and others suffered injuries ranging from gunshot wounds to lacerations from broken glass to tear gas inhalation. It had indeed been a battle. In the waning days of 1962, fifty incoming members of the state legislature had been polled by the United Press International office in Jackson. They had been asked one question: “If public schools in Mississippi were integrated, would you vote to close the public schools?” Twenty-nine of them replied “yes”; twelve said “maybe”; and only nine said “no.” The Ole Miss “folly” had made Reed “sick at my stomach,” as had the legislators’ determination to close Mississippi’s public schools. He was determined to do something, to say something, and he finally had a pulpit. Before then, Reed’s only real statewide activism had been on behalf of the Boy Scouts and the Methodist Church. By his own admission, beyond those avenues he had no statewide stature. “Being president-elect of the MEC gave me a platform,” he says. “It gave me the credibility I needed to express what I thought was best for Mississippi. I didn’t have much of my own at that time around the state, but being president-elect gave me the credibility I needed to speak out. It just seemed to me that [the Barnett administration] was so completely wrong. I think we all have a responsibility that we do what we think is right, and I thought if I wasn’t going to say it, who was?” Reed readily admits to being uneasy before he made his speech the first time, and each time thereafter. He knew many, even among the MEC membership, would disagree with him, and many of those in disagreement were men he admired. “I went in with my eyes wide open,” Reed says. “But I wanted to say it; I felt it needed to be said. The things that motivated me 7

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason to give this speech, honestly, were issues I thought were harmful to Mississippi, that I hated had happened to Mississippi. I really loved our state and it had put Mississippi in such a bad light.” Vaughn Watkins, a prominent Jackson attorney, was president of the MEC when Reed gave the speech. “I didn’t know what his position would be; I didn’t know Vaughn’s philosophy at that time.” He soon found out. Watkins wrote Reed a letter: “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you. You are a very astute man, highly skilled as a public speaker and fearless in your presentation of that which you believe.” “That really meant something to me,” Reed says. “I was a little surprised when he was as receptive to the speech as he was.” From Robert Weaver, Watkins’s Jackson law partner, Reed received a letter stating: “John Stennis [ Jr.] and myself are still talking about your splendid address before the Mississippi Economic Council meeting, Tuesday. Really, I have never heard a better address and have never enjoyed one nearly as much. “The things that you said are irrefutable and I have been waiting for someone of high import to make them publicly and I am delighted that it was you.” The letters continued to pour in, both to Reed and to newspapers around the state, and not all were complimentary. Many were unhappy with his remarks and stated so in no uncertain terms. William B. Alexander, an attorney in Cleveland and a member of the state senate, wrote to Reed, “If we in Bolivar County or in Sunflower County should find it necessary to close a school, this is in my view no concern of yours.” (It is a measure of Reed’s pleasant demeanor that he and Alexander would later become good friends.) Reed also received a letter from Alec Primos, a well-known restaurant owner in Jackson and a staunch segregationist, who wrote that he “was saddened by [the speech’s] tone of surrender and co-existence.” A letter to the editor in the Clarion-Ledger by Edwin White of Lexington quoted Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederate States of America, and stated: “We can do nothing less than ‘Stand Fast’ in opposition to the integration and consequent 8

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason destruction of our public schools.” The Citizens’ Council, in a typical and expected response, issued a statement saying Reed and his fellow “moderates” were wrong. And, of course, the unsigned letters arrived. One stated: “Time is getting short, the day is far spent, night for us is rapidly approaching, the low-down traitors in the State Dept. are selling us down the river. If white men don’t wake up and get busy, they will get what they deserve and that is doom.” Not even everyone in his hometown agreed with Reed. Tupelo businessman N. E. Dacus took out a one-third page advertisement, an open letter, in the Tupelo Daily Journal disagreeing with nearly everything Reed had said. Sam Long wrote a letter to the Clarion-Ledger stating Reed had “lost sight of the chaos and confusion that has resulted from the integration of public schools.” Reed had been forewarned by editor Harry Rutherford that Dacus’s open letter would appear in the next day’s Daily Journal, “but I was still surprised by the tone of it. “Sam Long, who was a good friend, wrote the letter to the editor in Jackson disagreeing with me but he was not insulting,” Reed says. “He certainly felt as strongly the other way.” But the letter from Dacus hurt. Titled “An Answer To Jack Reed’s Speech,” it was an open, rambling letter in familiar-at-the-time rhetoric about forced desegregation of schools being “unconstitutional.” Appearing on February 5, it read in part: “You are quoted . . . as saying that, we must recognize that racial integration may be forced upon the State and that we must face up to this situation . . . that we must not directly or by implication condone violence of any sort whatsoever. ‘We must insist on impartial enforcement of our laws’. (?) Are these ‘our laws,’ Jack, or are they NOT A DISTORTION of our American Constitution?” And later: “No group of businessmen, preachers, professors, or officials or you or I have the right to demand or to force any one to meekly submit to un-constitutional conditions that common sense tells him will destroy his children and his government. Especially when he knows that CONFUSION—HATRED—FEAR—R APE—and V IOLENCE—has continuously followed in the wake of integra9

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason tion.” And still later: “Of one thing I am sure, your speech did not represent, or voice the opinions of the Tupelo businessmen, including myself, and your individual neighbors, who are paying for printing this letter.” And on and on it went, including, of course, the obligatory phrase of the time: “The State of Mississippi and its institutions are under heavy pressure from both outside and inside professional ‘agitators’ and federal officials with caesarian complexes.” Dacus’s remarks were nothing Reed hadn’t already heard many times before, but he had not experienced very much like that in print, especially in his hometown. “Considering the source, I really didn’t mind,” Reed says. “If it had been somebody I respected it would have hurt more. All I knew about him was that he was a local manufacturer who supported the Citizens’ Council. I didn’t really know him and I’m not sure he knew me. But to be criticized at home . . . “When Dacus ran the ad in my hometown newspaper, that generated a substantial amount of comment and encouraged people to criticize and be critical of the speech. Even though many of them had no idea what I’d said, they had read Dacus’s letter and they formed their opinions on that. But I don’t think I ever heard from him again after the initial impact of his letter wore off, and it wore off pretty quick.” This was new territory for Reed and especially for his family. They were independent business owners whose very livelihoods depended on the good will of Reed’s Department Store patrons, and controversy was certainly not in the family business model. “Our family, as far as civic leadership was concerned, had never been seriously controversial. We always supported the mayors and all the people we could. We were certainly less controversial than George,” he says, laughing while remembering many controversial opinions Tupelo Daily Journal publisher George McLean had espoused over the years. McLean had become the most powerful voice for progress in northeast Mississippi since buying the bankrupt newspaper from a bankrupt local bank in 1934, and Reed unabashedly admired

10

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason him and considered him a mentor. McLean and Rutherford had both stood fast, both privately and corporately, with Reed in his public school stance. Still, the public criticism in his hometown cut deep. “Each of my four children, from time to time, suffered within their peer groups for things I was involved in. All the kids would repeat what they’d heard their parents say and that hurt our children.” But no one in the Reed family ever told him to back off. “Frances always supported me,” he says. “I would always talk things over with Frances and she would give me an honest assessment. She was my best critic and the best supporter I had. She was fiercely loyal. She hated all the criticism for me—she absolutely hated it. She was vice president of Mississippi Women for Public Education the next year and they took a very active and supportive position. “Both my brothers shared my sentiments. They didn’t make any speeches but I knew they were behind me. Bill told me to be ready for the fallout. Both he and Bob asked me if I really felt that way, and when I said I felt that it was important, they both said do it. “And you know, when I think about it, while I’ve had my fair share of criticism at home, I have never felt unappreciated in Tupelo.” Reed says his commitment to public education started well before 1963. “It had to be in the late forties,” he says. “I think it came from my serving with black soldiers in World War II and seeing the treatment they got when they came back home. I thought it was terribly unfair, and that’s probably when I started thinking more about these things.” Joe Wroten, the late clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Aberdeen, vividly remembered the fallout from Reed’s speech. Then an attorney in Greenville, Wroten was also a member of the house of representatives—and he and Karl Wesienberg of Pascagoula were the only two legislators waging battles to keep Mississippi’s schools open.

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1963: A Rare Voice of Reason “I had known Jack through our work in the Methodist Church,” Wroten recalled, “and I knew he was a deeply consecrated Christian gentleman. This speech was nothing more than his faith coming through in public utterances. “It took a lot of courage for him to say what he did. His stance was much appreciated by thoughtful people all over the state, and we would have had much more turmoil in the sixties had it not been for Jack Reed.” David Sansing, history professor emeritus at Ole Miss who in 1990 penned Making Haste Slowly: The Troubled History of Higher Education in Mississippi, the definitive study on higher education in the state, called Reed “one of the lone voices crying in the wilderness. “The MEC during those times was a voice of reason and calm,” Sansing says, “and Jack Reed was one of the main voices, if not the main voice, in the MEC.” While Reed never once considered himself a “lone voice,” he was still, and pleasantly, surprised at the amount of support he received after his speech on that cold January day in 1963. He says that more than 85 percent of his personal mail complimented him not only on his message but for having the courage to speak out. The Associated Press had picked up the story, and newspapers across the country published it. Reed was astonished at the responses from all over the nation. “That was the surprising thing to me,” he says. “That all of a sudden I was being referred to as ‘a voice of reason in Mississippi.’ I didn’t know all these people or where they came from. The sincerity of their letters was very affirming. That pleased me, obviously. I’m no fool.” Reed says he wasn’t thinking in terms of statewide impact when he spoke at the MEC luncheon. “The MEC was a very conservative group and I knew I wasn’t pleasing many of my cohorts. But a few people in the MEC were certainly supportive. “Mr. Fred Smith of Ripley spoke out for me and told me how to deal with the Dacus letter, and I certainly appreciated that. W. H.

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1963: A Rare Voice of Reason “Billy” Mounger in Jackson spoke out on my behalf and so did Harvey Lee Morrison of Okolona. There were a lot of others who supported me, too, and I greatly appreciated it. It wasn’t easy for them, either.” Theirs weren’t the only letters of support. Members of the faculties and administrations at Mississippi State University, Ole Miss, Millsaps College, Emory University, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the state college board, and a chamber of commerce official in Cleveland expressed their gratitude to Reed for his public statements. Owens Alexander, manager of the CBS-TV affiliate in Jackson, wrote: “Congratulations on being elected to the MEC Presidency, but in my opinion more sincere congratulations are due for your rational, thoughtful, common-sense approach to some of the state’s acute problems.” An editorial in the McComb Enterprise-Journal praised Reed for his speech, and editor Oliver Emmerich wrote him a personal letter stating: “We need more such expressions. I am glad you spoke out so earnestly.” Church leaders, insurance executives, housewives, and all sorts of private citizens from all around the state sent letters thanking Reed. There was even one congratulatory letter from Walter Gellhorn, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York, who had read a newspaper story about the MEC address while spending the night in the Lamar Hotel in Meridian. The impact of Reed’s speech would become measurable a short while after he became MEC president when the board of directors voted overwhelmingly to support his position. But even before the very positive action was taken by the MEC, his speech had sent a message—a very clear, concise message—to those who would hold back Mississippi. “I think more than anything it let the legislature and others know that there were dissenting opinions in Mississippi,” Reed says. “Many of those opinions had not been heard at that time, and I just thought it was time.” Reed minces no words in discussing Barnett, Johnson (who a

13

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason year later would be elected governor), and many other elected officials of the time who were so vitriolic in their stances opposing desegregation of the state’s public schools. After a moment or two of reflection, however, Reed says that, in the grand scheme of things, Johnson wasn’t a bad governor. “I think he did wind up making a good governor. I believe he was the right man at the right time. I supported him once and even helped him raise some money. He was much more moderate after he became governor than he was while he was running. When Paul said we had to accept federal ‘interference,’ his supporters accepted it as fact, and that made a pretty big impact.” Reed had no patience, though, for the political diatribes of the time—usually made under the guise of garnering votes—and still doesn’t. “I think we all have a responsibility to do what we think is right,” Reed says. “Somebody—and I forget who it was—said that we ought to give a dual test of morality and reason to everything we do. I tried deliberately to do that. Is it moral and is it reasonable? I thought that speech certainly met the test.” Almost overnight, citizens from across Mississippi had become familiar with the retailer from Tupelo. The 1963 MEC speech had thrust Reed into the state spotlight—a position he would find himself in for years to come. In the ensuing years, he would serve on nearly every local education committee and board around, as well as on those of many state and national groups. In April of 1964, he left the presidency of the MEC, challenging its membership to become more involved in affairs of the state and to strengthen its statewide leadership role. At the fifteenth annual banquet of the MEC, Reed clearly stated his belief in the potential of the organization, a resolve that had been strengthened during his many months of traveling throughout Mississippi and speaking to and visiting with groups and individuals from all walks. Gathered once again at the Heidelberg Hotel in downtown Jackson, more than three hundred business leaders listened as Reed touted the potency of the MEC in his typical forthright fashion: 14

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason The most significant fact about the MEC as I see it is that it possesses the potential to exert the most powerful influence on the affairs of this state of any organization outside the state legislature— and not as the most powerful political lobby, either. Not by strong-arming legislators, not as a special interest group, but as a respected group of business and professional men addressing themselves to statewide problems and issues of long-range and lasting import, whether they be controversial or not, and by addressing themselves to these issues as objectively as possible. I personally believe it is our duty to guide and create public opinion, not just reflect it—to be a voice, not an echo. It is far more important that we be right than that we be popular. I do not believe the MEC should ever deliberately seek controversy, but God help us if it sacrifices principle to avoid it.

Reed’s words were more than “marching orders” to his friends and associates in business and industry throughout Mississippi; they were his personal guidelines as well. As the MEC continued to grow and indeed become more influential in matters of the state, so too did Reed’s voice become stronger, clearer, and more influential. For the next fifty-plus years, he would continue to speak out on business leadership, race relations, his church, and most of all on his passion, public education. In 1980, Governor William Winter would appoint him chair of the Special Committee on Public School Finance and Administration, and later the first chair of the newly revised—and all lay member—Mississippi Board of Education. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush would appoint Reed chair of the National Advisory Council on Education Research and Improvement. He also would go on to serve as an original member of the United Methodist Church Commission on Religion and Race, and in 2002, Reed would be honored by the Martin Luther King Day committee in Tupelo for his contributions to race relations. “When I look back on all this,” Reed says, “I find it really interesting that it’s come the way it has. I’ve felt the most challenging issue in my life in Mississippi has been race relations, and that’s 15

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason closely akin to public education issues. They have been the greatest challenges of my generation in Mississippi, and I would put them on parity with each other.” Reed raised more than a few eyebrows when he told his business constituents in several speeches to become “economic statesmen—not beggars asking for a backdoor handout” from the state legislature. It was his deep conviction that business leaders had a responsibility outside their stores, their shops, their factories. Leadership, Reed felt, did not stop at the end of the work shift.

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations “I honestly do not see how God can solve problems in human relations without our help.”

Jack Reed’s passion for improving race relations in Mississippi was not confined to his family’s department store or manufacturing business, or to the Mississippi Economic Council, or to public education. It was a passion that was perhaps atypical for a southern white male in the 1960s, and it was a passion that by his own admission did not begin to grow until his tour of duty with the U.S. Army during World War II. “In looking back, I realize my parents accepted the belief that blacks were inferior,” Reed admits. “But my parents also treated them with respect. We were never allowed to use any pejorative terms, and as a teenager, or even before, I was offended by ‘nigger’ jokes and stories about them. “Then in the service I really became conscious of prejudice when we enlisted men were denied admittance to restaurants in Australia. But perhaps what made the greatest impact on me was that after the war blacks were still denied admittance to movies, restrooms, restaurants, libraries, and other public places. Even after they’d served our country just like I had. It just didn’t make sense. “Now, I’m not trying to say I changed overnight because I’m sure I was still prejudiced, but I’ve tried awfully hard to change.” His passion for this change became evident on June 10, 1965,

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations at the annual conference of the North Mississippi Methodist Church held in his hometown of Tupelo and in his home church, First Methodist. Racial tensions were at their very peak when Reed spoke to his fellow Methodists, many of whom he openly admired. The North Mississippi Conference was made up of all-white churches. The all-black Methodist churches in the northern part of the state belonged to the Upper Mississippi Conference. There had been murmurings of merger among the two conferences, following, among many things, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but it had not yet been moved to the front burner. It would be several years and nearly as many court orders before Mississippi schools would be fully integrated, so there was no great rush to desegregate the church. Reed was asked by Bishop Edward Pendergrass to speak about his faith to the hundreds of white Methodists gathered from all across northern Mississippi. While he had been active in his Tupelo church and in the North Mississippi Conference for many years, and while his 1963 speech to the MEC had catapulted him into a more prominent statewide role, it was not a task he welcomed. True to his Methodist beliefs, however, when the bishop called, Reed responded. “This one took a lot of soul-searching for me,” he says. “I don’t like to witness, and I was called on to witness. I do not take it casually when I speak publicly on church affairs. I do not consider myself as good a Methodist as, say, Felix Black [another leading and progressive Tupelo businessman and also a devout Methodist]. I am committed to the Methodist Church; the Methodist theology suits me—I love the tolerance and the broad-mindedness of Methodism. But I was concerned about this speech.” Still, in his typical straightforward manner he spoke from his heart as few had spoken before at an annual conference: When I was a boy in this church, the primary social concerns of the North Mississippi Conference (as I remember them) were: tobacco, card-playing, drinking, and dancing. But as serious as those concerns seemed then and as some re-

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations main, it is my belief that the conscientious Christian is being challenged today as never before in the North Mississippi Conference to give Christian witness in an area where such witness has too often been sadly lacking or nonexistent—and where even at best it has been woefully inadequate. This is in the broad area of “human relations,” which in Mississippi we have come to define too narrowly, I think, as “race relations.” Certainly problems in human relations are not new, for it seems to me that they were the basic concerns of Jesus Christ. But the problem has taken on new dimensions for us here tonight and it demands new decisions and immediate attention. To ignore it is to deny the Christian call of responsibility to others. To belittle it is to deny reality. But to consider it beyond the capacity of men and goodwill to diminish this problem, as it now exists, is anti-Christian! In my opinion, whatever permanent progress is made will not be made by legislation, or Bible reading, or by prayer alone, but will result from Christian witness, both lay and clerical, in our homes, in this conference, and in this state. Several Sundays ago, our minister quoted a verse of scripture from the fourth chapter of Esther that dealt directly with this problem. Esther, a Jewess, was queen. There was a plot by Haman to kill all the Jews. Her family asked Esther to intervene for them with the king, but she refused for fear she would reveal that she herself was Jewish and might be killed. She knew what she should do, but was afraid to take action! They said to her: “For if you keep silent at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter. But you and your Father’s house will perish.” Esther said: “Then I will go to the king and if I perish, I perish.” Surely, it is a great temptation today to do nothing about these difficult problems; but this is not the message we find in the scriptures. As with Esther, this situation may well be resolved without our help (or witness), but I cannot see how our personal relationship with our Lord can be resolved without our coming to grips as individuals with this worldwide movement of the colored races,

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations who, in our country, are demanding equal treatment in our courts, our communities, and our churches. I honestly do not see how God can solve problems in human relations without our help! I don’t see how presidents or governors can solve these problems without including our participation as involved citizens, and I do not see how the proper role of the Mississippi Methodist in this matter can be determined without our taking a personal position. Not, of course, by hurling bombs or insults at those with whom we disagree, but by prayerfully using our minds and hearts in approaching this conflict with compassion and concern—not only for the Negro, but for those within this conference and within this very room who disagree. This, I believe, is what Christ would have us do! And yet, all too often we have sidestepped our responsibilities at a time when our state needs the leadership of Christian men and women as, perhaps, it has never needed it before. We live in a time when our people want such leadership and will respond to such leadership. I believe the record will bear me out in this. In 1962, immediately following the Ole Miss riot, a group of some 250 businessmen gathered in Jackson and adopted a statement calling for law and order and support for the school. . . . In November 1962, newspaper polls indicated that the majority of the state legislature would close every public school in Mississippi before allowing any school to be desegregated. The Mississippi Economic Council stated in essence that “public schools must remain open, law and order must prevail, and forced integration should be endured.” The following day, eighty board members from all over the state voted in favor with only one voting against. . . .The leadership shown by the committee made the difference to the board. The board action made a real difference in this state! The leadership of concerned Christians made the difference. As president-elect it was my responsibility and privilege to present this position throughout the state in January of 1963. In a week’s time—which brought considerable criticism—I received more than a hundred letters and eighty-five percent of them were favorable.

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations I realized then, as I do now, that the right-thinking people of Mississippi will respond to the right kind of leadership—but they cannot respond if such leadership is not offered!

This was the first time Reed referred to God’s inability to solve human relations problems without human help, but it would not be the last. For some, it was outright blasphemy and almost as troublesome as his progressive stance on racial issues. Almost. Reed knew his remarks would be welcomed by many, but he knew, too, that he would be vilified in many quarters within the Methodist Church. He knew his remarks would be published in the Mississippi Methodist Advocate and circulated throughout the entire state. He remembered well the feedback, good and bad, from his 1963 speech to the MEC on public education, and as dedicated to the preservation of the state’s school system as he was, this talk was different. This was his church, and these were his church friends. He knew all too well that many disagreed with him on race relations, even some of those fellow members at Tupelo First Methodist. There were many, though, who were supportive. “My good friend, M. B. Swayze [then executive director of the Mississippi Economic Council], said he thought I’d given a nice speech even though he really didn’t think God needed our help,” Reed says with a chuckle. “But the response I got from that first Methodist talk was quite different from the MEC speech a couple of years earlier. “As I look back on it now, I think within the Methodist Church itself I was expressing a viewpoint that many were pleased with, and to hear from them in that vein was most gratifying. “Again, there were people who were, and still are, just as serious about their Christian beliefs and about their relationship to the Methodist Church as I am. I certainly meant them no disrespect, and I don’t think any of them thought I was being disrespectful, but I did want to at least express ‘our’ views. I think I accomplished that, if nothing else.” Without mentioning her name, or that of any other women who also shared in the belief that Mississippi churches must move 21

1965: Witnessing on Race Relations past the race issue, Reed spoke about an organization his beloved wife, Frances, was associated with as vice president. He held it up as a model of Christian love and understanding. Early in 1963, a group of women from over the state formed Mississippians for Public Education. At first, they met “sub rosa” to avoid the attacks that were sure to come and did come from Citizens’ Councils, certain newspapers, and other individuals and organizations. They sought to do only one thing: keep the public schools open for all children! At the time they were called communists, integrationists, and what have you. But today, no school has been closed. We have come a long way because a few women with a Christian concern for the education of children spoke out in time, when it was unpopular to do so. It was a matter of Christian concern and responsibility. Not one of them that I knew wanted integration; they just felt that it was wrong to deny little children of any color the opportunity to read and write.

Reed knew exactly what he was doing. Certainly, the mores of the times dictated that the leadership of most organizations— churches included—be all, or nearly all, male. But he also knew that if his group of progressives—or, to use the word of the time, “moderates”—was going to accomplish its goals, the support and strong encouragement from the females in the church would be essential. While paying homage to the Christian women was certainly the gentlemanly thing to do, it was also politically very expedient. His message of leadership outside the church, but based on church values, never wavered. And again he called on his triedand-true standard, the dual test of morality and reason. In February of this year, the Mississippi Economic Council again issued a statement urging law and order, compliance with the Civil Rights Act, and the right for any qualified citizen to vote. I think it is true that the overwhelming support that this position has received from the business community is due in large part to the

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations fact that men have faced up to the economic realities of the Civil Rights Act, which in short says: 1) comply; 2) go to jail; 3) go out of business. But I can say, also, in all sincerity that the small group who was responsible for that statement being presented was primarily motivated by the desire “to be a Christian” in these troubled times. This was equally true of those who agreed to testify before the Civil Rights Commission earlier this year, when it was tremendously unpopular to do so. In so doing, they saved Mississippi a serious setback in national public opinion by pointing out that some progress was being made. Of course, these men—led by Owen Cooper [president of Mississippi Chemical Corporation in Yazoo City]—did not say they were giving Christian witness; with them, it was an “act of conscience.” In every case, I sincerely believe that the basic decisions were not emotional or economic, but were, rather, the result of conscientious citizens applying the dual test of morality and reason, and being willing to take the consequences for their decisions. I believe in this test myself and, frankly, it is not always easy to determine when reason takes over from morality, or vice versa. Fortunately, the Christian will seldom find the two in conflict. What is needed to apply the test is an open heart and an open mind. No witness, Christian or otherwise, is convincing unless it is based on facts and on solid conviction. Facts must come from experience and objective investigation, but convictions involving personal relationships must come largely from spiritual faith! Certainly, it is the purpose of the church today to supply and support and replenish that faith in its individual members. If we fail to do so, we have failed in our purpose despite the size of our budgets, our buildings, or our membership. I have been asked to suggest what the Methodist Church can contribute in this area, and to tell how the church has affected me. I am not accustomed to answering such questions, but I will try to give a brief and honest answer to each. 1. I think the church must take a strong position in support of the total Methodist program, financially and spiritually. Not only is

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations this right, but [it] will demonstrate our faith in the ability of other Methodists, of a different background, to be Christians, too. 2. We need not be defensive. We need not be afraid of losing membership because our program is unpopular with some. To do so is to underestimate the personal faith of those who disagree. If we can’t have something for everybody let’s at least have something for the faithful. We do not need to lower the standards of our church to the lowest common denominator of our membership. 3. We can emphasize the need to witness first at home and in our community as Jesus did. I am satisfied that the reason many ministers have come to Mississippi and Alabama in recent months is because it is easier to give witness away from home, but that is not the place to start. 4. We can use the church to open the door to closer communication between the races. 5. We can witness in terms this generation can understand. Old time imagery and platitudes, expressions and phrases, though dear to many of us, simply do not reach the young people of today; it is our responsibility as churchmen to make the effort to reach them and not require that they adjust to us.

Even then, he could not leave the issue of race out of his remarks. “I guess I was always slipping it in there,” he says. “It’s just something I believed in very strongly then, and still do today.” Reed closed his remarks to the annual conference on a personal basis. Though he says he’s not particularly fond of “witnessing” from the pulpit, he left little doubt that spring day in 1965 as to his feelings for his church: As to what the Methodist Church means to me, I am sure I am unaware of much of the effect that it has had; but its broad, social concerns have certainly influenced my thinking and actions during the forty years I have been exposed to First Church Tupelo. Some conscious effects upon me have been: • The connectional responsibilities of Methodism which have broadened my outlook.

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations The Christian fellowship of this church whose members have always tolerated freedom of expression in the pulpit and in the Sunday school. • The financial responsibility of this particular church over the years has testified to the appeal and validity of its program in a materialistic society. • Certain of our preachers and our Sunday school teachers, as well as great preachers brought in for special services over the years, such as Dr. Roy Smith, Dr. Harold Bosley, Bishop Moore, and others. Older, proven men of great faith and long service have always had a great influence on me. • Teaching a Sunday school class of high school seniors for fourteen years and of young adults for three years has taught me far more than I taught my students, and in my opinion has probably exerted the greatest influence on me of any part of my church life. • In recent years, the Christian witness of several Mississippi Methodists has been an inspiration to me. To name a few: Dr. W. B. Selah; the statement of the twenty-eight ministers of the Mississippi Conference and the opposing reaction to their statement; the loyalty of the Mississippi Methodist Advocate and of such contributors as Dr. J. P. Stafford; the responsible action of the Millsaps trustees under pressure; and, most recently, the forthright leadership of our own bishop. These are things that have strengthened my faith and loyalty to our church. I have many shortcomings as a Methodist. In addition, I have never had a revelation or a momentous decision in my Christian experience that I have recognized as such; but I do have a great respect for the real Christians I have known. I do have a great faith in the capacity for goodness that lies in nearly every man. I believe with my heart and my mind in the truth of the teachings of Jesus Christ. I believe that there is God and that God is good. I believe, also, that both morality and reason require that we concern ourselves with the welfare of our fellow man . . . that if we are judged on this particular issue, it will not be by whether or •

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations not we have solved our racial problem, but by the effort we have put forth and by our attitude toward the Negro and toward each other as individuals and not as ethnic groups. I believe that Christian witness is needed as much in a democracy as it is needed under Fascism, Nazism, or Communism. I believe in the Spirit of Liberty. Judge [Learned] Hand says: “The Spirit of Liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women. The Spirit of Liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own bias. The Spirit of Liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.” Despite our critics, the Spirit of Liberty is very much alive in Mississippi today and in the North Mississippi Conference. I believe that it is up to us, through Christian witness, to be sure that it remains alive in the days and years and centuries ahead.

The response from those in attendance at the North Mississippi Conference and from those who read Reed’s remarks in the Advocate the following week was similar to the response to the 1963 MEC speech, and it proved once again that there were many in Mississippi ready for change. “Your address at the rally of Methodists . . . is an example of the intelligent and courageous leadership you are giving in our church,” wrote J. D. Williams, chancellor of the University of Mississippi. “One of the most encouraging signs to those of us who are moving off the current scene is the observation of younger leaders such as you who are taking over what I am confident will be a new and better day.” From Grover Bagby, the associate general secretary of the General Board of Christian Social Concerns of the Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., came these words: “My personal pride as a Methodist in what you had to say is very great. I and all Methodists far beyond the borders of Mississippi are indebted to you for your clear, courageous word of witness concerning Christian faith and human relations in this troubled time.” The Reverend Claude Johnson, minister of St. Andrew’s Methodist Church just down the road in Amory, Mississippi, wrote to Reed, stating: “I am grateful to you for the witness you gave be26

1965: Witnessing on Race Relations fore the Conference. . . . The standing ovation which came when you had finished speaks more eloquently than words of appreciation. May God continue to use you in establishing better relations between His children.” Reed’s MEC good friend Owen Cooper, president of Mississippi Chemical Corporation in Yazoo City—and himself no stranger to controversy for taking a progressive stance on race relations— also weighed in on the conference speech: “It’s a good statement, thought provoking and exceedingly timely. All of us will continue to be faced with some real problems in this and other areas in the months and years that lie ahead. I count it a great pleasure that I have come to know you, to value your friendship and to appreciate the courage of your convictions.” Willie Frances Coleman in El Dorado, Arkansas, read Reed’s address in the Advocate and wrote: “It is one of the best statements I have seen on the obligation of Christian citizens in Mississippi. . . . Your kind of leadership and witness is badly needed everywhere today, but especially in the deep south.” Katie B. Rogers from nearby New Albany, Mississippi, had attended the conference meeting in Tupelo, and she wrote Reed: “I was so glad to hear you speak, as I have noted your stand on the Civil Rights issues for some time now . . . and have wanted to write and tell you how proud I am to have someone with courage to speak out for those of us in North Mississippi who feel that the time is long past due for us to take a moral stand and face the consequences.” Frank Smith, chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors and a native of the Mississippi Delta, stated: “It was certainly a very wonderful statement.” Those were few words, but considering Smith was a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who had lost his seat because of his moderate position on race relations, it was a tall compliment. And Fred Smith (no relation to Frank Smith), one of Mississippi’s most respected attorneys from up the road in Ripley, Mississippi, wrote to Reed: “I thought the sentiments expressed in your talk were splendid. Mississippi needs more people with your courage and breadth of vision.” (It should be noted that Fred Smith’s 27

1965: Witnessing on Race Relations nephew, Robert, had been the prosecuting attorney in the 1955 trial of the three men accused of murdering Emmett Till.) Though he had been speaking in Methodist churches all around north Mississippi since the early fifties, this was Reed’s first time to both offer his personal testimony and speak specifically on race within the church. “In my earlier speeches I would talk about improving or changing our hearts,” he says now, with a wry smile. “That doesn’t cost you anything. And I would often speak about prejudice, though I wouldn’t necessarily couch it in racial terms.” Reed, of course, knew his audience understood his implied message. But, he says, as long as he spoke in general terms he stayed out of trouble. And even when he did speak in specific terms about a Christian’s duties when it came to race relations, most of the response was positive. “I remember speaking at Greenwood one time,” he says. “That reception was a little cool, so I just stayed for lunch and came on back home. I remember one conversation I heard over in the Delta between a minister and one of his elderly, female church members: he asked her what she thought Jesus would do if a black man came to their church and she said, ‘I guess he would let him in, but he would be wrong.’ “But, generally, I was saying what the preachers who invited me wanted me to say. Undoubtedly, they must have been speaking on the same issues, and they wanted me to bolster their positions. But I never really endorsed anyone’s position; I never said I agreed with anyone, period. I could have gotten them into trouble. “It really depended a lot on who the minister was,” he says. “A lot of the old ‘throwback’ preachers wouldn’t have me. The only people who invited me were where the pastors approved of what I’d said in other churches. “I wasn’t normally controversial when I spoke in churches . . . oh, maybe I was. I guess I was. I don’t see how you can say those things and not be controversial. But I was well received in churches.” The times were such that many in the congregations agreed with Reed and wanted to take a similar stance, but the threat of

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1965: Witnessing on Race Relations a boycott by the Citizens’ Council in their towns, or worse, a visit by the Ku K lux K lan, tended to quash many folks’ bravado. “I always had people come up afterwards and say how much they appreciated what I had to say,” Reed recalls. “They wanted to speak out, but they couldn’t for whatever reasons. There wasn’t much of that in northeast Mississippi that I know of, but the Citizens’ Council was strong in Jackson and in the Delta. In some areas of the state private citizens had to watch their words carefully.” That is not to suggest that all of Reed’s thoughts, words, and deeds were welcomed with open arms by the general populace of Tupelo and northeast Mississippi. Indeed, they were not. Still, Reed’s region of Mississippi—predominantly white—was not as bitterly entrenched in its resentment toward the desegregation of schools, churches, and businesses as other areas around the state. The Citizens’ Council movement that was prevalent in the Mississippi Delta, the Jackson area, and many other places around the state was impotent in Tupelo. It existed there, to be sure, but was for the most part inactive and no match for the strong civic leadership that had emerged throughout the immediate region. While that undoubtedly made things a bit easier for him as a public speaker and civic leader, he says he would have spoken out anyway. “I wasn’t actively seeking these speaking engagements, and I certainly wasn’t seeking any kind of personal recognition,” he says. “I just felt that it was part of my Christian obligation to do it, and I tried to do whatever I was asked to do in the church.”

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1956: Beginning to Build Bridges “I do not believe the Negro race is an inherently inferior race.”

While Jack Reed’s address to the annual conference of the North Mississippi Methodist Church in June of 1965 was the first time he had “witnessed”—spoken from the heart about his Christian conviction and strong belief in the Methodist Church—it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to a large group about his faith. Though it was a rare occurrence for a white, male Mississippi businessman to state publicly his “moderate” views on racial issues in the state, as Reed had done prominently both in his 1963 speech to the Mississippi Economic Council and then again in 1965 to the Methodist conference, neither of these was his first public speech on the most troublesome issue facing Mississippians. And neither was the 1965 speech to his fellow Mississippi Methodists the first time Reed had combined his Christian beliefs with his personal beliefs about racial issues. As early as the spring of 1956—only a year after the death of Emmett Till, whose brutal murder in the Mississippi Delta is generally acknowledged as the catalyst for a more aggressive civil rights movement—he stood before an all-black audience at Rust College, a Methodist college in the north Mississippi town of Holly Springs, and spoke about his faith and the issue of integration. There were already rumblings of activity on the Rust cam-

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1956: Beginning to Build Bridges pus, and over the course of the next few years the college would become closely identified with “the movement.” Rust College was directly across U.S. Highway 78 from (now defunct) Mississippi Industrial College, another all-black institution of higher learning on the north side of Holly Springs. The student body at Rust was beginning to become extremely active in the civil rights movement, and in the next few years many of its members would join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Some of the homes just across the street to the south of the campus would soon become places of refuge for workers from the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a group that included members of SNCC, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NA ACP), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). So it took more than a little courage and Christian conviction for Reed to appear before the Rust student body. But it was a time to speak. Today, of all times, we must learn to respect our fellow man. If we are to be of service to God in making this a Christian world, respect may not come too easy sometimes but it is a clearly defined Christian responsibility. Of course, we cannot talk about respecting our fellow man in 1956 without getting into the subject of race relations. Indeed, I think it would be almost impossible for a Negro to address a white student body in Mississippi today, or for a white person to address a Negro student body without his audience wondering how he stands on segregation! Segregation (or integration) has become so vital a question that unless we know a man’s politics we are very skeptical of whatever he has to say. As for me, I have no answer, but I do feel morally obligated to discuss it—I don’t see how a Christian can avoid it. A) It is most important for the races to understand each other; B) We must not let extreme radical forces of either side confuse the issues and mislead us; C) It is a mutual problem which we should work out ourselves. . . .

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1956: Beginning to Build Bridges The next question, obviously, is “What do I believe?” I believe in equal facilities for all. I believe in equal opportunity for all. I do not believe the Negro race is an inherently inferior race. I believe we are all equal in the sight of God. Now, the Citizens’ Council would probably consider me an integrationist. The NAACP would probably consider me a segregationist. Like some of you I believe there exists support for both, but neither is wholly correct. This I know: many whites are prejudiced. This I also believe: many Negroes are prejudiced as well. Both of us should try and put ourselves in the other’s shoes! You say it is impossible for me to know how a Negro feels. Perhaps. I’ll agree that you get more than your share of prejudice. I’ll also agree that as a race you practice some, too. One thing I know absolutely: as Christians, you and I both had better be a lot more concerned with what God thinks than what we think about our fellow man. The extreme integrationists think it will mean security, happiness, popularity for them. The extreme segregationists think it will mean security, happiness, popularity for them. But what does Christ say about our fellow man?

Reed then quoted several of Jesus’s teachings—with a special emphasis on the beatitudes—then said: Yes, Jesus said these things, which, as Christians, we believe. Of course, Jesus didn’t suit his times. He suited no times. He came to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for man—for those who neither appreciated or understood. For you, yes! And for me, too! For black, yellow, red, and white.

Reed knew better than anyone that his words were being received coolly at best. No one was discourteous; there were no demonstrations or disruptions. Neither, though, was he interrupted by applause. Always and forever the optimist, Reed plowed ahead with his white man’s attempt to offer hope to his all-black audience during a time when few cared enough to even try. 32

1956: Beginning to Build Bridges Now, let’s see what Christ had to say about minority groups. Good? Not necessarily. Bad? Sometimes. Inevitable? Yes. All people will never be equal in all things on this earth. Does Christ think we all have equal opportunities? Not here, today, but in the things that really count, yes. In the things that come from God, we do indeed. We have the opportunity to enjoy the world’s beauty, to enjoy the world’s people, to fall in love, to build strong character, to marry and have children, to learn about Jesus and God, to do God’s work. These, Jesus considered important—more important than governments, or states’ rights, or even constitutions, or racism. These, and these alone, can bring life eternal and fellowship with God. These opportunities are extended to all, black or white, and sometimes the harder your lot the greater they are. Does this mean that integration and segregation are unimportant? No, indeed! It simply means that there are some other things that are even more important, and that we should never sacrifice these in attempting to get the other. Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” Was he talking to us here in Mississippi today? You bet your life he was! Just as surely as if he were on this platform. Well, then, what did he mean? If you think integration and segregation are Christian problems, then pray to God. Go ahead and work for your choice, but remember Christ set the example of peace and love. He knew that he could not conquer for God by returning hate for hate! He was persecuted, criticized, lied about, cursed, run out of town, and crucified. But he did first seek the Kingdom of God and today is worshiped as the son of the Almighty God.

Reed knew he had taken it about as far as he could take this issue, so he closed his remarks with positive words about the state of Mississippi’s economy and how as it improved so, too, would the lot of its black citizens. It was still an era, however, when people of color were not allowed to use public restrooms, drink from public fountains, shop in many stores, or eat in many restaurants outside their neighborhoods. African Americans in 1956 were 33

1956: Beginning to Build Bridges forced to sit in movie house balconies and attend separate (but hardly equal) public schools. Nonwhite voters in Mississippi were rare, practically nonexistent. Many who breached the social mores of the day paid dearly; many simply vanished. Yet Reed tried to convince the black students that the Mississippi of 1956 was much better than the Mississippi of bygone eras. Ever the optimist, he wanted them to believe as he believed that they faced a brighter future, and he finished his address simply, by saying, “We all have lots to be thankful for.” Today, as Reed looks back over the manuscript of the speech at Rust, he chuckles softly. “In retrospect, it was a pretty weak speech,” he says. “But in the context of the time I gave it, I guess it wasn’t weak at all. Was I tiptoeing around the issue? I don’t think so, not really. I tried to be as forthright as I could.” He says it was obvious that many, if not most, of his audience were “very suspicious” of what he was saying. “But they were all very cordial. I received a nice round of applause when I finished. “The president of the college [Dr. Lee Marcus McCoy] and I were very good friends, and I think most of my remarks were well received by the administration. I was treated with a great deal of courtesy and probably with respect.” That was no small accomplishment. Not for a white man on the campus of an all-black college in Mississippi. Not in 1956.

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1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists “But as for me and my people we intend to stay.”

It’s a good thing Jack Reed felt it was his Christian obligation to speak out on matters that many in Mississippi preferred to avoid, because he soon received opportunities—and appointments— beyond his greatest expectations. His address to the annual conference of the North Mississippi Methodist Church in June of 1965 resulted in an invitation a couple of months later to speak to a “mass rally” of Mississippi Methodists at Galloway Memorial Methodist Church in downtown Jackson. Located midway between the state capitol and the Governor’s Mansion, where in 1965 segregationist Governor Paul B. Johnson presided and resided, Galloway is considered the “mother church” of Mississippi Methodism. The Galloway meeting on September 9, 1965, was billed as an “Action Crusade for Mississippi Methodists,” and hundreds of church members from every corner of the state crowded the pews of the storied old sanctuary. Nat Rogers, president of Deposit Guaranty Bank, the state’s largest at the time, gave the keynote address. As Reed had earlier in the year—and would later that same day—Rogers spoke of his devotion to and love of Methodism. While most of his address focused on the growth of Methodism in Mississippi and the financial resources that would be needed to sustain it, Rogers also

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1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists refused to sidestep what he referred to as “the knotty problems of social concerns”: As Methodists and as Christians, we cannot escape the knotty problems of social concerns in the future. . . . In Mississippi, we Methodists have been too emotional in our approach to the racial problem. . . . We will be more successful in the future if we will recognize that the responsible leadership in the Methodist Church is merely facing the realities of the times. It is doing nothing more than asking us to look at Negroes as individuals instead of a group apart. As we accept the Methodist position, we need have no fear of being deluged or destroyed. Few Negroes are likely to attend many of the Methodist churches represented here today. We badly need to restore this issue to a place where it can be studied with reason. It is going to be with us from now on, and we must master it or it will destroy us. As we view it in a calmer perspective, we can proceed to devote our main energy and attention to the positive and constructive program which our future requires.

By today’s standards, Rogers’s words are mild. In 1965, however, they were nothing if not bold, considering that many businessmen in the state were both his customers and members of the Citizens’ Council—a group of prominent white citizens dedicated to the preservation of segregation. Rogers’s words affirmed what Reed had been telling people within both the Mississippi Economic Council and the Methodist Church—that strong leadership was the answer to any problems the state would face, and that the state’s true leaders were suggesting a more temperate approach in addressing the race issue. For Reed, the suggestion of restraint and reason was hardly new. He was, after all, one of a growing number of “moderates” in Mississippi, considered by many of the state’s power brokers the most dangerous threat to the status quo of segregation. He was willing to look at all sides of any issue or argument, consider the various viewpoints, make a decision, then go forward. “I don’t like controversy,” he says. “I really don’t. But I don’t 36

1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists avoid it if I think there’s a problem that needs to be addressed. There are ways to disagree without being disagreeable. It’s not easy but it can be done.” And for Reed, there was always his one standard that would serve him well in whatever endeavor he found himself involved with: “I always tried to apply the dual test of morality and reason. I’ve done that all my life. I don’t know when I started using that, but as far back as I can remember I’ve tried to apply it to everything I do. I don’t know how others feel about some of my decisions, but I feel good for the most part because I’ve found that no matter what I was trying to accomplish, if it would pass that dual test then I knew I would be all right.” It was in that light that Reed spoke to the hundreds of Mississippi Methodists gathered on that fall day at Galloway for the Action Crusade. He knew where he was standing; he understood who was in the audience. He was aware that his words would be heard beyond Galloway’s walls. Always a man of good cheer, Reed opened his address in typical fashion, poking fun at himself, expressing his love for and devotion to the Methodist Church, and making it clear he was speaking for no particular group. While driving down the Natchez Trace this morning with Brother “Bo” Holloman, I asked Bo if he thought I would be well received. He said, “Certainly better than I would be.” To which I replied, “Well, after all, I’m not a preacher.” So, while I officially represent no one, perhaps unofficially I represent those “whose heart is as my heart” on these accounts. Frankly, I believe this to be a considerable number of our membership, and I will try to speak for them in a responsible way. Upon examination, I have realized that Methodism’s “mistakes” have resulted primarily from its fundamental Christian concerns, from its broadminded tolerance, from its sense of responsibility to and for others, and not from a doctrine of distrust and exclusiveness. . . . I am concerned because we do have real problems in Mississippi today that are making it difficult for our church—and because

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1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists if we do not put these problems into a proper perspective they are perfectly capable of destroying not only our program but our fellowship itself. For that reason I think that we must look at them, admit them, examine them, and lay them to rest if possible— for they are the shackles on the feet of Methodists in Mississippi today!

With that, Reed listed a group of “concerns” and offered his thoughts on them, including the very controversial position of the General Conference (the national governing body of the Methodist Church) on segregation, and especially the Association of Independent Methodists, a small group of churches scattered throughout Mississippi not willing to consider at all the possibility of allowing people of color in their houses of worship, not even in the slave galleries of the antebellum churches among their lot. As for the General Conference’s position on segregation, to be quite candid, this issue is just as dead as the congressional debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and to fight this particular battle is simply to beat a dead horse. The final answer, of course, will be found only at the local church. But the majority opinion of the delegates to the General Conference in favor of integration is a matter of record that intelligent people who wish to remain loyal to the Methodist Church will have to accept.

It must be noted that Reed was hardly a flaming liberal, even by the standards of the 1960s. He and many other white churchgoers of all denominations were “disenchanted” with the Delta Ministry, a National Council of Churches program designed to empower African American communities. Though he felt the Delta Ministry was overly disruptive in its dealings with congregations in the Mississippi River counties, Reed’s voice was one of but a few who pleaded for “his” Methodist Church to maintain its association with the National Council of Churches. Our disassociation with the [National Council] would not end the Delta Ministry, it would only end our ability to protest it

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1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists through the strength of our membership. So let us not sacrifice our church on the altar of expediency in the headlong rush to hit back! Let us recognize the Delta Ministry for what it is . . . [and] let us do the best we can with it, and get on with the Lord’s work which involves every Methodist in Mississippi and not just a few ultraliberals from out of state.

Reed’s words regarding the Delta Ministry were nothing if not frank, but it was the final “concern” on his list—the Association of Independent Methodists—that he spoke about most passionately: And finally, let’s consider the Association of Independent Methodists, which is the most overt action opposing our church unity today. I would say this, and I say it carefully and prayerfully: If a man is fundamentally opposed to the connectional aspect of our church, which through its conferences seeks to extend our faith and our programs to those whose hearts are as ours, wherever and whoever they are . . . If a man’s very conscience is offended by the general philosophy of our Discipline (and I am by no means suggesting total agreement—in a program as broad as ours this is virtually impossible) . . . If a man is convinced that Jesus Christ would have us exclusive rather than inclusive in our fellowship, and . . . If a man has come to such a position sincerely, I suggest that he, too, consider a change! But not, please, under the guise of loyalty to John Wesley, who said, “Dost thou love and serve God? It is enough, I give thee the right hand of fellowship.” But as for me and my people we intend to stay. I suppose I could be run out of the Methodist Church (I hope I don’t give you any ideas), but it will take a lot more than the things I have enumerated here to do it. Everyone here today knows that we have a great church, but we have ourselves limited its greatness with our own petty concerns about what the church can offer us. Our vows are simple and basic: “Belief in God, faith in Jesus Christ, and a pledge of faithful

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1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists support to Christ’s church.” We were each asked this when we joined the Methodist Church. This is all that we are being asked today.

Reed’s words, coupled with what Rogers had said earlier in the program, had a clearly positive effect on those gathered in the Galloway sanctuary. Many in each of the Mississippi Methodist conferences who had wanted to speak out on the same issues but had not were now emboldened by Rogers and Reed. The Independent Methodists had little to say—there were few of them, if any, at the Action Crusade—but the responses Reed received were plentiful and positive. “Judging from the letters I got, and I got a good many from all around, I would have to say my remarks were extremely well received,” Reed says. In a letter to Reed, Bishop Pendergrass wrote: “We believe that the success of this meeting, and certainly think nothing but that it was a major success, was stemmed by you and Mr. Rogers. I want you to know that we are obligated to you beyond any expression of words.” Reed appreciated the kind words from the church’s leader in Mississippi, but he also remembers how even the bishop had to treat such issues with more than a little sensitivity. “The interesting thing is that Bishop Pendergrass told me, privately, how pleased he was with what I had to say, but publicly he took it pretty easy,” Reed recalls. “He tried to trod in carefully; he didn’t want to offend anybody. There were some congregations who were trying to decide if they wanted to stay in the conference or pull out, and he didn’t want to give them another reason to pull out.” The letter from the bishop was hardly the only letter of appreciation Reed received following the Action Crusade. Like the response to his 1963 MEC speech, letters came in from every corner of Mississippi and elsewhere. Their words underscored some of the first words of his speech—that while he was officially representing no one, he was indeed unofficially representing many Methodists, inside Mississippi’s borders and out. 40

1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists The Reverend Homer Peden of Court Street Methodist Church in Hattiesburg wrote to Reed: “I believe you did us an invaluable service and that your optimism and progressive attitude will be contagious. The entire day was good and may prove to be a milestone in our church in Mississippi.” From Columbus, the Reverend Landis Rogers wrote: “In all my years in the Methodist church—both as layman and minister— this was one of the highlights of my entire experience thus far. I couldn’t help thinking later that it should be required reading for all Methodism. . . . You demonstrated a depth of spirituality that is so refreshing in this day of doubt, distrust, and widespread cynicism.” The Reverend Denson Napier of the Wesley Foundation at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg wrote: “As a minister it is easier to hold my head higher when remembering dedicated laymen like you.” The Mississippi Methodist Advocate had also carried Reed’s remarks in full, resulting in another round of letters. Surely, many of the Independent Methodists had read his remarks in the Advocate, though they did not correspond with Reed. Many who agreed with him, however, did. One of the most heartfelt letters came from Dr. W. B. Selah, who had been asked to leave Galloway Methodist because of his more liberal racial views. Reed had mentioned him prominently in his earlier speech to the North Mississippi Conference, and Selah, then living in Huntsville, Alabama, had read the speech in the Advocate. “I have read it carefully and I want to commend you on it,” Selah wrote. “You challenged Mississippi Methodists to face realities. Keep on bearing your witness. You and others like you will turn the tide in Mississippi in favor of truth and justice.” Jim Waits, the former pastor of Epworth Methodist Church in Biloxi, who was in graduate school at the University of Chicago, wrote to Reed: “I wish that I could have been on hand to hear it at Galloway Church. It certainly puts the issues facing the church in Mississippi unequivocally, and I’m sure it will have far-reaching results. . . . Please note that our thoughts are with you in times 41

1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists which are frequently trying. The thoroughly Christian commitment that your actions display is refreshing and meaningful for ministers and laymen alike.” The Reverend George M. Curry, associate publisher at The Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, Tennessee, and a former Mississippi preacher, wrote Reed that he was “grateful to you for a clear and trenchant statement, which should prove to be encouraging to Mississippi Methodists in the days ahead. . . . I believe that the Church will emerge stronger than ever from this very trying period.” While the undercurrent of a merger between the white and black Methodist conferences in Mississippi was beginning to grow, when Reed gave this speech that was not what he had on his mind. He was far more concerned with what he and many others perceived as the weakening of the conference if the Association of Independent Methodists continued to go unchecked. “The Independent Methodists were insistent on pulling out and they were fragmenting the church,” he says. “Several of us were trying to hold the church together. “The driving force for me was that [unity] was the Christian thing to do. People had to sublimate their own wishes for what was the greater good, what was true Methodism, what we stood for. Our actions had to be consistent with our words.” But it was the prospect of the two conferences actually merging that fueled the Independent Methodists in their withdrawal efforts—much like those who in the coming years would help start all-white private schools around Mississippi (and the rest of the South) under the guise of “better education.” Racial prejudice was the overriding factor, pure and simple, in these churches threatening to leave the conference, and it carried over into the dispute over merger among the churches that vowed to stay. While the Independent Methodist movement eventually subsided without the loss of many congregations, many individual Methodists did leave the church. In the meantime, the march toward merger moved ahead, slowly but steadily. It would not happen until 1973, but merger would indeed become a reality, both in organization and function. The all-white 42

1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists North Mississippi Conference combined with the all-black Upper Mississippi Conference and the name North Mississippi Conference was retained. In the southern part of the state a similar merger between the all-black and all-white conferences would come to pass and the integrated Mississippi Conference would be born. (In another fifteen years the North Mississippi Conference would merge with the Mississippi Conference to form today’s Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church.) Over the course of the next few years, Reed would find himself more heavily involved in the merger issue than he had ever imagined.

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1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations “Is the church relevant in today’s crazy society? I think it is.”

In 1968, Jack Reed attended the General (national) Conference of the Methodist Church in Dallas, as an alternate delegate from Mississippi. Though he had for many years been an outspoken advocate of merging the white and black conferences, it was at this meeting that his views on race relations would begin to become more focused. “I found out at that time the church had already moved further toward inclusiveness than I had realized,” he says. But it was at the Dallas General Conference that the true plan of merging the jurisdictional conferences and statewide (annual) conferences were written into Methodist policy. It was also at this conference that the Methodist Church became the United Methodist Church, with the constitution declaring: “The United Methodist Church is a part of the Church Universal which is one Body in Christ. Therefore, all persons, without regard to race, color, national origin, or economic condition, shall be eligible to attend its worship services, to participate in its programs, and when they take the appropriate vows, to be admitted into its membership in any local church in the connection.” That pronouncement achieved what Reed and many of his moderate cohorts in several southern states had longed for. He got more than he bargained for, however, when he was elected 44

1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations a delegate to the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference to be held later that summer at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. While there, Reed would be elected to another new United Methodist body, the Commission on Religion and Race—the only white layman from the Southeast to serve on what would become a panel of thirty-two members that also included ministers and other members of the laity from around the country. Reed’s popularity as a public speaker in Mississippi had grown immensely over the years. His good humor and positive outlook combined with his forthright approach to addressing serious and complex issues had churches and civic groups from around the state inviting him to their luncheons, dinners and meetings of all sorts. It was hard for him to say no, though it required time away from his family, which had grown to include four children, and from his family business, which included a manufacturing plant as well as department stores in Tupelo and Columbus. Reed was especially partial to local United Methodist churches and their Lay Sundays, and it was in those that he had all the opportunities he could ever hope for to address the merger of the black conferences and white conferences. After his appointment to the Commission on Religion and Race he became even more prominent in the pro-merger movement. Though the General Conference of 1968 had declared all annual conferences be merged, to no one’s great surprise Mississippi did not willingly follow the mandate. Neither, it should be pointed out, did many other southern states. Few Methodists of either race were eager to leave the comfort zones of their historic conferences. For the next few years the issue was discussed, dissected, and debated, and in 1971 a pro-merger group of white laymen and laywomen in the North Mississippi Conference was formed. The chairs of the various committees among the group were: James Robertson, Jan Robertson, Joe Wroten, Jack Huntley, and W. D. Baker, all of Greenville; Reed and Frank Riley of Tupelo; Charles Murry, Jerry Robbins, and Louis Zehnder, Jr., of Oxford; Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Watson of Leland; C. T. Carley of Starkville; and J. T. “Bud” Young of Maben. 45

1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations It was this group of white leaders that sat down with the leaders of the all-black Upper Mississippi Conference and began discussing opportunities and challenges inherent in such a historical union. Reed is quick to point out that while much of the opposition to the merger came from the Mississippi Delta, there was resistance from churches all around the state, including Tupelo. “Look, even in our church we had some ushers who didn’t want to seat blacks if they came to our services. We had a meeting of the ushers to talk about what to do, and it was Jack Eubank who said we should just do what we thought Jesus would do. That pretty well ended that. “We adopted a policy that we would seat them, but there were some who dropped out as ushers. There were some really fine people who had some really strong feelings—you know how it is about race. That was paramount everywhere.” Progressive actions in even the smallest of communities did not go unnoticed on the national level. One example was an article in the Wall Street Journal about conditions in the South that included this sentence: “By way of encouragement the United Methodist Church of Tupelo, Miss., voted to seat negroes by a vote of 40 to 4.” On May 7, 1971, an interdenominational, interfaith “Lay Leadership Assembly” was held in Jackson, drawing church and religious leaders from all around Mississippi. Reed was one of the speakers—invited by his Yazoo City friend Owen Cooper—and, as usual, cracked a couple of jokes, including one in which a Catholic asked his Baptist friend if he believed in infant baptism, and the Baptist friend replied, “Believe it? Heck, yes. Why, I’ve even seen it done.” Then Reed got straight to the point—the relevancy of the church in a society seemingly gone mad: If the lay leadership of our churches and synagogues cannot together profitably address themselves to the problems and opportunities of our state, I don’t know who can. And if God would not have you and me here tonight, I have no idea where—in His world or in Mississippi—he would rather us be.

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1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations I wonder if any of you ever experience the feeling I sometimes have nowadays. I read the paper or hear the news and an unreal sensation comes over me—a feeling that what’s happening can’t be real. We’ve killed thousands of boys in a miserable no-win war and can’t find a way to stop it . . . young radicals burning and bombing colleges they pay to attend . . . nuts and revolutionaries continue to hijack planes full of innocent people . . . policemen assassinated for no reason at all . . . black people hating white people and vice versa . . . What’s the answer to all this? Maybe part of the answer is right here in our church. Look around you; I don’t see any revolutionaries, hijackers, Black Panthers, or Ku Klux Klansmen. I see a group of decent human beings—not perfect by any means—but fundamentally responsible, concerned, and (I hope) tolerant people trying with all our faults to be better people. That’s why we come to church, isn’t it? Is the church relevant in today’s crazy society? I think it is. Today, as in the past, church members are people who profess concern about morality, ethics, and the true meaning of life. The church continues to stand for individual responsibility, accountability, and a disciplined life as opposed to the irresponsibility, permissiveness, and total lack of restraint we find too prevalent in modern society.

He spent the next few minutes reaffirming his belief in God and in the church, and in restating his belief that all change must begin in the homes and home churches, then grow outward from there. And so another conviction I have is that right now we need in America and Mississippi less passion and more compassion—less revolution and more resolution. . . . John Locke (whose writings inspired the leaders of our American Revolution, which itself is the basis for most of our modern militants) said that “man can achieve his fullest self-realization by a life in which he balances his own aspirations with society’s rightful demands.”

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1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations Specifically, I believe that our society rightfully demands that we concern ourselves here and now with the welfare of our fellow man and balance our own aspirations accordingly. This, of course, takes us into the broad area of human relations, which, in Mississippi we have come to define too narrowly, I think, as race relations. Now, I realize that many of you do not know me personally, so my own opinion on this subject would be worth very little. For this reason, in the time that I have left, I want to tell you about a personal experience I have had in this field during the last three years during which I have had the privilege of serving on the United Methodist Church Commission on Religion and Race. Some of you, no doubt, have had similar experiences, but this has had a considerable effect on my life and on my commitment to my church. This commission was appointed in our General Conference of Methodism in Dallas in 1968 with the express purpose of eliminating racism in the United Methodist Church and to aid in completing the merging of the black conferences in our church with the white conferences. This has been the general aim of the Methodist Church for many years, but the actual merger had not been effected and the pressures of the sixties resulted in direct action being taken to do this. Personally, I was not much concerned; I somehow felt that it was reasonable and I was satisfied to let the conference delegates work it out. Furthermore, I had never been a delegate to any conference in our church and had no desire to be, so it wasn’t my problem. Well, to make a long story short, by some quirk of fate I was elected a delegate to our Southeast Jurisdictional Conference (where most black Methodists reside), and while there I was elected a member of this national commission. The constituency of the committee is rather unusual. Starting off with twenty-five members plus one black bishop and one white bishop, we now have thirty-two members in all: twelve blacks, twelve whites, eight from other ethnic groups—JapaneseAmericans, Indian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, HispanicAmericans, and Chinese-Americans. We have twenty-five ministers, two laywomen and five laymen.

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1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations This has been a fascinating involvement, truly a liberal education and a unique experience for me. I have been both impressed and encouraged by the attitude of the members of our commission. We certainly have some real liberals, but we also have moderates and conservatives as well, and the breakdowns are not all along racial lines by any means. Our members all love the church and share a commitment to renewal within the church. They are not separatists. They are trying to save rather than destroy. Being outnumbered fifteen to one in this Southeast Jurisdiction, the blacks’ greatest fear is a fear of absorption and loss of identity within the church—and I think this fear is well grounded. At least up to now the commission has been willing to agree that the inclusive church has the power, through its redemptive fellowship, to change lives and to create a brotherhood of mutual concern and respect that can encompass both activist blacks and segregationist whites. Only time will tell whether this is the case. We’ve made meaningful progress, though I make no great claims for our success. We do have a great fellowship. . . . Now, we know each other well enough to say what’s really on our hearts and minds, and like all good friends, we get a little mad occasionally, but we don’t stay mad. Merger is working on our commission. I will admit the blacks can get us whites a little disturbed occasionally, too. Like when Woodie White says: “If one is unable to accept me because of my blackness, the color of my skin, the texture of my hair, the thickness of my lips, the broadness of my nose, then his quarrel is not with me, but with my Father, God, who created me.” You know, I still haven’t thought of a good answer to that. Then the preachers are quick to quote the Bible to us laymen— particularly from Acts about the coming of the Holy Spirit at the inception of the church at Pentecost when they say the church began as interracial and international with every color represented. And in the light of this reference, let me say that all of our eyes have been opened to the plight of other ethnic groups in our church who are actually more ignored than the blacks.

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1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations We meet in various parts of the country, so far in Washington, Birmingham, San Antonio, Tampa, Chicago, and Atlanta, and begin by inviting the local leadership of the minority groups to appear before us and tell us directly what their problems are—and they aren’t bashful either. Generally, we have our eyes opened. Usually it’s the blacks who are unhappy, but in Birmingham we had more protesting from the ultraconservative whites! In San Antonio, where one-half the city is Mexican-American, we learned that in the poorest section of the city the educational level is less than fourth grade and unemployment never gets under fifteen percent. Our host there was José Gonzalez, a member of our commission. Raised a sharecropper in the Rio Grande Valley, he finished high school at twenty-five, college at thirty-four, divinity school at thirty-eight, and he loves the church as only a man can who has given his life to it. One of our speakers was a Mexican-American graduate of Princeton Seminary. He told us of their frustrations, all the way from being ignored historically for their part in the Alamo and Texas war for independence to the common image of the MexicanAmerican as being like José Jiminez, a humorous underdeveloped people, not to be taken seriously as either Americans or church leaders. In a very ironic statement he said, “People love Mexican food, they love Mexican music, they love Mexican dances, but they don’t give a damn about Mexicans.” So I have learned something of tolerance myself as we have wrestled with these problems. And, in attempting to interpret the South’s position, I have asked for another kind of tolerance from my associates—tolerance for the conservative who is being caught up and carried so fast by this changing world, and in this I have been somewhat reassured by Will and Ariel Durant’s latest book, The Lessons of History, gleaned from two lifetimes of research. “The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it, perhaps more valuable. . . . It is good that new ideas should be heard for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go

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1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations through the Mill of Objection of Opposition and Contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race.” Now, in fairness, I think that some of the new ideas we still question have already survived this ordeal and are a part of our time (as well as of our churches) and I’m thinking now of civil rights and church rights. But others, I think, are still rightly in the process of legitimate debate. For example: I am by no means convinced that the current philosophy of the antiwar demonstrators that abuses the right of others, that destroys property and mouths obscenities, and that obviously believes that the end justifies the means is legitimate. In fact, I am pretty well convinced that it is not. And in questions like these I think we (in or out of our churches) have the responsibility of putting the dual test of both morality and reason to each of the burning issues of today! History offers some consolation by reminding us that sin has flourished in every age. In conclusion I would like to make a few personal comments: I did not want this assignment to this committee and, in fact, I tried hard to be excused. I felt from the outset three years ago that my critics would condemn me and that my friends would misunderstand my participation—and, frankly, I have found little reason to believe otherwise. It is controversial, it is difficult, and in many ways it has been a truly disturbing experience. As the only white southern layman, I am on many of the critical subcommittees. (I go to Atlanta at 5:30 Monday morning to meet with a group who is still turning away blacks from the doors of their churches in Americus, Georgia.) Many times I have been with the minority, and occasionally I have been the lone dissenting voice, but generally I have approved our action. I have not tried to speak for my local church, but I do believe that on almost all issues a great many of our members would have voted as I did under the same circumstances. But one thing this has done is strengthen my faith in the relevancy and in the importance of my church during this time of social upheaval and turmoil. I am convinced that this is something the church ought to be

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1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations doing, that this is God’s work and that if the good and decent church people of America, like you and like me, do not give leadership in the improvement in human relations, He will find other ways and other institutions to build his kingdom. At least we can give the lie to the old accusation that “Like a mighty tortoise trods the Church of God, and today we are trodding where always we have trod.” At least this is a change in the church. . . . Surely, it’s disturbing, but it is also challenging, and when I get upset and frustrated about the violence and unrest and conflicts at home and abroad—about Vietnam and Washington, about busing and marching, I am truly strengthened by Thomas Paine’s statement in The American Crisis in 1776, when he wrote: “If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my children may have peace.” And our children may live in peace if we will do our part— where we are, as we are. I believe that religious witness is needed as much in a democracy, and as much in Mississippi, as it is needed under fascism, Nazism, or communism.

As before, Reed’s remarks were well received, but this time he was preaching to the choir—churchmen and churchwomen from around the state who thought as he thought on these issues, many of whom were as active and as outspoken as he. Reed says now that one of his greatest compliments came from Rabbi Perry Nussbaum of Temple Beth Israel in Jackson (and a participant in the meeting) when he asked for a copy of Reed’s speech for his personal files. Four years earlier, Nussbaum had become the first white clergyman whose home and house of worship were dynamited by racists. Temple Beth Israel was bombed in September 1967 and his home two months later. “That meant a lot to me,” Reed says of Nussbaum’s request. “Because that’s all I’ve ever tried to do when I gave a talk—reach out to all people and try to find a common ground.”

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1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education “If educated, people are our greatest asset.”

Mississippi’s public schools were in a state of turmoil during the 1960s and 1970s. Being the poorest state in the Union obviously meant the state budget was woeful, but because of the racial prejudice that permeated state politics at the time whatever funds were available for education were carefully scrutinized, making desegregation more difficult. Education in general was never a top priority in any of those legislative sessions, and individual legislators who dared mention integration did so at great risk— politically and personally. Tupelo, of course, faced the same problem as every other school district in Mississippi, but educators and civic leaders took matters into their own hands and ensured a reasonably smooth transition from all-white and all-black schools into an integrated system. There were no public protests, no marches, no rallies, and certainly no riots. There were some frayed nerves, to be sure, but with strong civic leadership from men such as George McLean, Jack Reed and his brothers, Bob and Bill, Harry Rutherford, Bill Beasley, Felix Black, Harry Martin, Jim High, Son Puckett, Henry Brevard, Jim Ingram, Len Pegues, Perrin Purvis, J. C. Whitehead, and many others, Tupelo schools were able to avoid the tribulations of most Mississippi schools. Their success came primarily because the establishment of private schools was discouraged;

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1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education thereby, the “white flight” from public schools that was becoming typical in other Mississippi communities was avoided. While the aforementioned group could usually be found out front of most civic endeavors, they were joined in their work for Tupelo schools by such equally passionate and effective leaders in the African American community as Palmer Foster, Harry Grayson, Robert Jamison, Robert Hereford, Joseph and Lucinda Washington, and Vera Duke. A very determined and forceful group of white females was also instrumental in the orderly desegregation of the schools; its numbers included Louise Godwin, Catherine Sadler, Edith Thomas, Frances Patterson, Cora Fields, Mary Elizabeth Caldwell, Betsy Puckett, Joyce Beasley, and, not surprisingly, Frances Reed, Jack’s wife, who was vice president of the statewide group Mississippians for Public Education. For Jack Reed, the desegregation of the state’s public schools was merely a natural, albeit difficult, progression, and no one spread the gospel of education for all more or more effectively than Reed. His many speeches over the years on race relations within the United Methodist Church coupled with his out spoken support for public education within the Mississippi Economic Council assured him a leadership position in the education battles of the times. Throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, Reed played an extremely active role in the growth of the Community Development Foundation, Tupelo’s economic development organization made up of business and industry leaders in Lee County. He served as chair in 1968–69 and on its executive committee for more than thirty years. Based on the premise that community development precedes economic development, CDF, with Reed as one of its main spokesmen, began stressing the need for strong public schools in Tupelo and Lee County. Even though its population was only twenty thousand or so, Tupelo was still the “hub city” for most of northeast Mississippi, and its message of progressive public schools was picked up throughout the entire region. Reed rarely strayed from his message, and he restated his formula for successful schools time and again. “I believed then and I still believe,” he says, that “Mississippi schools needed qualified, 54

1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education professional superintendents, whether appointed or elected, who can communicate effectively with both their communities and faculties, and whose priority is hiring and supporting good, strong principals. These principals would in turn hire and support qualified teachers, who would be left alone to teach. The teachers are, without a doubt, the key to public education success.” He was called on to speak to all manner of civic and professional groups throughout northeast Mississippi and rare were the occasions when he did not respond. Even more infrequent were the times he failed to speak on public education. “Our [CDF’s] message was always the same—and it still is today,” Reed says. “If you want to have a truly strong community you’ve got to have truly strong public schools. That’s just as true today as it was in 1966, and I’m proud to say that there are some very strong communities in northeast Mississippi—and I’m certainly proud that Tupelo is one of them.” On May 14, 1964, Reed spoke at the CDF annual banquet on the need for quality education. He began with a quote from the ancient Roman consul Publilius Syrus: “It is only the ignorant who despise education.” It wasn’t long before he began using the most up-to-date statistics of 1964 to state his case: Over one-third of Mississippi tax dollars goes for education. This is four and a half percent of all personal income in Mississippi, and that compares to three and a half percent which is the national average. This is good, but because personal income in Mississippi is only one-half the national average this means that in actual dollars we spend $220 per pupil in Mississippi versus $414 per pupil in the United States. . . . The average teacher salary in Mississippi pays $3,700 while the national average is $5,700—and all our surrounding states pay more. One result of this system is that in 1960 over one half of Mississippi draftees failed the mental examination of the armed forces—in this category we led the nation! But our concern tonight is really not what education is costing us but, rather, what can we expect to get back in return for our investment? The United States Chamber of Commerce says that a man

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1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education with a college degree will, from age twenty-five to sixty-five, earn $180,000 more than a high school graduate; and a high school graduate will earn $109,000 more than a man with less than eight years of school. In an average year, the man with less than eight years of school will earn $2,860; the man with the high school diploma will earn $4,700; the man with a college degree will earn $9,100. And did you know that in Lee County seventy-five percent of our men over age twenty-six have not finished high school? I was at Milam Junior High last week . . . there were over two hundred bright, good-looking boys and girls, and yet twenty-five of these won’t even show up for the tenth grade next fall. Certainly there is a need for quality education. We are now making a great effort—one hundred and thirty percent in the last ten years for education versus a seventy percent national increase [in spending for education]. Even so we are not gaining much ground. To do so means higher school budgets, and higher school budgets mean more tax dollars. This may mean higher taxes today but it also means greater income tomorrow—and greater opportunities for our children. I sincerely believe that money spent on quality education is an investment with a handsome dividend guaranteed.

Reed offered a number of suggestions for the improvement of education, including passing an education bill that would increase teacher salaries and, thereby, increase teacher retention; enlarging the state board of education; strengthening the junior college system; and investing more in both Tupelo and Lee County schools, even if it meant higher taxes. During the next several years, Reed became even more involved in public education, especially the Tupelo schools. All four of his children—Jack, Jr., Camille, Catherine, and Scott—were active in the Tupelo schools and that, of course, meant the parents were equally involved. Reed’s father had died suddenly in November 1956, and the three Reed brothers had become equal partners in the family business and in civic affairs, including the public schools. While 56

1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education Jack was the most prominent spokesman in support of public education, maintaining strong schools was a family mission, and his brothers were supportive and also committed to keeping their children in the Tupelo public schools. It was through his work with the MEC on a statewide level and with CDF back at home that Reed says he became so heavily involved in public education. “The MEC was determined that our public schools would not only remain open but succeed,” he says, “and the CDF, driven by George McLean’s one million dollar challenge to put reading assistants in each Lee County elementary school, was vitally concerned with early childhood education. Between those two organizations it was easy for me to become involved.” While he had become deeply involved in the family business, Reed says during his days as a student at Vanderbilt University he had fully intended to become a college English professor. He even considered the possibility while in the army. “When I was in the service, I thought very seriously that that was what I wanted to do,” he says. “But when I got back I realized that it didn’t suit my personality, but I never lost my love for education.” In 1980, the progressive William Winter, Reed’s longtime friend and staunch ally in support of public schools, became governor of Mississippi. During his campaign in 1979 it was the broadest and sturdiest plank in his platform, and, once elected, Winter set in motion his plan for lifting Mississippi schools from the bottom. Reed would become an integral part of that plan. Theirs was an easy alliance. They were similar in myriad ways: rural north Mississippians (Winter was from Grenada, a hundred miles southwest of Tupelo) who were church leaders and “moderates” when it came to race relations. Both had a steadfast faith in the people of Mississippi and longed for the day when her children would receive the education they deserved. One of Winter’s first accomplishments as governor was to convince the legislature to establish a twenty-member Special Committee on Public School Finance and Administration, and it would soon become known as the Blue Ribbon Committee on Education. 57

1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education Reed was one of Winter’s eight appointments to the committee; Lieutenant Governor Brad Dye appointed six senators, and Buddie Newman, speaker of the house, appointed six representatives. At the committee’s first meeting Reed was unanimously elected chair. Reed’s appointment to the Blue Ribbon Committee had a significant impact on his public life. For six months he, the layman, was immersed in a detailed study of public education in Mississippi and was closely involved with the leading members of the Mississippi legislature. As chair, Reed quickly became aware of the adversarial relationship between the senate and house of representatives, and he says that tenuous and often tumultuous relationship was so pervasive and the twelve legislative members disagreed so often that the balance of power rested in the eight governor’s appointees, who worked well together. Reed commented at the time, “While I, as past president of the MEC, and Claude Ramsey, Mississippi’s leading labor leader, agreed more than 90 percent of the time, the house and senate members never agreed on anything!” Ramsey was considered by some as a bane to the business community, and that he and Reed would find themselves allies on the Blue Ribbon Committee was beyond interesting. Both, however, respected each other and shared a commitment to public education. “Actually, it was Claude who made the motion that the chairman should be one of the governor’s appointees,” Reed recalls. Discord among the politicians on the committee, however, did not restrain the affable Reed from forging close ties with leaders of both legislative chambers. He became good friends with Representative Robert Clark and Senator Jack Gordon, chairmen of their respective legislative committees on education, whose knowledge and understanding of the problems faced by Mississippi’s public schools he came to respect. After one memorable and heated debate between Gordon and Clark over which consultant should be chosen to work on a new funding formula for the schools, Dr. John Augenblick with the 58

1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education Education Commission of the States was hired and a progressive new blueprint was devised. The blueprint, however, proved impossible to implement without a statewide reappraisal of property. This reappraisal would equalize the efforts of each of Mississippi’s 152 school districts to meet their taxation support of school finance. Fortunately, under the leadership of J. C. Redd of Jackson and other business leaders (including Reed) a lawsuit against the state of Mississippi was successful in bringing about the statewide reappraisal. This was hardly the first time a committee had been formed to study public education in Mississippi. Report after report had gathered the dust of the ages on the shelves of the state capitol. Winter, however, was determined this group’s work would not be in vain. The Blue Ribbon Committee laid the groundwork for the passage of the historic Education Reform Act of 1982—a sweeping piece of legislation unmatched by that of any other state in the Union and one that forever changed Mississippi’s schools. It had not been easy. Indeed, it had been extremely frustrating for Winter and his staff, and also for Reed and his nineteen associates on the Blue Ribbon Committee. During the 1981 session, the committee presented seventeen pieces of legislation it felt would improve public schools in Mississippi—including appointed superintendents, kindergartens, mandatory attendance, lay boards of education, and equity funding—yet not a single one made it to the floor of either the senate or house of representatives. It made little, if any, difference that the Blue Ribbon Committee had been established by the legislature and even included a dozen legislators. Clearly, education was still not a top priority in the state legislature. Others around the state, however, were beginning to clearly understand what Winter, Reed, and their cohorts were trying to get across to the legislature—that Mississippi’s floundering public school system was blocking any real progress in economic development and quality of life. While there was little positive response and no positive action from the legislature, Mississippi’s public school leaders, not surprisingly, had paid close attention 59

1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education to the Blue Ribbon Committee’s efforts, and the Mississippi Association of Educators presented Reed its 1981 Friend of Education Award. In his acceptance speech at a banquet on May 5, 1981, in Tupelo, with Winter and several legislators among those in the audience, Reed did not hold back his feelings about the legislature’s inaction. I believe in education, both public and private. I believe public education is of primary importance. And, frankly, I believe that integrated public education is a precept of democracy. However, in the past year I have discovered that everybody does not share the intensity of my feelings about this. In fact, I can tell you that with a few notable exceptions (some of whom are here tonight), the Mississippi legislature really does not consider the improvement of public education to be a priority of state government today. As a matter of fact, I think many in the legislature were surprised, some perhaps even dismayed, that our committee took its work so seriously.

Even Reed’s sense of humor was a bit more pointed on this night. He remarked that on the last day of the legislative session for bills to be introduced on the floor he had called the governor’s office and learned that none of the seventeen bills his committee had recommended had made the cut. I told him that proved our point. Public education in Mississippi was woefully inadequate—since virtually all of the legislators are products of the system! I also told him that I felt like the woman whose tombstone read: “She lived with her husband for fifty years and died in the confident hope of a better life.”

It was during this speech that Reed introduced his set of “three Rs” that he believed were holding back Mississippi. They would become a central part of his presentations in the months and

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1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education years to come whenever he spoke out on behalf of public education. There are, of course, several reasons for this lack of commitment, including a new set of Rs that we ran into: resentment, reluctance, and race. Resentment of federal interference; reluctance of private school supporters to tax themselves for public education; and, despite tremendous progress in this regard and without dramatizing the point, racism. Racism remains a major influence in our state, and public schools are still the focal point of its expression. But against these objections we need to weigh these factors and the conclusions of our committee. Our recommendations were essentially identical to those made by every study committee and consultant group that has studied Mississippi schools—for the last twenty-five years! We called for more professionalism and less politics, for a lay board of education, for appointed school superintendents, for fiscal independence of school districts, for a better formula for distributing state money among 152 school districts, for compulsory attendance, and for public kindergarten. Plus, we called for some less important matters, practically all of which are commonplace in every other state in the Union. And not one single bill even got out of committee! In effect, the legislature—whose members comprised sixty percent of our committee’s membership—said: “So what? What’s the big deal?” Or as one prominent member from south Mississippi was quoted by U.P.I. as saying: “All these things have come up before. If there was a need for them it would have been passed long before now.”

Such logic frustrated Reed, and he made no attempt to cover his disdain for such a remark. He says he believed it was a “moral issue of our responsibility as adults to our children and to God’s children” and then quoted the U.S. Department of Commerce figures on the per capita income of southern states—figures

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1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education that, as usual, placed Arkansas and Mississippi at the bottom of the list. In 1970, we were $150 behind Arkansas. In 1980, we are $700 behind Arkansas. My friends, you can be idealistic and altruistic or cynical and selfish. Either way, you will still come to the inescapable conclusion that we must either educate our young people and prepare them for jobs of the future, or we can put them on welfare rolls and support them for the rest of their lives. So let me say to you tonight—and to the legislature—that this is a choice we cannot afford to make. . . . I have often asked myself the questions: If we had an active state board of education; if we had appointed superintendents; if we had the money, what would be the first thing the educators would recommend our doing? After months of intensive investigation I am convinced that it would be: to enact a good compulsory attendance law and institute a statewide public kindergarten program for the purpose of early childhood education—and I know that is what we should dedicate ourselves to achieving during this administration. . . . Personally, I believe that it is more than just coincidence that Mississippi is the only state in the Union without public kindergartens and we are also last in most all standards of economics and educational measurement. And we can do something about it. Yesterday’s [Northeast Mississippi Daily] Journal began: “To achieve is to believe that what ought to be can be.” I believe that, and we have a lot going for us. For one thing, the public has become better informed. For another, we have never before had a governor who has the commitment to public education and to excellence that William Winter has. And if we, as educators and concerned citizens, will concentrate on the same priorities such as the compulsory attendance and kindergarten we can start a forward movement that will eventually affect the entire educational complex. And if that doesn’t work, maybe we can all become “aginners.”

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1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education They seem to be the ones that get heard. They get more agitated than reasonable people do. They are more strident, more emotional, more frightening to elected officials. So maybe we can be against ignorance and against poverty.

Reed’s remarks were welcomed by a better-informed public. With more information than they had ever been given, private citizens had a much clearer understanding of what was at stake, and a measure of support all across Mississippi was growing stronger each day. Despite the legislative rejections, Winter and his staff stayed the course, clinging to the recommendations by the Blue Ribbon Committee. Slowly but surely they built public support for the measures through a series of town hall meetings all across Mississippi, and were backed by the strong endorsement of many of the state’s leading newspapers. A precursor to the Education Reform Act of 1982 had been the approval in the November general election by Mississippi voters of Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 506—revising the makeup of the Mississippi Board of Education into a nine-member lay board whose members would be responsible for hiring the state superintendent. Historically, the state board had been comprised of the attorney general, the secretary of state, and the elected state superintendent of education, and many saw no need for a change. It had not been a “sexy” issue, and those working hardest for its passage were afraid a lack of interest, lack of understanding, or both would lead to its doom. But it did pass—by a margin of 219,973 to 203,005—and it set the stage for “the Christmas miracle of 1982.” Once Winter’s statewide forums had been completed and the lay board passed into law, most legislators, educators, supporters, and observers figured the rest of the governor’s reform package would wait until the 1983 session began in January. Winter and many on his staff, however, sensed a need to “seize the moment,” and the governor called for a special legislative session to begin on December 6. Two tumultuous—and sometimes 63

1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education contentious—weeks later the Education Reform Act of 1982 became the law. It was bold, sweeping legislation, and overnight Mississippi’s vision for public education became a national model. Though the Blue Ribbon Committee’s work was finished, Reed’s was not. In January 1984, Winter was succeeded in the governor’s office by Bill Allain, who would appoint Reed to the newly formed state board of education. He would serve with Joe Blount, Carolyn Gwin, Arthur Peyton, Talmadge Portis, James Price, Jr., Lucimarian Roberts, Joe Ross, Jr., and Tommy Webb. “I think it was a really good first-time board plowing new ground, and was helped greatly by Allain’s temporary appointment of Andy Mullins to the staff of the board until it became official,” Reed says. Mullins had also been on the staff of Winter’s Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Reed, and the two worked well together. (Six months later, Mullins would be hired as special assistant to the state superintendent of education.) “We came from all sorts of backgrounds, but we all got along really well. I think the main thing is that all of us were concerned about the children. We made them our first priority in every decision we made.”

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1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress “We have too much at stake.”

On June 22, 1985, a little more than a year after being named to the Mississippi Board of Education and being elected its chair, Reed addressed the Mississippi Press Association at its annual luncheon meeting in Biloxi. His purpose was twofold: to thank the newspapers from around the state for their very vital part in securing passage of the Education Reform Act of 1982 and to give them a glimpse of things to come for Mississippi schoolchildren. Although I have been introduced often this past year as “an important person—chairman of the Mississippi Board of Education”— consider, if you will, that we are last in dollars of pupil support, last in teacher pay, last in most test scores, and last in statewide literacy. That is hardly a record that would make the chairman arrogant, is it? Sometimes, I’m surprised anyone would take the job. And, philosophically speaking, I would hope that education and arrogance would never go together. . . . So I am not arrogant about public education in Mississippi—but neither am I apologetic. Nor am I discouraged or pessimistic—though I’m not quite as optimistic as the couple who went to city hall to see if their marriage license had expired. But I am a pragmatist. They say the difference in an optimist and a pragmatist is that the pragmatist is better informed. And I have

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1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress become much better informed about education in the last eighteen months—and I’m still optimistic. However, there was one thing that I already knew before taking office, and that was that a great many members of the Mississippi Press Association were in support of Governor Winter’s Education Reform Act and can claim the primary responsibility for the enactment of that bill into law. And as a citizen of this state who cares about it, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that support. It is clear to me that “education” and “Mississippi press” are words that do go together, and it is to the benefit of us all that they do. So one very important reason I accepted the invitation is to come and thank you, to ask for your continued support—and to promise you that our board of education will make every effort to merit your support.

Reed reminded the MPA audience of the poll United Press International had taken back in 1963 in which forty-one of fifty legislators polled had said they would consider closing public schools if they were integrated. He also recalled the legislature’s refusal, nearly twenty years later, to consider even one of the seventeen measures recommended by the Blue Ribbon Committee on Education. Then, however, he spoke of the progress that had been made in the few short years since education reform laws had been enacted. There was no priority commitment to public education in the Mississippi legislature as late as 1981, and, of course, the legislature merely reflected its constituents as is generally the case. Then Governor Winter and his aides and school supporters orchestrated a massive statewide effort in 1982. A constitutional amendment authorizing the lay board of education passed, and a special session of the legislature resulted in the Education Reform Act. To my mind, that was the most significant piece of legislation to come out in my lifetime, and beginning last year, the legislature has charged the state board of education with implementing it. . . .

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1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress We are making measurable progress, and we are working together as a team. We are nine independent thinkers who are all political appointees but who are, in fact, the least politically motivated or dominated board with which I have ever worked. We all have a shared commitment to improving public education in Mississippi and in making the Education Reform Act work. We will undoubtedly make some mistakes, but we will accept the blame when we do—and we won’t cop out on our responsibility.

Reed then summarized the highs and lows of the state board of education’s first year, highlighting the hiring of Dr. Richard Boyd as the state’s first appointed superintendent of education. “We could not have hired a better man to serve in that role for the first time,” Reed recalls. “The whole way of doing business was new to all of us, and Dick was the perfect person to guide us through those early days. They weren’t always easy and the board didn’t agree on everything, but Dick Boyd made sure we kept our focus on the children of Mississippi.” As he continued his speech to the MPA, Reed said he and many of his fellow board members were concerned about the impetus of Winter’s education reform losing steam. Earlier in 1985, many Mississippi teachers, led by a group from Stone County in south Mississippi, had voted to go on strike in the middle of the legislative session. After several days of negotiations among the teachers, the state board of education, and members of the legislature, however, the strike had been averted. Reed, though, was still worried about support for education reform slowing, and implored the members of the press to continue focusing their editorial spotlights on public education. But we cannot let the negativists, the doomsayers and the “aginners” get us down. We have too many good things going for us and we have too much at stake. Just a few days ago I read a fine column [in the Washington Post] by one of my favorites, William Raspberry of Okolona, in which he was commenting on the way out of poverty. “You cannot learn to produce success by studying failure . . . you need a

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1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress success-focused course of action.” That’s what we have in the Education Reform Act. It is no quick fix, but it will pay great dividends if we stay with it. And we must. It will benefit us all. Every candidate for statewide office in my lifetime, from Bilbo to the present, has declared on the stump that “our people are our greatest asset.” That’s a great half-truth, and it was Benjamin Franklin who said that half a truth “is often a great lie.” If educated, our people are our greatest asset. If not educated, they are our greatest liability. Last fall I was speaking at the faculty convocation at Mississippi State University where the principal speaker was a member of the National Committee on Excellence in Education who had brought out the paper “A Nation at Risk” with its widely quoted statement that “a rising tide of mediocrity was sweeping over public education.” While driving down to Starkville that morning I was thinking of that and I thought that there is another tide. In Julius Caesar Shakespeare wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; / Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries.” It was the first week of school, and, while driving, I passed several groups of rural schoolchildren on the roadside, waiting for their school buses. They were nice-looking children, both black and white, and I thought, These children are a fortune waiting to be developed—but if we miss this great opportunity, if we fail in education reform, they will indeed be destined to spend the voyage of their lives “in shallows and in miseries” just as their parents and grandparents have done because of the twin plagues of poverty and ignorance. We cannot afford to fail, and I promise you that our board of education and our superintendent are committed to real and substantial improvement in public education in Mississippi. But our commitment is not enough. I’m reminded of the politician who was told, “Every right thinking person in the state will vote for you.” “That’s not enough,” he replied. “I need a majority.” That’s what we need in support of public schools in Mississippi if we are to realize the potential of the Education Reform Act.

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1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress And no group can do more to generate that support than the Mississippi Press Association. In fact, no one has done more than you. But the fight is not over. In fact, it has just begun. But with your help and the help of others we can win it. We must win it. I believe we will win it.

For the next nine years, Reed would serve on the board of education, calling it “some of the most meaningful work I’ve ever been involved in.” During those nine years, Mississippi did indeed climb off the very bottom of many education measuring standards, as promised during the push for passage of the Education Reform Act. That Education Reform Act of 1982, Reed says, provided educators in Mississippi—in the individual schools and in the state department headquarters—“an awful lot of opportunities.” He is adamant in his belief that most school people took advantage of those opportunities, “or otherwise [Mississippi] would not have shown the improvement it has for the past twenty years. “I wouldn’t take anything for those years,” Reed says. “Governor Allain was true to his word; it was a very rewarding job. I am very grateful for having had the opportunity to serve in that capacity. The budget problems and the teacher strike certainly weren’t enjoyable, but overall it was a truly wonderful experience.” He says the most pleasant surprise of his tenure was becoming familiar with the staff of the Mississippi Department of Education. “There were so many critics of the department that I didn’t know what to expect. But it didn’t take me long to realize the quality of the folks in the department and how dedicated they were to improving education in Mississippi.” Reed says he is most proud of the board’s work with establishing kindergartens in the public school systems and with the teaching assistants in elementary classrooms. Both programs, he hastens to add, were passions of his mentor, George McLean, the venerable publisher of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. His biggest regret, he says, was that the board was never able to persuade the legislature to abolish elected local school super intendents or 69

1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress to do away with the 60 percent requirement for passage of local school bond issues. “I think every serious educator I talked with by the time I went off the board—both in our state and around the country— agreed that we had improved education in Mississippi, and that we had improved it greatly,” he says. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but I am confident that our public schools are stronger than they’ve ever been.” In 1990, Reed’s focus turned to the national stage when President George H. W. Bush appointed him to a three-year term on the National Advisory Council on Educational Research and Improvement. His relationship with Lamar Alexander, the secretary of education and a former governor of Tennessee, helped make the connection from the White House to Reed’s office on Spring Street in downtown Tupelo. At the very first meeting of the fifteen-member council, Reed was named chair. “There was no election or anything,” Reed says with a chuckle. “We all just showed up, and the White House representative at the meeting just announced that ‘Mr. Reed will set the agenda.’ I was as surprised as everyone else.” In an op-ed piece for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Reed wrote that the council “was created for the purpose of advising the President, the Secretary of Education, and the Congress on policies and activities carried out by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education. “We are to review and publicly comment on the activities of OERI and to insure implementation of educational reform based on the findings of educational research,” he wrote. “In addition we generate our own research in areas that we feel there is an unmet need.” Reed wrote that the fifteen members of the council represented all levels of education and various geographic areas and were appointed by the president with “the hope . . . that we will bring ‘grass roots’ thinking and experience to the department’s research activities.” 70

1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress “That was a very interesting appointment,” Reed says. “We were perceived as having power, but I don’t think we really did. I didn’t have much direct contact with President Bush; most of my dealings were with Lamar Alexander. But like the name of the council says, we were just an advisory committee.” Reed says at the first meeting, Dr. Harold Hodgkinson, a noted authority on educational demographics, told him Mississippi was doing more with less than any other state in the way of educational reform. “That really made me feel good, especially since he said it in front of the whole council.” He freely admits that while he was grateful for the appointment and the exposure to what was going on in other areas of the United States, he’s not sure what, if anything, the council accomplished. “I know we produced an annual report which, I presume, was not paid any attention. Other than that, I think my best work was keeping the council from emphasizing school choice. The transportation problems alone would have been disastrous for Mississippi and so many other rural states. I also opposed tax money going to private schools which were so prevalent in Mississippi just to escape integration.” Reed’s term on the council ended in 1993 when Bill Clinton succeeded Bush in the White House, and in June 1994 his term on the state board of education came to an end. At age seventy, he might have been expected to retire to his grandchildren and the golf course, but that was not in his genes. Instead, he became more involved in the affairs of downtown Tupelo, continued his work with CREATE and the Community Development Foundation, and served as chairman of the first Commission on the Future of Northeast Mississippi, where—to no one’s great surprise—he emphasized the importance of public schools for the economic health of the region, even promoting free tuition for qualified students to area community colleges, an effort he continues to support on a statewide basis. In the fall of 2004, Reed, now eighty years old, was called on once again to speak out on behalf of public education in Mississippi— this time for the Coalition for Children and Public Education, 71

1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress together with his longtime ally, William Winter. As expected, both men responded. The state’s two most prominent proponents of education hit the roads, speaking at rallies around the state urging the legislature to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), which would assure that all school districts had enough money to provide students an adequate education. MAEP had been passed into law in 1997 but had been fully funded only once, in 2003. Reed and Winter not only called on the legislature to address this issue when it convened in January 2005, but to make it the first priority. On September 7, 2004, Reed addressed a large group of supporters, including educators and noneducators alike, gathered at the Advanced Education Center in Tupelo: It’s nice to be among friends and it’s a pleasure to be on the program with Governor Winter. He and I are here representing Octogenarians Against Ignorance. We are facing a critical time for education in Mississippi and the children of our state need our help NOW. Twenty years ago it was public support under the leadership of William Winter that resulted in our nation’s first education reform act, which brought vast improvement to Mississippi public schools, and if we are going to keep the momentum going as it has been in recent years it will be public support—strong and dedicated—that will be responsible, just as it was then. Unlike twenty years ago, I honestly believe that most members of our legislature agree with the importance of public education, but as Governor Winter said so well the other day, “Trying to fund education with the legislative budget adopted last session was like trying to squeeze a size twelve foot into a size ten shoe.” The result was underfunding the Adequate Education Program by $79 million—even with the use of one-time revenue, which obviously will not be available this next year. Our coalition believes, indeed we know, that the adequate education formula, when fully funded as it was in 2003, provides the

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1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress minimum amount needed in each district to adequately educate its children. As you will learn today, experience and national test scores prove that it is doing the job. Remember, too, that underfunding was before we had to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, which will require local matching dollars as well as putting additional pressure on our teachers and administrators. Only two states today provide fewer dollars per student than Mississippi. The national average is $8,400 per pupil; the Mississippi average is $6,400 per pupil. Another state that was comparable to Mississippi was Arkansas. I say “was” because just last month the announcement was made that Arkansas, which has been under court order because they were not providing equity funding for students as Mississippi has wisely done, that Arkansas has now generated $370,000,000 in new revenues specifically for public education from prekindergarten through the twelfth grade. And, furthermore, the Arkansas legislature is required to first fund public education, which is exactly what our coalition is urging our legislature to do.

Reed then reflected on his time on President Bush’s National Advisory Council on Educational Research and Improvement, and on Dr. Hodgkinson’s remark about Mississippi schools accomplishing more with less than any other state. And after an off-the-cuff remark explaining how education finance was like a Russian novel—“it’s long, boring, and in the end everybody dies”—he called on his old friend from American history to make his point. Actually, the Mississippi formula is achieving the very goal that Thomas Jefferson, the founder of our nation’s public education, set over two hundred years ago, “for America to have an aristocracy of achievement based on equality of opportunity.” Simply said, that is all that we are trying to do. What we are here about today is very serious business. It is about our state’s future. It is about our children’s future. Our goal is

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1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress simple: to convince the legislature to fully fund the Adequate Education Program as the law requires, and to do it first—because we believe it is the most important responsibility of our state! But while the goal is simple, achieving it is not. We must secure strong legislative support—probably even two-thirds support— and we must get our legislators’ commitments before the session begins. I strongly approve of the governor’s economic development programs and I know he will give it strong leadership . . . but I can assure you from my own experience in Tupelo and in Mississippi that the quality of our public schools is the key to economic success—in securing industry, in expanding industry, and in work force development, as well as being perhaps the primary factor in determining a community’s quality of life. . . . This effort—our effort, yours and mine—is not a bipartisan issue, and don’t let anyone tell you that it is. It is a nonpartisan issue! It is a Mississippi issue! It is an economic issue! And above all else, it is a children’s issue! Sad, but true, it is also a political issue. It is also true that all politics is local, so when we talk about petitions and contacts we are talking about your contacts in your school districts with your representatives and your senators. Surely, we can make our voices heard on this issue, this fall. Please listen to what is said here today. It is a good plan; please go home and work the plan. We may never have this opportunity again—at least, not in Governor Winter’s and my lifetime.

On January 11, 2005, more than a thousand supporters and members of the Coalition for Children and Public Education rallied on the south steps of the state capitol to make their goals clear to the state legislature. Reed and Winter were there, of course, and made brief but encouraging remarks before handing to legislative leaders a petition signed by more than 140,000 registered Mississippi voters supporting the full funding. So, too, 74

1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress were many legislators gathered, all saying the right thing: that they fully intended to fully fund the MAEP and that they would do it first. But the state’s budget woes were worse than anticipated, and the legislative champions were not successful. Full funding did not pass. Reed and Winter remained resolute, and both vowed to continue the good fight. “If you can’t stand up for your state’s children,” Reed asks, “what can you stand up for?”

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c h a pt er ei g ht

1970–Present: The Need for Leadership “Only good people create good change.”

Throughout his more than fifty years of speaking out on issues, whether it be race relations, church work, education, or economic development, one theme was the common thread woven into the fabric of Jack Reed’s speeches: leadership. Mississippi’s race relations would never improve if leadership from all sides of the complicated equation did not step forward; church leaders had a responsibility to do more than hold Sunday services and Wednesday night prayer meetings; school leaders had to be for more than just learning a trade or how to read and write; business and industry leaders needed to look farther than the bottom line and consider the greater good of their community. In Reed’s eyes it was all a matter of leadership—and he said so in his speeches. It was a rare occurrence when he did not in some way call on the shared beliefs of his mentor, George McLean. “George used to say that, as important as they are, governments do not change communities and that ideas alone don’t change communities. He believed, and I do, too, that only people create change; only people create specific change; and only good people create good change—God’s people doing God’s will.” While he spoke most often to groups of contemporaries, Reed relished the opportunity to speak with young people about the

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership responsibilities of leadership. He was often invited to do so, particularly at commencement exercises. On May 7, 1970, Reed addressed the ninth-grade “graduating class” at what was then Milam Junior High, the venerable old schoolhouse that had been Tupelo’s white high school when he was a student. As one deeply involved in the planning for the soon-to-come total desegregation of the Tupelo public schools, Reed knew the all-white student body gathered in the auditorium on that day would be the construction crew that carried out the architects’ plans. His opening remarks included appropriate sophomoric jokes, but his message was the same: cooperation and leadership were the keys to true success. I was talking with one of your fathers the other day (I won’t say who) and asked him what you were going to be when you finished college. “At the rate he’s going now,” he said, “he’ll be an old man.” And just this morning I asked one of your teachers if she had any unusual students in her class. “Yes,” she responded, “I have three who do their homework.”. . . It is a challenge to speak to young people today. Movies, television, cars, and greater personal freedom have made you the most sophisticated fifteen-year-olds in history. Ann Landers says that if Booth Tarkington were to write his famous book Seventeen today he would have to call it Twelve! And I suspect she’s right. Yes, you are sophisticated and well educated. On the average you are bigger and stronger than your parents. You have more money than they had. You have fewer rules and restrictions than they had. And I daresay a few of you are even smarter and perhaps better than we were. But to be perfectly fair and honest, you will have to give your parents and grandparents credit for this because what has gone on before in times past is your heritage. . . . You are a unique class. You are different, and in more ways than one. . . . In spite of all that I have said about the past, no ninth-grade class has ever graduated in Tupelo, Mississippi, that has the

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership opportunity to do as much for this community as you in this room have today. I am not kidding. I am serious. This world—our world—is changing and how it changes is pretty much up to you. Mama Cass has said it in a great way in her song “New World Coming”: There’s a New World Coming And it’s just around the bend There’s a new world coming This one’s coming to an end There’s a new voice calling You can hear it if you try And it’s growing stronger With each day that passes by There’s a brand new morning Rising clear and sweet and free There’s a new day dawning That belongs to you and me There’s a new world coming The one we’ve had visions of Coming in peace, coming in joy, coming in love But believe me, it won’t come in peace and joy and love unless you help make it that way, and unless my generation helps make it that way. When “a new world comes,” it will come because the young and old have worked together to make it so. You can never have separate worlds for the young, for the old fogies of forty-five, and another for the seventy-fives. When Johnny Cash sings, “And . . . youth cries: What is truth?,” the truth is that the world of tomorrow is going to be made by the young and old working together. It has always been that way and it always will be that way. And you and I had both better be doing our part to bridge the generation gap.

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership We joke about it and cry about it and talk about it, but the generation gap between you and me is only as wide as you and I make it. . . .

Then Reed got to the heart of the matter. There were no more oblique references, no more song lyrics. His words were words the students had, no doubt, heard spoken in their living rooms and dens and around their dinner tables—and, of course, among themselves in the hallways, classrooms, locker rooms, and cafeteria at school, and at teen hangouts around town. But this time they were hearing them from one of Tupelo’s leading citizens, a man they knew to be actively involved in shaping the world they were about to enter. Let me tell you why you here in this class can really make a greater contribution to this town than any class ever has before: starting next fall, and certainly over the next two or three years during which you will be finishing high school, the city of Tupelo is going to have to effectively integrate our entire school system. I don’t know how, but certainly to a much greater degree than is the case today. This will not be an easy job for anybody, but I am sure that the school board and school officials will do the fairest job that they can do. Yet I am sure that many students, both white and black, will not like the new system as well as the old system that you have grown up in and have become accustomed to. But you and I know that this is the law of the land and that it must be done. It is not a matter of choice for anybody. It is a question of necessity for everybody. And how well this school integration is carried out will determine how well this community gets along socially, economically, and in every other way. This is something that only you can work out, and you have done a fine job so far. But city hall can’t do it, your teachers can’t do it, and your parents can’t do it. You must do it. . . . Do you realize that many of the student leaders of the Tupelo school system for the next three years are sitting right in front of

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership me this morning? It’s true . . . and you have a great opportunity and a tremendous responsibility, but you can do it. When I was in the ninth grade my brother got a motto for his room at home that said, “Aim high and consider yourself worthy of great things.” That is what you’ve got to do if you are to set goals in your life of which you can be proud. If Tupelo continues to prosper, to be a happy place to live and go to school, you all here today will have to be part of the answer, not part of the problem. And you must never forget that it is a lot easier to tear something down than it is to build it up, whether it’s a house, or a school, or a town, or your life. . . . You are going to have to be open-minded. You’re going to have to be tolerant. You are going to have to see things from two points of view if this thing is to work. . . . Four years ago, my wife and I went to East Berlin and the iron curtain border countries with a group from Radio Free Europe. We saw the “Wall of Shame” in Berlin, built by communists not to keep people out of East Germany but to keep people in who wanted to get out. From Berlin, we went to Czechoslovakia and visited the eighth cavalry unit there, made up of southern boys from both races who were protecting our freedom thousands of miles from home. In case of attack, these men were expendable, but under the American flag and over their mess hall flew their motto: “We Can and We Will.” I think that we here can preserve the fine things in our heritage and add much to that heritage for the classes that come behind and look to you and to us for leadership in the years just ahead. Yes, I think we can—if we will. And I believe you will. Good luck! As important as they are, governments do not change communities; ideas alone do not change communities; neither hope nor even prayers alone change communities. Only people create change; only specific people create specific change; and only good people create good change—God’s people doing God’s will.

Nearly twenty years and numerous speeches later, Reed was still preaching the leadership gospel. In addressing a group of young 80

1970–Present: The Need for Leadership business professionals in the 1988 Leadership Mississippi program, sponsored by the Mississippi Economic Council, Reed recalled the words of President John Kennedy during his 1963 commencement speech at Vanderbilt University: “I speak to you today not of your rights as Americans but of your responsibilities. They are many in number and different in nature. They do not rest with equal weight upon the shoulders of all. Equality of opportunity does not mean equality of responsibility. All Americans must be responsible citizens, but some must be more responsible than others by virtue of their public or private positions, their role in the family or community, their prospects for the future, or their legacy from the past. Increased responsibility goes with increased ability, for ‘to whom much is given much is required.’” Reed then added his own thoughts, formed over many years of working with fellow civic and government leaders, with sales clerks in the family retail store, and with production workers at the family’s manufacturing plant. I believe that to be true. It is important that you—that we— become involved and continue our involvement if our communities and if our state are to move ahead, and if we are to improve our quality of life. Quality of life might mean symphonies and art galleries to some, air pollution and water quality to others. But to many Mississippians it means care for senior citizens and after-school children. And to far too many it means food, clothing, and shelter.

It was not unexpected, of course, when he tied in his belief in education being the most important issue facing the state’s workforce. He told his audience that there were four hundred thousand Mississippians who were illiterate and seven hundred thousand without high school diplomas, and that the journey to economic stability would be difficult. We must stay the course because it is a long one. The need will not soon go away. There are no quick fixes in education. There are

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership no quick fixes in economic development. There are no easy ways to be “champions of change.” And there never have been. . . . But community service is not without its reward. Albert Schweitzer, the great musician, theologian, and doctor who spent his life ministering to the needs of the African poor, said this, after a lifetime of service: “One thing I know—the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” I hope and believe that this applies to you.

In May 1994 Reed again addressed a young audience—an opportunity he truly enjoys—by speaking to a large group of honor students from the Tupelo and Lee County schools. He claimed no personal familiarity with computers (a claim he still makes), but he clearly understood the growing role of technology (as he does now), and right away he grabbed the students’ attention with references to a world in which they were more comfortable. Frankly, as we move so rapidly into a technological society the contributions of young people are becoming more valuable than ever before. We old folks can’t even program VCRs, much less download, upload, and program computers. When the secretary of the army was speaking at a war college I attended as a guest of Smitty Harris and was asked a question he couldn’t hear, he quickly responded: “Technology is the answer. Now, what is the question.” A few years ago I heard Alvin Toffler talk about his book The Third Wave. The first wave of the economic revolution, he said, was the agricultural revolution—the “gatherers” of cavemen—and it lasted ten thousand years. The second wave was the industrial revolution, and it lasted three hundred years. The third wave is the technology revolution, but it will last only a few decades. Toffler said this: “The basic industry of the future will not be textiles and automobiles, but education and training. If people cannot handle the new jobs they will remain unemployed in the future.” Some things are changing and changing rapidly, but one thing that will not change is the need for good leaders, leaders who will take us where we need to go. . . .

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership You are important. Like it or not, you do represent the future of Tupelo and Lee County. Like it or not, you will be faced with challenges as great or greater than any generation up until now—and that includes my generation. We had three wars, integration, emerging new world powers, while you have increasing crime and violence, drugs, AIDS, and now even casino gambling and Beavis and Butt-head. Like it or not, your character, your judgment, and your ability will be tested time and again. And like it or not, you and your generation are going to have to provide the leadership if our area continues to successfully move ahead into the twenty-first century. . . . I heard Gale Sayers, the great all-pro and hall of fame running back for the Chicago Bears in the 1970s, speak, and he was talking about what’s important in life and about heroes. Sayers was lamenting the fact that sports figures are the major role models for young people today. He said that it’s ridiculous how many people think they are going to play professional athletics, because they aren’t and that it’s not a career even for the few who do play. “Pro sports is just a stopping off place,” he said. He also said that what is important is what you can do with your life day by day, after youth and athletics. Sayers said he excelled as a football player because he worked hard and is excelling today as a stockbroker because he trained and disciplined himself for a career while he was playing ball. He is, of course, right. Leadership requires self-discipline and commitment, and to be effective it requires more. Leaders need to be someone you can trust. Leaders need to have a vision of a goal to reach and the ability to inspire you into believing they can take you there. As Aristotle said about the first quality of leadership, “A man must have the moral character to persuade others.” A well-known speaker once told his audience, “Leadership requires integrity and wisdom.” To which a young man asked, “What do you mean?” “Integrity,” the speaker said, “is if you promise you’ll do something, then do it, even if it costs money.”

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership “What’s wisdom?” the student asked. “Not making any fool promises.” And finally, I would remind you that people respond to positive leadership. They respond to people who look ahead with anticipation and lift up hope. At my son’s graduation, I well remember these words from Chancellor Alexander Heard of Vanderbilt University: “We are vain creatures indeed if we think our generation has been singled out for a special fate. . . .There was a time in the fourteenth century when at least one-third of the population of Europe was actually wiped out, and it wasn’t accomplished by the efficiency of nuclear warfare, but by the inefficiency of medical care. “The Black Death was a horrible death with frightful sores, delirium and insanity. In the words of Winston Churchill, ‘It seemed like the death rattle of the race.’. . . “The world is always in peril and yet the perspective of history makes hope not only possible, but indeed very probable.” I believe that. Despite the news reports, you will be leaving school and going into a world of opportunityfor those of you who are prepared for it, who are willing to work for it. Tupelo, Lee County, and all of Mississippi will need your leadership, just as they have needed leadership from my generation. Some of you will answer that call and become the leaders of tomorrow. Why not let that someone be you?

Reed’s first tenet of leadership was, and still is, involvement. “To be a good leader you first have to be a good follower,” he says today, while considering his lifetime of association with leaders of all sorts. “To do that, you’ve just got to be involved. If you attach yourself to issues you believe in, you become a good follower and that leads to leadership. “And you can’t fail to do your homework. It takes a lot of time, but there’s more to it than exuberance or a gregarious personality. There has to be substance. I believe a leader has to be committed and has to be willing to stay with it. I think that, more than anything, is why Tupelo and Lee County have succeeded where

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership others have not. We’ve tried to take a long-range approach in most everything we do and we’ve been willing to stick with it.” Any discussion of youth leadership with Reed will inevitably result in his bringing up the Boy Scouts of America—with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. Scouting, he says without hesitation or reservation, is what jump-started his civic and community involvement. His father, R. W. “Bob” Reed, helped establish the Yocona Area Council in 1926 and made sure that his three sons were involved in Scouting during their youth. “I wasn’t an Eagle Scout,” Reed laments, “but I did make it to Life. It was during the Depression and our troop went without a leader for more than a year and we were lucky just to keep our troop going.” Bob Reed spent a great deal of time promoting the Boy Scouts throughout northeast Mississippi. He was the second president of the Yocona Area Council, following Dr. D. L. Pursor, and served from 1928 until 1936. In 1948, Jack returned to Tupelo from New York University’s graduate school of retailing to enter the family business. One of the first things his father did was get him involved in Scouting, and it’s been a relationship that endured for seven decades. “Dad got me on the Yocona council board of directors when I was a young man,” Reed recalls, “and I was surrounded by all the really strong leaders in this area. For a young man like me to be among those men was really a wonderful opportunity. It had a profound influence on me.” In the early years of Reed’s involvement with the Boy Scouts, he worked with Erst Long and Oscar Shannon of Ripley; Dr. Richard Warriner, Paul and Jameson Jones, and Chad Archie of Corinth; Hugh Clayton and Roger Norman of New Albany; John Stanley of Booneville; Dr. Charles Murry and Scott Black of Oxford; Roy Black of Nettleton; Dick McRee and Roy Allen of Tishomingo; Russell and Joe Bailey of Coffeeville; Howard Stafford of Pontotoc; Dr. Elton McIntosh, Glenn Fant, and Ed Rather of Holly Springs; Philip Sheffield of Fulton; and a host of Tupelo leaders:

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership Allison Bell, Felix Black, Medford Leake, J. C. Whitehead, Henry Brevard, Chauncey Godwin, and Paul Eason. “Our boards were comprised of the best men in northeast Mississippi and it still is true today,” Reed says. “It’s hard not to be impressed with the leadership of this organization. I got to know so many of the area’s leaders through Scouting first, and I’m pretty sure that’s where I first came to understand the regional approach to addressing issues.” As his involvement in civic affairs grew, so too did Reed’s devotion to Scouting. Time and again, throughout northeast Mississippi and beyond, he was the keynote speaker at Boy Scout banquets, as well as serving on the Yocona Area Council, and his message never varied: Scouting is good for America. During a 1995 speech at an annual meeting of the council, Reed assured those gathered that the Boy Scouts of America was as relevant as it had ever been: Scouting is still the number-one program in the world for promoting citizenship and character development for young men and women, and it still attracts the best adult involvement. . . . Scouting is still fundamentally the same, and the reasons for supporting it are, too. Back in the 1950s I was fond of quoting Benjamin Franklin, Luther Burbank, Winston Churchill, Roger Babson, and many others. Their words are as true today as they’ve ever been. Franklin said, “There is nothing more important for the public good than to form and train up a youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strongest part of a state, far more than riches and arms.” Burbank, perhaps the most famous botanist who ever lived, said, “If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weeds.” Churchill hit the nail on the head when he said, “You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.” Roger Babson was an enormously successful investment banker and a great philanthropist. He said, “The best investment a parent

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership or a community can make is in character building. The world got on many thousands of years without stocks, bonds, or life insurance, and the time may come when we will have to get on without them again. The only permanent assets are young people trained in character, health, and intelligence plus natural resources.” That’s Scouting to a “T,” and, thanks to you and all the other hundreds and thousands who have supported Scouting in the Yocona Area Council since 1948, Scouting is still alive and well. It is still the best character-building program that I know of and it still has this great appeal and pull on us as adults, and as boys and girls. No volunteer program, no matter how worthwhile, can continue to succeed and prosper without the backing of good and interested people. So it is with Scouting. Yet Scouting doesn’t demand that its supporters be expert campers or skilled outdoorsmen. Actually, it only requires: • a real respect for boyhood, • respect for the importance of our country, • respect for the care and attention they deserve as our children—as God’s children, • a man willing to do his part. God demands it of us. If we don’t do it, the job won’t get done. . . . Is Scouting important today? Do we need Christian citizens, dedicated Americans? I believe we all think that Americanism is important. But we do not always act like we believe it; we don’t act at all. We prefer to be inactive, to sit back and let a strong central government run our lives. We prefer to let lobbyists represent our interests in Washington while we handle our personal affairs. Yet, I believe that tonight we are more aware than we have been in recent years of the results of our inactivity in government. . . . The world today needs men who have been taught the basic values [of Scouting]—who have been taught at an early age respect for others, who have been taught to accept responsibility, who have been taught to earn their way and to do their part. The

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1970–Present: The Need for Leadership world today needs men who have been instilled with a love of country and a love of God, men who have been shown that “he profits most who serves best.” That’s the purpose of Scouting. It deserves our support, and I, as do many others, consider it a great privilege to be a part of such an organization.

It takes very little encouragement for Reed to brag on his family, and one of the first things he points out is that both his sons and his two sons-in-law were Eagle Scouts, as were his four grandsons. And he would much rather talk about them than about his own awards: the Silver Beaver and Silver Antelope, two of the most prestigious honors given by the Boy Scouts. Reed and his father received the awards for their work: R. W. Reed received the Silver Beaver in 1930 and the Silver Antelope in 1952, while Jack earned the Silver Beaver in 1954 and the Silver Antelope in 1964. They were the first father and son in the southeast region to receive the Silver Antelope—the highest regional honor for volunteerism given by the Boy Scouts. Reed’s sons, Jack, Jr. (also a Silver Beaver Award recipient) and Scott, have followed in their father’s Scouting footsteps and now serve on the Yocona Area Council executive committee, and Reed’s Department Store still has a department devoted to Scouting. “Of all the things I’ve been involved in over the years, I don’t know of anything that’s given me more pleasure, personally, than Scouting,” he says. “I think the reason Scouting is as popular today as it ever has been, even with all the conflicts and other options kids have, is because of the values it teaches. I know it was a tremendous opportunity for me as a boy and later on as a young man. I learned so much.”

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c h a pt er n i n e

1987: The Plunge into Politics “I am a candidate for governor of Mississippi.”

For more than twenty years, there had been rumblings around Mississippi that Jack Reed would run for governor. His prominent leadership role in the Mississippi Economic Council and his work with the board of education to reform Mississippi’s public schools had placed Reed squarely in the state spotlight, and by 1986 murmurs of his candidacy for the governor’s office had grown louder. For years friends had tried to persuade Reed he should run for governor, but he considered it mere flattery, enjoyed it and dismissed it. For the most part. Though he cared little for the life of a politician, he was convinced a strong governor could make a difference in Mississippi. It took a tennis injury, however, to slow him down long enough that he could give serious consideration to a political campaign. In the summer of 1986, Reed ruptured an Achilles tendon while playing in a tennis tournament and wound up homebound and in a cast for nearly a month. In the chronicle of his life that he compiled for his family, Reed wrote: “For years I had intended to read Dumas Malone’s six-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson ( Jefferson and His Time), but had put off getting started in it. Since this seemed a good time for serious reading, I began. I was impressed that Jefferson really did not want to go to Washington and serve as president, preferring to stay at Monticello, but answered 89

1987: The Plunge into Politics the call to duty and did a wonderful job. His patriotism and desire to be of service to his country appealed strongly to me, so much so that upon my recovery I began to seriously consider a possible candidacy.” After serving on Winter’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Education and on the Mississippi Board of Education, Reed says he was often encouraged to run for governor—especially after Governor Bill Allain’s surprising announcement that he would not run for reelection. “But that was not even in my mind at that time,” he says. “As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even wanted to serve on the board of education because I didn’t want to spend all that time in Jackson. But I was so terribly concerned about the state of education in Mississippi that I agreed to serve on the board, and that ultimately led to my decision to run for governor. “Ebbie Spivey, head of the Republican Party in Mississippi, was particularly encouraging and persuasive about my chances of getting elected with Republican support. I was not at all interested in running for name recognition, or to launch a political career. Moreover, if I had not thought I could win I would not have run. That is probably a reflection on the size of my ego, but I suppose that is a given for almost any candidate.” His old friend Owen Cooper, the Yazoo City business leader, was among the many urging Reed to run for the state’s highest office. “Owen called me and told me that he thought next to him I would be the best governor Mississippi ever had,” Reed recalls with a chuckle. “My family and I had a long discussion. I wasn’t going to do anything this significant unless they were all behind me. It turned out that they were all behind me; the children were all excited and I knew Frances would support me. She was without a doubt my greatest asset.” So, on the night of January 29, 1987, with more than five hundred friends and supporters gathered for a rally at the Ramada Inn Convention Center in Tupelo to encourage him, Reed sent a strong signal around the state that he would indeed be a candidate in the 1987 race for governor of Mississippi. People from 90

1987: The Plunge into Politics all around northeast Mississippi had come to what they only knew was a fund-raiser for Reed’s candidacy. Before that night, he was still not sure he would run. By the end of the night, however, there was little doubt. Even after the turnout in Tupelo, though, he only indicated he was considering a run for the governorship. “I’m not going to announce my candidacy yet,” he told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, “but we are going to begin laying the groundwork.” Lewis Whitfield and Billy Crews were cochairs of that first event, and they had planned for a crowd of a hundred or so. To everyone’s surprise, there were so many people on hand that an adjacent room had to be opened to handle the overflow. The financial impact was stunning. “We didn’t have any set goal for that night,” Reed says, “but I think we were hoping that we could raise a hundred thousand dollars. We wound up raising three hundred thousand, which we were told was the largest amount ever raised at a single political fund-raiser in Mississippi at that time.” Not only had Reed not made his candidacy official, neither had he announced which political party he would represent. Because of his work in public education and racial issues over the years, many assumed he would run as a Democrat. However, he surprised a great many when he finally said he would run as a centrist Republican. Reed, who had always considered himself an independent thinker who disdained partisan politics, says his decision was a pragmatic one: “I decided to run as a Republican mainly because my biggest supporters and I thought we could more easily win the Republican primary and make it into the general election.” Research commissioned by Reed and his closest group of supporters showed that statewide his name recognition was very low, but that same poll indicated there was a good possibility that he could overcome that and win the election. While many of the business and industry leaders in the Tupelo area were generous with their financial contributions and public support, Reed relied heavily on a group of younger friends for the energy necessary to run a statewide campaign; these included 91

1987: The Plunge into Politics Billy and David Crews, John Lovorn, Sonja Jenkins, Jamie Barnett, Tom Wicker, Tom Pittman, Len Pegues, Joe Rutherford, Helen Collins, Lex Jackson, Lori Culp, Glen McCullough, and many others, and, of course, his family: son Jack and his wife, Lisa; daughter Camille and her husband, Claude Clayton; daughter Catherine and her husband, Paul “Buzzy” Mize, Jr.; son Scott and his wife, Annette; and grandchildren Frances and Claude, Kirk and Jack Reed III, Paul and Bennett Mize, as well as the families of brothers Bob and Bill. Reed also learned that in a nine-month, statewide race a candidate’s driver is his only constant companion, confidant, and critic. In that capacity, Rory Reardon of Clarksdale proved to be invaluable. A couple of weeks after Reed’s Tupelo rally, Charles Pickering, a former state senator from Laurel and one of Mississippi’s more prominent Republicans, surprised many political observers by announcing that he would not be a candidate for governor. In his announcement Pickering said he was “unable to generate the financial support or burning desire” for such a race. Pickering’s decision not to run seemingly cleared the way for Reed, and on March 16, while speaking to the Lee County Republican Women, he said he would announce that he would indeed be a candidate on March 31. Buoyed by the support from his family and friends and by the tremendous local turnout at the January rally, Reed and a group of supporters chartered a bus and headed to Jackson, where he stood on the steps of the capitol on a blustery Wednesday and announced to the state: My name is Jack Reed. I am a candidate for governor of Mississippi. I have never run for public office before. I am not a career politician. I am not running to establish a base for future office. I am a concerned citizen. I am a businessman with over thirty-five years of experience in

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1987: The Plunge into Politics economic development . . . and a lifelong commitment to education. I am a private citizen who believes that, as governor, I can help move Mississippi ahead, beginning in January of 1988. Today, I am asking every Mississippian—man and woman, rich and poor, black and white, Democrat, Republican, or independent— who cares about the future of our state, who shares my concern, who is ready for a change, to support me in this effort. My roots in Mississippi are deep. My family on both sides came to Mississippi over one hundred and fifty years ago. My father was raised on an Itawamba County family farm . . . he received an eighth-grade education (all that was available at that time) . . . started a country store . . . sold it for five hundred dollars and opened a small grocery store in Tupelo in 1905. My six grandchildren are seventh-generation Mississippians. I care about our state and her people. Actually, this is not the first time a Reed has come to the state capitol steps. Fifty years ago, my father led a group of small-town merchants in a march on the capitol. They were protesting a new idea: the state [sales] tax. Like you, we Reeds have never cared much for new taxes, although I’ll say this: Mississippi would be hard pressed without the sales tax. But today we come from north Mississippi, not in protest, but in peace and in hope and with the firm belief that there can be and will be a brighter tomorrow for our state. Much has changed in Mississippi in these last fifty years, and despite our critics, much has changed for the better. Race relations are better; job opportunities, in general, are better. We have, in fact, achieved Governor Hugh White’s vision of balancing agriculture with industry, and I am glad to say that I have had a part in some of these changes—and have done so as a private citizen who has been involved and who cares. But in too many ways Mississippi’s boat—our boat—is dead in the water. We are maintaining the status quo but the status quo is not good enough. Times change—needs change and opportunities change—and

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1987: The Plunge into Politics we must change with them. Winston Churchill said it well: “To improve is to change. To become perfect is to change often.” I surely will not promise you perfection—but I can promise you that with the right leadership we do have the opportunity to improve. Today, I am beginning my campaign to take my efforts from the private sector to the public sector. Why? Because I agree with Plato: “The punishment of the wise who refuse to participate in government is to serve under a government of worse men.” (Now, remember, that quote is over a thousand years old, so please don’t take that as a personal reference to any of my opponents.) Although I have never served a day as an elected official and never spent a day on the public payroll, I am running on my record—my record in my community and region, in church, in Scouting, in the United Way, in our community action agency, in city planning, and in retailing and manufacturing and industrial development. And I’m running on my record at the state level—since 1963, as the youngest chairman of the M.E.C., and as president of the Mississippi Retail Merchants Association, and as chairman of the Mississippi American Enterprise Center, and other statewide leadership roles, and on my record today, as a member of the state board of education and of the state board of economic development. Home . . . family . . . church . . . community . . . state . . . and country are the words that have guided—in fact, dominated— my life. Mississippi is my home. I know, firsthand, what our basic values are and I am convinced that once we effectively let others know what we have to offer in quality of life that we will join those sister states that are prospering and ready to move confidently into the twenty-first century. The two cornerstones on which I will build my administration are jobs and education—and to me, the two are indivisible. Jobs—new jobs created by a coordinated, aggressive statewide economic development plan (both short-range and long-range), heavily involving the private sector, our junior colleges, and all of our institutions of higher learning, and focused on the expansion

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1987: The Plunge into Politics of existing industries and the creation of new Mississippi industries with an aggressive sales approach both inside and outside our state. I am a salesman and always have been—six days a week and proud of it. I am one of the thousands of Mississippians who move the merchandise from the manufacturer to the customer. And I’ll be a salesman for Mississippi. Not of snake oil, or of pie in the sky, or of false promises of great gain without any pain, but a salesman of honest values, of Mississippi’s abundant natural resources, of decent people willing and anxious to work for an honest day’s pay in an environment that supports good industry. And I submit to you today that there is no other candidate in this race (or considering this race) who can match my record of consistent and dedicated service to my priorities of jobs and education. My Tupelo friends, “Jack’s Backers,” and Frances and the family and I are launching this statewide campaign together here in Jackson, and in the Piney Woods, on the Gulf Coast, and in the Mississippi Delta to make it crystal clear from day one that there is only one Mississippi—that every section and every citizen of this state is equally important, and that we all make it together or we do not make it at all. Like it or not (and I like it!) we are all in the same boat—and you just can’t sink half the ship! We drove down the old Natchez Trace this morning, but thanks to the cooperation and commitment of citizens and legislators from the four corners of our state, before my administration ends— notice, I’ve only been running for ten minutes and I’m already beginning to sound like a politician! I’ll try to watch that, I promise! But I’m rolling now, so I’ll continue—before my administration ends, we will be traveling on safe, modern highways into our capital city. We would have gone on our state highways today but since my entire family is on the bus, I didn’t want to risk their lives. Besides, it would have been a lot longer trip. On the Trace we can average fifty miles an hour; but on Highway 45 we can only average about thirty-five or forty!

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1987: The Plunge into Politics I can assure you that strong support of the highway program and of all transportation will be a top priority of mine. The highway program alone is dramatic proof that working cooperatively we can progress, and I promise you that I will not confront our legislature as an adversary who is fighting me and my plans for Mississippi. I will approach them as a full partner working together to move Mississippi forward with programs that are sound enough and progressive enough to merit the support of our people. Incidentally, I am not running against anybody. In fact, I do not believe that there is a place for partisan politics in state government— there is plenty of room for that in Washington! I am interested only in solving Mississippi’s problems. Together we can do it! Divided, we will flounder in fiftieth place for yet another one hundred years. In closing, let me say once again that I cannot promise you instant gratification or a quick fix for all the problems of our state (and I advise you to be very suspicious of anyone who does). I do believe that I can immediately change the image of our state from that of the “good ole boy . . . you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours . . . one-party politics of the past” to that of a progressive, efficient, positive and responsible member of the fifty United States of America. And on a personal note, I want you to know I have paid my dues. A wise man once said, “The years teach much which the days never know.” I must admit that I have found that to be true, sometimes to my sorrow. I am mature enough to have learned from experience, and: • to remember the Saturday afternoon while I was in high school when I sold twenty-one pairs of overalls to Mr. Little of Sherman . . . • to remember the destruction of the Tupelo tornado . . . • to have volunteered and served in the Pacific in World War II . . . • to have experienced the violence and turmoil of the sixties and the frustrations of the seventies here in Mississippi. Yet, I am optimistic enough to have the ideals and hopes and dreams of what we can accomplish if we work together in a com-

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1987: The Plunge into Politics mon cause for the common good—as friends, not as sworn enemies. Optimistic enough to still believe in the basic goodness of our people and the enormous potential of our children. Optimistic enough to be looking ahead at what can be done and what must be done—not looking back at what we cannot change. I am self-employed. I have no political obligations to any group or individual, and I do not intend to have any come November. Nor do I intend to make a lot of promises in this campaign. I have seen too many made and broken in the past. But I will promise you this: First, I will run hard, I will be cheerful, and I will run a positive campaign. I am not running against anyone—and I wish my opponents well. And, second, I will promise you that, as governor, my decisions will be based on what I honestly believe will bring a better life, a better day, a better future for all the people of our state. It is fitting that Jack’s Backers and I kick off our campaign on a cold day in March. Because we intend to make it a long, hot summer for politics and politicians this year. I deeply appreciate your attendance here today, and I truly believe that, together, we will make political history in our state.

Despite his promise not to make too many promises, Reed couldn’t help himself and added one more for good measure: “the best first lady Mississippi has ever had.” Indeed, his wife, Frances, would play a significant role during the campaign, making a speech in one part of the state while her husband was in another region. As soon as Reed finished his speech on the steps of the capitol, he walked across the street to the secretary of state’s office and officially filed as a candidate for governor. His busload of supporters, most of whom had paid seventy-five dollars for the trip, then headed for stops in Forest and Meridian, and then to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. By the time the group returned to Tupelo for a huge Saturday night rally, it had traveled more than nine hundred 97

1987: The Plunge into Politics miles, with stops in such towns as Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Laurel, Greenville, Clarksdale, Yazoo City, and Southaven. Interestingly, there had been little coverage of Reed’s intentions in his hometown newspaper, probably by design since he was on the board of directors. Daily Journal reporters Buster Wolfe and Norma Fields had written a few stories, but no more than a half dozen in the months between his first Tupelo rally and his official announcement in Jackson. On April 4, however, the day before Reed’s bus caravan made its way back to the storied Tupelo Fairgrounds for a local event that would draw more than a thousand supporters, the Daily Journal made clear its support for the native son with a lengthy editorial that began: “Jack Reed should be the next governor of Mississippi.” After listing what it perceived as Reed’s qualifications for governor and stating what strengths he would add to that office and the entire political process, the editorial made one other thing clear: “This newspaper’s support of Reed’s candidacy for governor of Mississippi comes not because of his director’s position. Just the opposite. He is a Journal Publishing Company director because of his long-standing support for this area’s economy, education and quality of life.” Prior to the official announcement, Reed had discussed the possibility of seeking the state’s highest office with Mississippi’s U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, a longtime friend and supporter. Cochran urged him to go ahead and offered much-needed and welcomed advice concerning consultants and staff members. In the latter days of the campaign, Cochran would even send his own staff members to help the Reed campaign, and always gave him a strong personal endorsement. Reed’s campaign received a major boost from an old Vanderbilt fraternity brother: Bill Walker, owner of the regional chain of Bill’s Dollar Stores, pledged one hundred thousand dollars. “Bill shocked me with his offer of support when I talked with him about my candidacy,” Reed recalls. “Not only did he make a large donation, but he allowed us the use of his company airplane to travel around the state. Bill Gresham of Indianola and Tupelo 98

1987: The Plunge into Politics supporters Jake Mills, Dick Hill, Bob Bennett, and Bo Gibens also loaned me their airplanes from time to time.” Walker’s contribution and unwavering support touched Reed deeply. “Bill continued his support throughout the campaign, and I took him with me when I visited the White House to get President Reagan’s support,” Reed says. The race didn’t start out too smoothly, though. Early in the campaign Frances Reed was diagnosed with colon cancer and had to have surgery. All campaigning came to a halt, and Reed says he thought of dropping the whole matter. His wife, however, would not hear of it, and after two weeks the race for the Governor’s Mansion resumed. In time, Frances would recover and not only rejoin the campaign but charm audiences across the state with her very simple but honest remarks similar to her speech at the first fund-raiser in Tupelo: I believe I know Jack better than anyone here knows him. Bill and Bob have known him well—and longer than I—but I know him best. I want to tell you one or two things I know about him: He is smart—I mean very intelligent. He is a hard-working, energetic optimist. He has a real gift of knowing how to communicate with people, and he has a fine sense of humor. To illustrate: Jack and I first met on a blind date. I didn’t want to go and I’m sure he didn’t either. We went as a favor to a mutual friend. We were with other friends and I thought it went pretty well. Jack did not—he thought I did not pay enough attention to him. Well, let me tell you folks, this was a real challenge to Jack! He used his previously mentioned character traits—and in just over a year we were married. Now, Jack has received several fine honors and held some important positions in the last few years. But let me tell you, he paid his dues. For twenty-five or thirty years he taught Sunday school, went to about five thousand meetings of Boy Scouts, LIFT, CDF, and other humanitarian, education, and economic development meetings all over the state—and he did it with good cheer! After observing this year after year I realized he really cared about people, both individually and collectively, and wanted to help.

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1987: The Plunge into Politics And he still found time to be a devoted father to our four children. So, I know I have a good man here. Now, if we together can just get this across to the rest of the state we will have a great governor.

Reed says he had never heard his wife speak in public before that evening, but he wasn’t surprised by her poise in front of such a large audience. “I knew she would be a great first lady, and I didn’t mind telling people.” Reed’s campaign was a family campaign in every sense of the word. Sons and daughters and their spouses scattered about the state with the candidate’s grandchildren in tow, speaking to any and all, handing out bumper stickers and “push cards,” stabbing campaign signs in every vacant piece of property. “The entire family worked tirelessly six days a week for nine months,” Reed recalls, with a good deal of amazement. “We tried to take Sundays off to be together, but other than that the girls traveled with Frances, and the boys often went with me or took off on their own wherever they were needed.” Before the November election, Reed and his wife would make similar speeches to audiences large and small in every section of Mississippi. “I don’t know of many towns of any size where we didn’t speak before some group—a civic club, a women’s luncheon, or just a speech on the courthouse steps somewhere. We knew the only way for people to really get to know us was to go out and meet them, and we tried awfully hard to meet as many as we could.” While Reed had received the enthusiastic endorsement of the Tupelo newspaper, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, K irsey McLean, who had taken over as publisher after her husband, George, had died, granted Billy Crews, the paper’s administrative assistant, six months paid leave to serve as Reed’s campaign director for north Mississippi. ( Jamie Becker managed the Jackson office and the south Mississippi campaign, with Will Feltus as campaign consultant.) “I couldn’t believe the volunteer support we got, particularly in Tupelo,” Reed says. “Dozens of friends worked the phones ev100

1987: The Plunge into Politics ery night and those not at their jobs during the day helped at our offices then.” Reed believes his lack of “political connections” might have been beneficial to his campaign. “Having never run for any office, I was naïve in many ways,” he says. “However, it may have been a blessing in that I was never involved in the intraparty disputes and second-guessing that develops over the years of political involvement.” There was no lack of variety and experiences in Reed’s travels following the January fund-raiser in Tupelo. They included a near-death experience at Al Tuck’s camp near Maben, where his manhood was tested by a challenge to eat chitlins and drink bourbon on a flatbed truck. And there was the ill-advised stop at Black Hawk in the Mississippi Delta, where Reed was astonished to see his old nemesis, the Citizens’ Council, operating a concession stand. A perfect example of the demands on candidates came on the Fourth of July when Reed appeared at the annual rally at the Jacinto Courthouse in north Mississippi and later that afternoon in the Mississippi Delta. The affair in the Delta was billed as “the year’s most important political event, with airport facilities available.” “As well as I remember,” Reed recalls, “the crowd consisted of Mike Sturdivant and me, and about twenty-five citizens.” His campaign—as do those of many serious office seekers— had Reed passing out handbills at 5 a.m. to shift workers at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, drinking tea later that afternoon at receptions in the stately antebellum mansions, showing up at high school football games on Friday nights, and worshipping in rural African American churches on Sunday afternoons. And it didn’t end until the last night of the campaign at a Pentecostal convention in Tupelo when he sang an impromptu gospel duet with the presiding preacher—on a national radio broadcast. Paramount among all the campaign stops was the Neshoba County Fair, the annual ten-day gathering unlike any other. Among the many lasting traditions at the fair in east-central Mississippi, just outside Philadelphia, are the two days set aside for political 101

1987: The Plunge into Politics speeches. While they are always lively events, those fairs held in years of statewide elections are the liveliest. No candidate for any state office would dare miss the Neshoba County Fair, no matter that it’s held in the latter part of July when Mississippi temperatures are generally at their highest. The Reed campaign was there in full force, arriving with a busload of supporters from northeast Mississippi to hear their candidate speak at the historic campgrounds. Reed knew of the importance of the moment and had prepared diligently for the speech. It would not disappoint: The other day someone asked me why am I running for governor. I said it’s because I wanted to speak at the Neshoba County Fair. And I am delighted to be the first gubernatorial candidate to speak. This way I won’t have to listen to any new campaign promises from my opponents. (The Lord knows we’ve heard enough.) By week’s end, I fully expect that we citizens will be looking forward to four years in which we will be promised: • A free automobile with the purchase of a new car tag; • Free college tuition for all senior citizens; • That we will be paid to send our children to school; • That all salaries will be doubled and there will be one hundred percent employed; • That we will raise Mississippi’s per capita income to the northwestern average; • And taxes will be cut by sixty-two percent. And if cannibals are registered to vote, some candidate, I am sure, will promise them a missionary for Sunday lunch. I am not a career politician. I am a businessman. I have never served a day on the government payroll. I’ve been a salesman six days a week for over thirty-five years and proud of it. I have now been running for office six months, seven days a week, and the real question, the most important question I have been asked is: why do I believe that the people of Mississippi should elect me, Jack Reed, our next governor? Briefly, I will give you three reasons: First, because people are crying out for jobs for themselves and

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1987: The Plunge into Politics jobs for their children. I submit to you quite frankly that not since Hugh White have the people of this state had the opportunity of electing a man with the qualifications, the experiences, and the successes that I can offer to provide and develop jobs in Mississippi. It’s true that I have been president of the M.E.C. and a member of the state board of economic development, but my best and most valuable experience has come from my thirty-five years as president and executive committeeman of Tupelo’s Community Development Foundation, where I have served longer than any other person. In the late 1940s, when I returned home from the Pacific in World War II, northeast Mississippi was one of the poorest sections in the poorest state in the Union. We had few natural resources and no urban cities to attract new jobs. What we did have was community leadership with the desire and the resolve to move ourselves ahead without waiting for help from the federal government in Washington or the state government in Jackson. And we knew, as my friend George McLean so often said, that “in community development, there ain’t no Santa Claus.” We worked hard at it and we still do. Today, although only eleventh in size, we are fourth in retail sales, third in wholesale sales, second in bank deposits, and second in per capita income. This spring, in competition with thousands of other organizations, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story listing our C.D.F. as one of the top ten industrial development groups in America. As a merchant and as a manufacturer myself (with four apparel plants in Mississippi) I also understand the value—in fact the necessity—of keeping and expanding Mississippi’s existing industries, which are in fact the source of seventy-five percent of our new jobs. We have, in Lee County alone, with new and expanded industries, averaged five hundred new jobs a year for the last twenty-five years and now have seventeen Fortune 500 companies! That’s not political rhetoric; that’s not a political promise; that is a fact! There is no other candidate in this race—none—who can offer you that record of leadership, that record of success in job development.

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1987: The Plunge into Politics So I say to you today, if you are crying out for jobs—jobs for today and jobs for tomorrow—I hear you . . . and I am ready to tackle the job of governor if you are ready to help me! The second reason you should support Jack Reed for governor is because of my record and commitment to education for the last twenty-five years. Thomas Jefferson said, “The monumental task of making democracy work cannot be accomplished in ignorance.” I believe that—and I also believe that “the monumental task” of economic development cannot be accomplished in ignorance. Education is to economic development what fertilizer is to farming . . . and you have to put that fertilizer in the ground first if you want to reap a good harvest later. My record is on the books for anyone to see. From 1963 on, I have fought to keep our schools open and to improve the educational opportunities for all the children and adults of this state. A record including being chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee that in 1979 initiated education reform in Mississippi. Chairman of the state board for our schools and junior colleges beginning in 1984 that for the last three years worked with the legislature to increase teacher salaries twenty-seven percent—the highest increase in the nation; the board that initiated teaching assistants and public kindergartens. As chairman I have traveled America from Seattle to South Carolina and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes learning how to improve our schools, and leading the effort to do so. I know the schools of this state, small and large. I know the teachers and principals. I know what’s working well and I can tell you we are making progress—measurably in elementary education under the teaching assistant program, which, incidentally, I personally helped launch in north Mississippi. Test scores have improved fifty percent in just three years! I have also been a member of the council on higher education working to improve our universities. There simply is no other candidate in either party who can offer our people that background, that leadership, that commitment, that success in improving the quality of public education. That’s not political rhetoric; that’s not a political promise. That’s a fact! I have heard every politician since Theodore Bilbo say “our

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1987: The Plunge into Politics people are our greatest asset” and that’s half true. But as Benjamin Franklin said, “Half the truth is often a great lie.” If educated, our people are our greatest asset. If uneducated, they are our greatest liability. So I say to you today, if you are crying out for better schools graduating better students, I hear you! And I am ready and prepared to lead that fight as governor. If you are ready to help me! Finally, why should you support Jack Reed for governor? You should support me because of my record of leadership in the areas of community life and of family life that touch what’s best in the hearts and minds of our people—that prepare a man or woman to be the kind of leader our people will respond to and respect. I didn’t start teaching a young couples Sunday school class in our church in the 1950s because I thought it would sell well in the governor’s race in 1987. I did it for the same reasons many of you have done it—because I felt then, and I feel today, a responsibility to make my family, my church, my town, the kind of place it should be. I didn’t help found our county’s United Way in the 1960s because I thought it would make good political rhetoric twenty-five years later. I did it because I felt then, as I do now, a compassion for our fellow men and women and children and elderly who are fighting for the bare necessities of life. I believe in building Habitat for Humanity shelters for the homeless; I believe in Meals on Wheels for the hungry; I believe in a safe sanctuary for battered wives and abused children. It may not be traditional politics for a conservative businessman to go on record as being concerned about human needs, but I haven’t lived all my life for politics—I’ve tried to live it for people— and I’m not going to change just to win an election! So, I say to you here this morning, and to the coast, and the hills, from the Delta to Meridian, if you believe that our state’s people are calling out for someone with a proven record and leadership skills to bring us jobs, calling out for someone with the experience and the understanding to develop one of the best educational systems in this country, but just as importantly calling out for someone motivated not by what’s best for his career but by what’s best for your careers, what’s best for your families and what’s best for your

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1987: The Plunge into Politics communities, and what’s best for our state’s future, then I say to you today from Mississippi’s most famous platform: I hear you!— and that I’m ready to give the job of governor of this great state my best, and with your help, your support, and your prayers, we can succeed—and we will succeed together!

The campaign of 1987 was filled with encouragement and excitement, with hope and promise, but from the very beginning it had been an uphill battle. Particularly frustrating had been the inability to engage Ray Mabus, the high-profile Democratic candidate, in many joint appearances or debates. Mabus, as the record shows, would indeed go on to win the election, capturing 53 percent of the votes to Reed’s 47 percent. While Reed was not pleased with the loss, neither was he terribly upset—except for his staff and supporters. “I certainly did not regret for one minute my decision to run,” he says. “The only regret I have is that the people who supported me so strongly, both financially and otherwise, I didn’t win for them.” Reed says he “gained a lot” through his campaign, making new and lasting friendships all across Mississippi. Unfortunately, he also learned that in politics strange things happen, even among those who claim to be your supporters and those whom you’ve spent years trying to help. Throughout his years Reed had always enjoyed a good relationship with the media, primarily because of his honesty, intelligence, and wit. While he maintained that association throughout the campaign—with most reporters, anyway—they didn’t seem to believe that he had a chance of winning the governorship. “I’ll never forget that on the weekend before election day, a group of the state’s leading reporters—including Norma Fields, Wayne Weidie, Lloyd Gray, and Paul Pittman—all predicted the election would be over by 7 p.m. Only John Johnson of Meridian disagreed. The winner wasn’t declared until 10:30.” In his travels around the state during the late fall, Reed and his staff could sense a change in momentum. Mississippians had

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1987: The Plunge into Politics come to know—and like—the gentleman from Tupelo. Time, however, was not on his side. “It was clear that we were gaining strength . . . and I thought how difficult it would be to be losing strength at the end of a long campaign,” he says. “I was very grateful to everyone on my staff and to so many supporters, and that made me just want to work that much harder.” Certainly, a highlight of the campaign had been a visit to Tupelo by Vice President George H. W. Bush. He spoke to an overflow crowd at Tupelo High School on October 31, and the many students dressed in Halloween costumes were a great source of consternation for the Secret Service detail assigned to the vice president. There were no incidents, however, and everything went off as Reed’s campaign staff had planned. “The vice president’s trip to Tupelo to speak in my behalf was great for Tupelo and me,” Reed says. “The party had wanted him to come to Jackson or even to the Gulf Coast where there were larger numbers of Republican voters, but I thought we owed that to Tupelo, and to his credit, he agreed. “There was never any big argument or anything; I just said no. I guess you could call it selfishness on my part, but I like to think of it as exercising my own prerogative. But we all had a big time, and Bush was most obliging. He is as nice a fellow as you’ll find anywhere.” Interestingly (but not surprisingly), one of the first people Reed had sought out for advice was his longtime friend William Winter, the former governor whose name had become synonymous with public education. “I talked with William before I ever announced,” Reed says. “I wanted to know if he thought I would make a viable candidate and he said he believed I would. Of course, he didn’t know I was thinking of running as a Republican, but he encouraged me to run.” Mabus had been a member of Winter’s staff, and Reed knew that Winter’s strong Democratic Party ties would make his support unlikely, if not impossible, so he intentionally kept his political distance. Through it all, though, the friendship between

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1987: The Plunge into Politics Winter and Reed remained steadfast. “I knew he was committed to Mabus all along,” Reed says. “I didn’t ask for his support nor did he offer any. When I went to him, I went strictly as a friend. I knew he was a committed Democrat, but he has always been personally supportive.” Years later, Reed and Winter took part in a panel discussion in Jackson sponsored by Common Cause—Reed representing the Republicans and Winter the Democrats. Moderator Bill Minor noted at the end of the discussion, attended by approximately seventy-five people, that Reed and Winter voiced similar thoughts on nearly every issue. Reed recalls Minor asking if they ever disagreed on anything. “I told him there certainly was,” Reed says. “I said I’d voted for William nearly every time he ran for office, but I was pretty sure he’d never voted for me. I think everyone there, including William, got a good laugh out of that.” Reed says he and Winter have never discussed the 1987 governor’s race and that it certainly had no impact on their friendship. Nor was any harm done to his relationship with Mike Sturdivant, a farmer and hotel owner from the Mississippi Delta hamlet of Glendora who had lost the 1983 Democratic primary to Bill Allain, the successor to Winter as governor. “Mike Sturdivant and I had been friends a long time and worked on several education issues together with William, and I had supported Mike in his first campaign for governor four years earlier,” Reed says. “When he heard I was thinking about running he drove over to Tupelo to encourage me. Then when I announced as a Republican, Mike decided to run in the Democratic primary against Mabus. He, too, was a good friend of William’s, but I can say in all honesty that the election had no impact on the friendship we shared.” Another of his most frustrating experiences, however, had been with incumbent U.S. Senator Trent Lott, who in 1987 was one of the more powerful Republican members of the House of Representatives. “He had come to see me in Tupelo and gave me his support,” Reed recalls. “He said he would get me more votes on the Gulf 108

1987: The Plunge into Politics Coast [his House district] than I’d get in north Mississippi, and judging by the number of Republicans down there that was no idle boast. Not long after their meeting, however, I heard that Lott told a group of reporters that he was considering running for governor himself. “Unfortunately, he made his statement in Washington during one of our biggest campaign rallies on the coast, and that dampened enthusiasm for my campaign,” Reed says. “I don’t know if the timing was intentional or not. I certainly wasn’t very wise politically, but a lot of people in the Republican Party said that hurt me and I’m sure it did temporarily. I don’t know; he might have been seriously thinking about running himself, but a lot of people wondered about that. I wondered about it, too, but I never took it personally. I just assumed it was political. Trent did call me later to reassure me that he was not going to run and that he did support me.” Whatever the reasoning, Reed consistently supported Lott in each of his subsequent political races, and over the years they developed a strong personal relationship. However puzzling Lott’s politics were, the most disappointing aspects of the campaign came from two factions that Reed had spent a great portion of his life speaking for and working on behalf of—African Americans and public school teachers. “I kind of knew early in the race that I wasn’t going to get a lot of support among the black voters, and I didn’t,” he says. “I remember after speaking to an audience at Alcorn State [a historically black university in Lorman in southwest Mississippi] that one of the professors came up to me and told me, ‘You seem like a charming man but I don’t think it would be in our best interest to support you.’ That’s pretty much the way it went all over the state.” Even after the Reverend Joseph Lowery, a revered civil rights pioneer, issued a statement of support for his longtime friend, Reed found little support in the African American community. “I thought Joe’s statement would help me, but I don’t think they paid any attention to it,” Reed says. Polls indicated he received 10 percent of the black vote. If he had received 15 percent the Governor’s Mansion most likely would have been his. 109

1987: The Plunge into Politics “That hurt Frances a lot,” he says. “But I didn’t blame them for being suspicious of a white Republican businessman. I thought it was unfair to label me with a generality, but I could understand it.” What Reed couldn’t fully understand was the aggressive attack on him by members of the Mississippi Association of Educators. He had spent his entire adult life fighting for public education in Mississippi and in 1981 had received the MAE’s Friend of Education Award. One of his duties as chair of the Mississippi Board of Education cost him much of the support from teacher organizations, Reed says. “A few months before I announced for governor, the board of education, at the insistence of the legislature, had required a ‘Mississippi Teachers Assessment Instrument.’ We’d done so, even though we believed it was still too early after the passage of the Education Reform Act, to get the legislature’s approval of a teacher pay raise called for by the same law. We had a video made explaining the MTAI, and since I was the chairman I was the one who introduced it on the tape. The MAE didn’t like that at all, and since I was the one on the tape I received most of the blame for the MTAI, and some of the most militant opposition came from the very group I’d been working so hard for all those years.” Reed says there were many teachers who were very supportive and who worked on his behalf, “and I’ll always be grateful to them.” “I’m pretty sure the MAE had already committed to Mabus before I even announced, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered a great deal,” he says. “Still, their opposition was so mean-spirited that it was probably the most disappointing factor in the campaign.” Another frustration for Reed was not carrying northeast Mississippi. Of the sixteen counties that comprise the region, Reed outpolled Mabus in only five: Lee, Lafayette, Pontotoc, Oktibbeha, and Union. “That was pretty hard to accept,” he says, “but I knew northeast Mississippi was one of the most Democratic parts of the

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1987: The Plunge into Politics state. In looking back, we probably spent too much time in other parts of the state where I wasn’t well known and not enough time in our own backyard. I should have done better, though.” On the other hand, “The biggest surprise of the whole race to me was that I ran so well in some of the ultraconservative east Mississippi counties—the hard-line old country counties.” Reed won in Greene, Newton, Perry, Scott, and Wayne counties, and was surprisingly close in Clarke and George. “I did really well in those poor counties, which was pretty hard for a Republican to do.” All in all, Reed says the campaign was a positive experience for him. “Some of the mean-spirited parts weren’t much fun, but other than that I really enjoyed it. I remember one of my first campaign stops was at the school for the deaf and blind in Jackson and I went away absolutely amazed at what they were accomplishing. I couldn’t help but think that if state government hadn’t built that school for those students, who would have? There are just so many things that the private sector can’t, or won’t, do. I realized what an impact the governor can have on a state.” While Reed had from the very beginning received the strong endorsement of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, his hometown newspaper, Mabus had been endorsed by most of the state’s other newspapers, including the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, the Sun Herald on the Gulf Coast, and the Commercial Appeal in Memphis. Reed, however, did find support from several other media outlets, including the Natchez Democrat. Publisher Dolph Tillotson wrote, “Reed’s got the best mind of anyone I’ve met in Mississippi politics, with the possible exception of William Winter. He thinks like the best kind of businessman—orderly, precise, to the point. He speaks that way, too. He is well read and well educated. But he’s not some dreamy intellectual. His experience in business and public service is hard-nosed and practical. . . . “Here’s the most important point. Reed is a rare find in politics— a man with a sensible mission, real leadership ability and a chance to win. He’s not running because he’s a professional politician seeking higher office. Instead, Jack Reed has worked privately for

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1987: The Plunge into Politics the past 30 years to build a better Mississippi. He’s been a leader in the MEC, in education reform and in economic development. He’s never earned a nickel out of any of that. Now, he sees a chance to influence the state’s future—build better schools and more opportunity for all Mississippians. As a man with six grandchildren and a lifetime commitment to public service, that means something to him.” “That,” Reed says, “meant a lot to someone like me, who was trying so hard to get his name recognized. You don’t forget words like those.” True to his nature, though, in the next breath Reed says there is peril in pursuing political office: “The danger is that after spending a year going around the state telling people how wonderful you are that you are apt to start believing it!” Reed was also moved by his old Vanderbilt friend, Bill Walker, who, true to his word, stayed with the campaign until the very end. “When it was all over, Bill and I split the balance due on a bank loan I had taken out,” he says. “That enabled me to finish free of debt, which I understand to be most unusual. Bill Walker was most gracious and I deeply appreciated what he meant to our effort.” When he considers the campaign of 1987, he says he sometimes doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I didn’t make a habit out of it, but I told a few folks that in my heart I was a Democrat but in my head I was a Republican. I think all I did was make both sides mad at me.” So, on the night of November 3, 1987, in the same Ramada Inn Convention Center in Tupelo where some nine months earlier he had held the campaign’s first fund-raiser, Reed delivered what would turn out to be his concession speech: I have written only one speech tonight which applies whichever way the vote goes: Over the years I have often recited Kipling’s poem “If” to young people as some of the best advice they could ever receive. I have also done it partly because it has been good advice for me to give myself, particularly the verse that reads:

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1987: The Plunge into Politics If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same . . . But that doesn’t really apply to us tonight—because there is only triumph; there is no disaster. In either case there is only gratitude to those whose support and effort and love have gotten us this far. There are not words to express Frances’s and my feelings for you. If we win we go to Jackson and the leadership of our state government. If we don’t, we stay here in Tupelo with family and friends whom we love and who, for whatever reasons, obviously love us. In negotiation terms it’s called a “no lose situation” and, believe me, it doesn’t make us proud; it makes us humble. And win or lose, we have an immense feeling of obligation to the people of Mississippi, black and white, who have given us so much of their time, their money, their love, their support, and their prayers in the last ten months. We are in your debt and I have always tried to pay my debts. So, wherever we happen to be—in Jackson or in Tupelo—our commitment will remain the same: to do our best for the people and the state we so dearly love. Since we think so much of each of you, I only wish you could experience the real joy of having been your candidate this year. It is an experience we shall never forget and an honor for which we shall be eternally grateful.

While no one in the Reed camp had ever been interested in merely winning a “moral victory,” his gubernatorial campaign did have a significant impact on the politics of Mississippi in years to come. He had shown that a Republican could gain the confidence of voters around the state, and that, given the right set of circumstances, a Republican could be elected governor. Four years later, Vicksburg contractor K irk Fordice, state auditor Pete Johnson, and Jackson businessman Bobby Clanton waged 113

1987: The Plunge into Politics a fierce battle for the Republican nomination. The gruff Fordice, who like Reed four years earlier was making his initial foray into statewide politics, defeated the smooth lifetime politico Johnson and the ineffective Clanton, then upset the incumbent Mabus. Fordice, who promised to serve only one term, changed his mind four years later and was reelected. Both Fordice and Johnson had visited Reed and told him they would not run if he wanted a second shot at the Governor’s Mansion. Reed, however, was content to stay in Tupelo with Frances, their children and grandchildren, and the growing family business. “Many Republicans have told me that they believe our race was proof that a Republican could be elected,” Reed says. “Because of our race a lot of people realized that it was okay to vote for a Republican.” While he was tempted to run, and even had the blessing of his wife, there would be no second attempt at the governor’s office for Reed. He had said all along he would run only once, and though there were many—including Minor, the state’s senior newspaper columnist—who maintained that the 1991 election could be his for the asking, Reed declined. “Tom Pittman [then editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal] told me that by my having run a decent race the first time and by not running again that he thought I was the most popular person in Mississippi,” Reed says. “I don’t know if that was true or not, but it seemed like a good reason to stay home.”

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1996: Humor— His Oratorical Trademark “He had taken the Sam Carnegie course three times.”

No one enjoys a good joke more than Jack Reed. No one enjoys telling a good joke more than Jack Reed. And for that matter, no one enjoys being the butt of a good joke as much as Jack Reed. Though he is sought out as a speaker because of his vision, his experience, and his wisdom, Reed’s humor is his trademark. In talking about the century-old family business, Reed loves to quote the theory that every successful enterprise requires three men: a dreamer, a businessman, and an S.O.B. “If Dad was the dreamer and [brother] Bob was the businessman, I leave it to you to complete the analogy,” he tells his audiences. While he has been called on over the years to address such weighty issues as race relations, economic development, and politics, in 1996 he was invited to speak to the Quinqs—a rather sporty group of fifty-year alumni at Vanderbilt University, many of whom are longtime friends. While the speech was filled with remarks about—and to—personal friends, it was a perfect example of Reed’s wit. The occasion called for absolutely no seriousness, and Reed, who not too many years before had served as president of Vanderbilt’s national alumni society, was pleased to be at the lectern, opening with a quote from humorist Robert Benchley: “It’s nice to be among friends, even if they aren’t mine.” And with that, he took off.

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1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark It’s an honor to be invited to address this distinguished group who are not “going gently into the night.” When Jimmy Webb asked me to address this year’s Quinqs, I tried to decline on the basis that I not only could not remember what happened fifty years ago, but did not even have an old annual to remind me. . . . Webb assured me that did not matter since very few Quinqs could remember anything beyond five or six years back. And he also told me that the only reason he could remember so well was because he had taken the Sam Carnegie course three times. In fact, Jimmy has aged somewhat gracefully. Each New Year’s, Frances and I celebrate with Jimmy and Caroline, Buddy and Sue Whitson, and Mary Lee and Bill Manier in Florida. We set a modernday record in 1992 when we all made it to the ten o’clock news. . . . However, I not only go to bed earlier these days, I must admit I also get up earlier now—usually between four-thirty and five o’clock. Of course, I go to the bathroom and then back to bed. I have been told that in a perfect world prostates would shrink and wallets would bulge. Actually, Frances and I have had so many surgeries in the last twenty years that I feel personally guilty when people complain about Medicare going broke. These days, my favorite quote is not from English literature classes, but from an unknown but soulful poet who writes, “Seal my lips to the many aches and pains. They are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by.” And I’ll tell you something else disturbing: only the healthiest classmates return for reunions. But it is sweet to remember our tender college days. Like my freshman algebra class, when Dr. Morrel threatened, “I flunked Red Grange at Illinois and I’ll flunk you at Vanderbilt.” At least that explained why he was no longer at Illinois. And Eddie Mims told us that he was “the only English department chair at a major university that condescended to teach freshman English.” How fortunate could we get? I was pleased to read in a literary journal last year (perhaps from Vanderbilt) that Robert Penn Warren didn’t like Mims either. . . .

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1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark I well remember on December 7, 1941, listening to President Roosevelt in Kissam Hall—I was in Kissam; he was in Washington— and hoping that if the Japanese actually did bomb the U.S. that it would be nice if Kissam was the first to go. Speaking of the war, quite a few of us eighteen-year-olds enlisted in the army reserve in 1942 to await our call—and to get a leg up we also joined the Tennessee state militia. Our captain was Guilford Dudley, who cut a rather dashing figure in his riding boots, jodhpurs, and campaign hat. Our sergeant was Nashville attorney and a longtime trustee, Reba Boult, a fellow Mississippian. We marched on Curry Field—or rather drilled on Curry Field. As a result, my training was, if not lax, at least somewhat limited. However, I was an eager soldier, and upon being called up applied all that I had learned under these two great leaders. As a result, I remained a private for the first thirty months of active duty. So much for a college education. But I did learn much of value at Vanderbilt. For instance, when I came to Nashville from Tupelo I had never been in a liquor store. I also learned that in 1941 Nashville was so dirty that it was neither necessary, or even helpful, to wash your socks every day. . . . In preparing these remarks, I remembered other things as well. But please realize that these are limited to my personal memories, and as Dr. Currie would say when making a particularly important observation on Shakespeare (that wise students would immediately put to memory), “This is according to Mrs. Currie’s little boy, Walter Clyde.”. . . However, I was truly stimulated by the intellectual atmosphere at Vanderbilt and realized that I had indeed come to a sophisticated school when my brother “Sleepy” told me that my Bible teacher was believed to be an atheist. And when Dr. Duncan was reading to us from Morte d’Arthur and quoted Sir Galahad as saying, “My strength is as the strength of ten because my –damned heart is pure.” Don’t tell me children don’t remember their teachers. Of course, there are regrets as well. I regret that I cut class the day that Dr. Campbell announced in economics that he deducted

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1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark grades for cutting class. When I got my “D” I really wished some friend had told me about it—but I suppose that was asking a bit much. I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed Phi Beta Kappa anyway. And I remember well Dr. Frank Owsley’s course American Sections, or “the Civil War.” In fact, having taken his course, I had not realized that the South had actually lost the war until I watched Gettysburg on educational television. As I recall, Dr. Owsley said that Robert E. Lee had never intended to surrender—that when he entered the room at Appomattox and saw Grant standing there in uniform he thought he was the butler and courteously handed him his sword. . . . After sending three children to Vanderbilt, I realize that perhaps the main difference in Vanderbilt today and yesterday is that in 1941 it was much easier to get in than to get out. In fact, forty percent of my fraternity pledge class failed to make their grades. That is the main difference, other than in social changes. When you look at today’s coed dormitories it gives real poignancy to the phrase “being born thirty years too soon.” I remember well when Jack, Jr., was a freshman in 1969, that with parental permission you could entertain girls in your dorm room. Jack beseeched us by saying that he and a Baptist preacher’s son from Sparta, Tennessee, were the only two boys on his floor that didn’t have permission. Frances said, “Bring that boy home with you for Thanksgiving. He’s our kind!” Another Quinq told me last night that when his daughter punished his grandson, “She sent him to bed without his girlfriend.”. . . You may have noticed that there is some confusion in the program where I am listed variously as class of ‘45, ‘47, and even ‘43. Since my education was interrupted by the Great War, that has become a rather effective way of avoiding exact detection by the alumni office when seeking a pledge. But reunions are fun. I recall that at the 1980 reunion, Gus Turbeville, class of ‘45, said he got kissed by the girls he couldn’t get close to when they were dating. I heard a good story told on Art Stegall, class of ‘46, when he returned in the seventies. Arthur had gone to Arizona and become

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1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark a rancher, and not being naturally modest, he named his spread the Standing A, Rocking S, Triple Dollar Ranch. Someone asked if he had many cattle. He said, “Hell, no. Very few of them survive the branding.”. . . Dean [Madison] Sarratt is certainly the most quoted of exprofessors, with such memorable remarks as “It is a fine thing to have an open mind as long as it is not open at both ends.”. . . As a courtesy, after my tenure as president [of the alumni board], the board offered my name for election as university trustee. I called Chancellor [Alexander] Heard and expressed my concern about the possibility of serving on such an illustrious board, and my fear that I could not afford its financial demands. He urged me to go ahead and run, and not to worry about it. I soon understood what he meant when I learned that my opponent was a Nobel Prize winner! Nevertheless, having been inspired by Irby Hudson’s political science class, and encouraged by the fact that several Mississippi alumni did vote for me for trustee (or said they did), I decided a few years later to run for public office after four or five people urged me to. (It takes ten for it to be officially called a public mandate.) And if you are laboring under the delusion that a Vanderbilt degree is a guarantee of success, you should just let it be known and try running for governor of Mississippi. . . . On the first day of my campaign—which, coincidentally, was on April Fool’s Day—I stopped in Forest, Mississippi, halfway between Jackson and Meridian, to work the coffee crowd there. I said, “My name is Jack Reed and I’m running for governor as a Republican.” One old-timer said, “I know, Mr. Reed. We were laughing about that this morning.” Then after I had lost the election, so many people told me they voted for me that I half expected to be inaugurated. My experience was pretty much like that of humor columnist Lewis Grizzard’s friend who said running for office was the worst experience he ever had. “When I lied I got caught and when I told the truth nobody believed me.” Grizzard asked him why he would expose himself to such a

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1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark degrading experience. “Well,” he said, “I was already a lawyer.” I didn’t even have that for an excuse. But as I said after nine months of telling the voters how wonderful I was, “Enough about me.” This I know: seeing old friends and reliving our college days is a wonderful nostalgic trip filled with fond memories. One of those, for me, was in 1973 when at the Vanderbilt centennial they set to music a poem about Vanderbilt written some years ago by Donald Davidson (class of ‘17), “Morning Was Golden”: Morning was golden when from one high tower The cool bell stirred its bronze and rang the hour. Trees were all April to our youthful mood, And sun lit golden Morning in the blood; For what is Morning but to tread old ways Where other steps have trod, and measure days With eager touch as for an ancient door That willingly swings as it has swung before? Where youthful feet have passed and yet will pass Morning abides on trees and tower and grass; And Morning rules where voices murmuring From April Windows summon up the Spring. Old paths may change, new faces light old walls, Morning will still be golden in these halls. It was golden for my brothers and me. It was golden for three of my children. It was golden for a niece, a nephew, and a godchild. And I believe it was golden for you or you wouldn’t be here tonight. I had never heard that poem when I was an English major at Vanderbilt. But I well remember another poem most all of us had to memorize in freshman English under Dr. Mims. It was Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” And it speaks to us here today, not of the past but of the future—where we are going to spend the rest of our lives. And if you remember it, I invite you to join with me (and Dr. Mims) in this recitation.

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1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark . . . Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

“Being able to give a speech like that was a lot of fun,” Reed recalls. “It’s not often you get to devote your whole time to making jokes, even though I did throw in a few verses of poetry just to keep everyone on their toes. But I do think humor is the best tool a speaker can have, even during the most serious of times. It puts the audience at ease. People like to laugh, and if you can’t laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at?”

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1948–Present: Always a Businessman “I felt that I ought to be getting to work.”

Throughout his life, Jack Reed has never professed to being anything other than a businessman trying to make a difference. While he has been an advocate for public education, a crusader for racial reconciliation, a leader in regional economic development, a gubernatorial candidate, and an active citizen in various civic organizations throughout northeast Mississippi, Reed’s heart has always been in his family’s businesses: Reed’s Department Store and Reed Manufacturing. There was a time when he considered being a college English teacher, and he did indeed major in English at Vanderbilt University, but then World War II came along and the U.S. Army had other ideas. He spent three years in the army, crisscrossing America before being stationed in Australia and Japan, serving as a code breaker in signal intelligence. In his family memoir, Reed writes that he returned to Vanderbilt following World War II and had planned on going to law school after graduation, then thought about pursuing a PhD in English, or even an MBA from Harvard, where his brother Bob had gone for a year. “But having spent three years in the army, I felt that I ought to be getting to work,” he writes. “Dad had built a new store and it was evident that he had hoped that Bob and I would come in with him—and the sooner the better. . . . I had learned that New York 122

1948–Present: Always a Businessman University offered a master’s degree in retailing with a one-year work-study program which was unique in the country.” Reed enrolled and soon found himself working in the fall of 1947 at Bloomingdale’s and in the spring of 1948 at Brooks Brothers. In June 1948 he joined Bob at his family’s department store and has never looked back. Even as Reed’s Department Store and, later, the manufacturing plant prospered, Reed, though deeply involved in each of them, approached business as a means for progressive change in Tupelo and northeast Mississippi. While he has drawn a great deal of satisfaction from the process of moving goods from the manufacturer to the consumer, so, too, has he always maintained that the department store and manufacturing plant were parts of a much larger picture. In March 2004, Reed spoke to the Oxford Chamber of Commerce about the family business—about its history and what made it successful (though he hesitated to use that term), and about its business philosophies and practices: Jack Junior and I came to Oxford for the Vanderbilt–Ole Miss basketball game not long ago and on the drive over I told Jack I had accepted an invitation that day to speak here on our business success, but was reluctant to do so. He said, “Well, you’ve never been very passionate about business anyway.” I told him I sure was twenty years ago—before the malls and the demise of so many independent retailers and competition. But I had told the children that our business is really a means to an end and not the end in itself—that it has given us the independence and the means to live a good life in a community we love. Then we came downtown to the Oxford square to eat, and I loved all the activity and stores that reminded me of downtown Tupelo twenty-five years ago. I saw Neilson’s, a fine store founded in 1869, and its handsome show windows. I was reminded that Reed’s would be one hundred years old next year and decided maybe I do have a story to tell that might be interesting. That fact is that we’re survivors, like Neilson’s, and that I do still

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1948–Present: Always a Businessman love the business after fifty-seven years. I honestly did not feel that we had been much of a success, and that both J. C. Penney and McRae’s had opened the same year as Reed’s, and look where they are today. Then I thought for a minute and realized there were no more McRaes in McRae’s or Penneys in Penney, but there are still four Reeds in Reed’s. Furthermore, as we approach one hundred, it might be appropriate to take a look back at what got us here. My father was one of seven boys and a girl, the children of a country doctor in Itawamba County. Dad finished school (about nine or ten years, all told) and took and passed the state teachers exam. But he was too young to be a teacher. He sold histories of the Spanish-American War—while the war was still on, and he even sold one set to a blind man. Then he opened a country store in partnership with his father in the late 1890s in Tilden. At the urging of Mr. J. J. Rogers, his grocery supplier, Dad came to Tupelo in 1905 and opened a grocery store next to Rogers. He saw a men’s store across the street selling neckties for more profit than he got from a fifty-pound barrel of flour and realized it was a lot easier to lift a necktie than a fifty-pound barrel of flour, so he opened a dry goods store, where Reed’s remains today. Dad was a truly great salesman. He was hard working, enthusiastic, and fired with an ambition to succeed. He reminded me of what football coach Vince Lombardi once said: “If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.” In the following years he brought four of his brothers into the store. With his encouragement, three of them went down the street and opened a wholesale dry goods business which later became Reed Brothers Garment Plant, which my two brothers and I bought in 1960 as our uncles reached retirement age. Dad worked very hard and very long hours, but still became involved in practically all the civic activity in Tupelo. He sold Tupelo’s first “ready-made” dress and had Tupelo’s first air-conditioned store. He expanded his business to other towns, including Water Valley and Oxford, but sold the branches in the Depression. He had what proved to be in the Southeast the first “day and

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1948–Present: Always a Businessman night sale”—from midnight Sunday to midnight Saturday—to move his inventory and survived the Depression. My mother told me, “It wasn’t the money; he just couldn’t stand the thought of failing.” (There’s certainly a lesson to be learned there.) He convinced the mayor to string lights over Main Street. He hired school bus drivers to bring people into town, and hired teachers from country schools as sales people. Dad said that things were so bad in the Depression “that even the people who didn’t intend to pay quit buying.” But business picked up in 1936 and 1937, and he sent us boys to college to get the education he had been denied. My brother Bob had planned to go into the store after graduation from Harvard Business School. I planned to study law. Of course, we had all worked part time during high school, but my brother Bill hated to wait on customers, so he was no prospect for the store, and he later ran the manufacturing plant. As I recall, by my senior year I was making thirty-five cents an hour in 1941. While we three were in the service, Dad, then over sixty-five, planned to tear down the old store and build a modern department store as soon as the war ended—which indeed he did, on his own. He obviously had lost none of his drive or ambition. I returned to school after three years away in the service and was no longer so eager to go to law school, and Dad urged me to join Bob in the store, which I did. I went to New York University and worked at Brooks Brothers and Bloomingdale’s. My dad came to get me, though he said the trip was accidental. (I’m not sure of what interest or value you can get from that last experience unless, if you are young, it’s better to be flexible in planning your future.) I can tell you that working for a sixty-seven-year-old autocrat who single-handedly had built his business from scratch for over fifty years did not make for a placid and calm partnership, although I both loved and admired my father greatly. Some who knew nothing of my own calm and easy disposition even ventured to say that I was much like my father, who often said: “We are never wrong at Reed’s. If I say it’s black, Jack says it’s white.” I’m sure he exaggerated, but I might have said that it was gray. . . .

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1948–Present: Always a Businessman After Dad’s death in 1956, Bob and I actually considered opening a store in Oxford, but we expanded in Tupelo instead. In the 1970s we opened three branch stores in Tupelo, Columbus, and New Albany, but subsequently closed the New Albany store. My daughter Camille joined us after graduation, and in the 1980s Jack, who was practicing law in Tupelo, joined us. It wasn’t too much longer before my daughter Catherine came on board. Scott, who was working with Hart Schaffner Marx in Houston, joined us but found out that working for both his father and brother in a small business did not bring the opportunity or happiness that he envisioned. He accepted an offer to open a Hilliard Lyons brokerage office in our same building and became very successful. We soon had three cousins, one nephew, and a niece in what had become a real family business. We also opened a second branch store in Tupelo and a men’s store in Huntsville, Alabama, which we later sold. In the 1990s we opened a store at the Barnes Crossing Mall—where we were and remain the only locally owned business—and a store in Starkville. And six years ago, still trying to grow and survive, we bought a strip center in Columbus and opened our largest branch store there. Meanwhile, in an effort to keep downtown Tupelo viable for retailing, we bought and sold two competitors and a former drugstore, and also invested unsuccessfully in three restaurants when downtown had none. We were like Kenny Rogers in “The Gambler”: “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.” We were better at folding them. Frankly, though, in my fifty-seven years in business I have never seen the challenge to independent business greater than it is today. The purchasing power of Wal-Mart, Penney, Sears, and all the chains is so great that Neilson’s and Reed’s are about the only two independent department stores left in Mississippi. To a large extent the old axiom—“if you cater to the masses you’ll eat with the classes, and if you cater to the classes you’ll eat with the masses”—has proved to be largely true! We independents today have to constantly search to find our own niche in both service and merchandise to successfully compete. Fortunately, at Reed’s our third generation has managed to do so.

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1948–Present: Always a Businessman I really believe my father was the best merchant in the family, but I also believe that my children are the best prepared to survive in today’s environment, both from a technological and cultural standpoint. And I am happy to say that although we almost stand alone in downtown Tupelo our original store is the strongest store that we have. And I believe that we are there to stay a while longer. In fact, I am more optimistic than I was five years ago. My management style is awfully simple: we hire the best people we can find and afford, and we give them as much responsibility as they can and will accept. And I believe what Marshall Field said: “Good will is the only asset that competitors cannot undersell or destroy.” Finally, don’t let management go stale. Jack Junior is truly the C.E.O. of our company. My experience with Dad taught me that! So what do I do? I go to the store and smile at the customers. (Like W. C. Fields said, “Start the day with a smile and get it over with.”) Each year at Christmas, we express our company philosophy with a quote from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is talking to Marley’s ghost: “But you have always been a good man of business, Jacob.” “Business,” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. “The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.” I do think the common welfare is all of our business. And even if we fall short sometimes, it is well for each of us to remember that.

One of the principal reasons that Reed’s Department Store has “survived” is because of its history of treating its customers fairly. Following the infamous 1936 tornado that practically destroyed Tupelo (killing more than two hundred citizens), Reed’s father opened the doors of the store and told his customers to take what they needed and pay when they could. Very few, if any, abused R. W. Reed’s generosity or violated his trust. 127

1948–Present: Always a Businessman The sense of fairness and honesty has been passed down through the generations and Jack Reed can’t fathom doing business any other way. In 1989 he spoke about business ethics at Mississippi University for Women: Ethics in business is both a serious and an important subject, and I am honored to be asked to speak on this topic. I well remember advice given to a class of students at Vanderbilt in the 1940s by Dean [Madison] Sarratt, where the honor system was used: “Today, you will be taking two tests: one in math, the other on your character. If you have to fail one, let it be on math.” And I say to you today, if you have to be unethical to succeed in your career, I urge you to change careers. . . . On balance it does seem that ethical standards of behavior have tended to fall since World War II, and I believe that has caused: • a lessening of idealism. We have few heroes today; • an increasingly materialistic society where success is measured in terms of expensive automobiles, bigger boats and houses, lifestyles of the rich and famous—where success is measured more in terms of the quantity of life than in the quality of life.

Reed reminded his mostly young audience what the eighteenthcentury French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville had said: “When America ceases to be good America will cease to be great.” He also warned about the pressures of placing profit over people, of succumbing to the power of the bottom line: This spring I heard a speech by a great sportsman who combines ethics and success. Kyle Rote, Jr., America’s greatest native soccer player, spoke at the mayor’s prayer breakfast in Tupelo and most of his talk was on ethics. . . . He said business is a wonderful tool but a horrible god. “In sports today we have more ‘parole models’ than ‘role models,’ ” he said, and he gave many examples. He also said, “In the last Olympics over half the athletes polled said they would take a pill to win the gold medal even if they died within a year.” That’s tragic for young men and women to put that much em-

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1948–Present: Always a Businessman phasis on winning—and on success as measured by our society today. But we are all challenged every day, whether to be strictly honest or not, and it’s true in school; it’s true in athletics; it’s true in our social lives; and it’s true in business. And it’s true in politics. In my [gubernatorial] campaign I didn’t have trouble turning down illegal contributions. For one thing, as the underdog I didn’t have too many offered me—but the greatest ethical challenge was to just tell people what they wanted to hear whether I really felt that way or not. Because you feel that if you do you’ll get their vote and get elected. You feel that the end (getting elected) justifies the means (shading the truth, fudging a little) and it won’t really matter. Well, believe me, it will matter—and if you have any moral character, and I know you do, you will find it very hard to live with yourself for the rest of your lives. Many of you— if not all—want to be leaders, both in life and business. Aristotle said the very first quality necessary for leadership is that a leader must have “the moral character to persuade others”—the moral character to be trusted, to be depended upon. Since many think Aristotle is the wisest man who ever lived, I would take his advice seriously. I recently heard another speech, by Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz, on what it takes to be successful in sports and in business. First, he said, you’ve got to be goal oriented. Then, he said, do right, do the best you can, and treat everybody just the same as you would like to be treated. That is a great code of ethics; it is the Golden Rule. . . . I am a member of the Kiwanis Club, but I think the motto of the International Rotary Club is one of the very best statements to the business and professional men and women who make up its membership that I have ever run across: “Service above self. He profits most who serves best.” The Rotary Four-Way Test “of things we think, say or do” is also a model for us all: • Is it the truth? • Is it fair to all concerned? • Will it build good will and better friendship?

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1948–Present: Always a Businessman Will it be beneficial to all concerned? And I recommend those tenets to you. I am sure they have helped many Rotarian businessmen keep their priorities straight over the years and they have, in fact, been very helpful to me. I think by now you realize that I believe that business ethics are no different than any other ethics—and that they should not be. President Teddy Roosevelt said, “Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual, and of nations alike.”. . . And Will Rogers told us to live our lives “so we wouldn’t mind selling the family parrot to the town gossip.” I mentioned earlier that this generation seems to be more concerned with quantity of life than quality of life. George McLean of Tupelo made a fine statement about quality of life: “Quality of life is caught from others. It cannot be taught by talking. Quality of life is not a different area of life, it is a way of life, a spirit that permeates everything we do or say or think. It is based on using things, serving people, and worshipping God. It is the abundant life that comes through service. It is a by-product of forgetting self and seeking to serve God and neighbor.” And he also said, “If we and other business, professional, and working people throughout our state would embody ‘quality of life’ in everything we do, wherever we are, we shall inevitably reach a richer, better life.” •

“That’s the way we’ve tried to approach our business,” Reed says, “and it’s worked out well for us. For more than a hundred years we’ve tried to treat our customers with a great deal of respect, and they’ve always supported us. We aren’t the biggest or the richest business around, but we are still around.”

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out “I just think a fellow ought to do his part.”

For the most part, Reed has indeed stayed home since his tenure on the Mississippi Board of Education and his run for governor. He still spends his days in his office at the department store, breaking each morning to meet with his compatriots in the Downtown Tupelo Coffee Club that he, his brother Bob, and Son Puckett began in 1947. The group has included nearly every prominent Tupelo businessman and civic leader during its sixty years—“and,” Reed says, “I’m sure we’ve solved most of the world’s problems by now.” These days, Reed’s biggest source of pride is his family, particularly his grandchildren: Kirk Reed Forrester and Jack Reed III; Frances Clayton and Claude Clayton III; Paul Mize III and Bennett Mize; Dakin Reed and Lilla Reed; and Rollin Sloan, Shipman Sloan, Spencer Sloan, and Crofton Sloan III. “One thing you can always count on during holidays,” Reed says, “is that there is never a dull moment. Any time we have a family get-together it’s quite an event. As one old farmer said, ‘I know four children and eight grandchildren ain’t no record, but it ain’t no hobby either.’” Besides his ongoing and very public support for full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, Reed’s only recent statewide adventure came in early 2001 when he served on

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out the seventeen-member Mississippi Flag Commission—a body established by Governor Ronnie Musgrove to try and change the state flag with its prominent Confederate battle flag. Musgrove had asked former governor William Winter to serve as chair of the commission and Reed to serve with him. Reed calls it the “low point” in his lifetime of civic involvement. “It was the low point because of such truly outrageous behavior of the opponents of changing the flag, and because of the sheer unpleasantness that occurred at each occasion,” he says. “And it also hurt because it revealed how little progress had been made toward racial reconciliation in some quarters. I enjoy a good argument and spirited contest as much as anyone, but I do not enjoy listening to people whose minds are completely closed.” In his family memoir, he writes: “K nowing what a thankless job it was to be, I declined to serve, but at William’s request and Musgrove’s continued urging, I reluctantly accepted. At the first meeting I said that I felt I was being punished for unknown sins. Whatever the reason, it was punishment. It was one of the most unpleasant efforts at public service that I had ever had. “When [state representative] Ed Blackmon moved at one of our earlier meetings that we hold open meetings in each congressional district, inviting the public to offer comments, I knew we were in trouble. It turned out to be serious trouble. “We had an excellent committee, most of whom were openminded on the subject. We interviewed all interested organizations from the NA ACP to the Sons of the Confederacy before going statewide. “It just happened that our first meeting was in Tupelo, and Winter had asked me to chair it since he had a conflict. The crowd of several hundred literally overflowed the auditorium. At least 75 percent of the audience was violently against any change. For three hours, forty or more spoke in opposition [to changing the flag] and only two or three spoke in favor of change. Many of the comments were militant. Some threatened us with bodily harm. “Anticipating trouble, our chief of police [Ron Smith] provided excellent security, including uniformed and plainclothed officers, for which I was most grateful. Subsequently, I did receive 132

1998–Present: Still Speaking Out threatening letters and we [Reed’s Department Store] lost a few customers. One group picketed our store, but had no permit and Chief Smith told them to leave. “The pattern of behavior followed at each of our meetings, becoming even more strident, if possible, and the referendum statewide was two to one against any change in the flag. This doubtless cost Musgrove in his race for reelection [in 2003]; however, I admired him for making the effort. Unfortunately, it brought out publicly the worst prejudices still evident in Mississippi, even though some opponents of change I know were not racists. “In retrospect, I am sure that it would have been better to leave the matter alone. Mississippi got terrible publicity. Possibly the only positive aspect was that reasonable people on both sides were turned off by the vindictiveness and even fanaticism expressed, and perhaps would now have a clearer perspective of Mississippi’s present situation regarding history and race.” Of much greater pleasure to Reed over the years has been the opportunity to tell “the Tupelo story” and to spread the gospel of “the Tupelo spirit.” Rare have been the times he refused an opportunity to travel around the state, region, or country to offer his explanation of just how his lifelong home has become a model for economic development while maintaining a high quality of life. It is a story he never tires of telling, and on February 25, 2004, Reed was delighted to share it with a group of economic development officials from throughout the Southeast at the Tupelo Story Conference, sponsored by the CDF: I appreciate the invitation to speak to you today, and really, it’s nice to be remembered. I am now at the age where the “venerability factor” has kicked in—when I am accused of things I never did and given credit for virtues I never had. After having heard all the talk about Tupelo, I hope that you will not feel like the New Yorker who was showing a Texas visitor his city a few years ago. He showed him the New York harbor and the Texan remarked that they had bigger stock ponds in Texas. He showed him the Statue of Liberty and the Texan said they had bigger tombstones in Texas. Then he showed him the Empire State

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out Building and the Texan boasted they had bigger outhouses in Texas. To which the New Yorker replied, “By God, sir, you need them!” But I would also caution you not to underestimate a community just because it overestimates itself, as we sometimes tend to do in Tupelo. Besides, I can only speak with authority from my own experience and involvement over the last fifty years. The facts are that since 1947, Tupelo and Lee County have accomplished the following: have three times been voted an AllAmerican City; ranked second in Site Selection magazine’s Top 100 List of Small Towns for New and Expanded Corporate Facilities; for the last twenty-two years Lee County has averaged over one thousand industrial jobs each year—75 percent of which have come from expansions. . . . Lee County has become the most industrialized county in Mississippi with populations greater than seventy-five thousand. (Like many of you, we have lost over two thousand jobs in recent years, many in my plant, yet we still have seventeen thousand manufacturing jobs and a total of fifty-two thousand jobs.) During that period we have also secured or developed: • a community college • a branch of the University of Mississippi • a world-class advanced education center • the nation’s largest nonmetropolitan hospital • a nine-thousand-seat coliseum • a symphony, art museum, community theatre • an outstanding school system • a revitalized downtown • a successful regional mall • two or three high-priced restaurants I am not trying to impress you. I am just validating the point I am trying to make today—that sustained economic success does not happen in a vacuum, nor does it happen when a major industry comes to town. It is, rather, the result of a longtime commitment to total community development which, I am convinced, must precede and accompany economic development. It takes more than a good physical plant site and infrastructure— as important as they are—to attract, keep, and grow industry. It

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out takes a community that offers a quality of life that people want and, in many cases today, demand. My assignment was titled “From the Beginning.” Perhaps today, it should be called “The Rest of the Story,” or even “Same Song, Second Verse.” From the standpoint of personal involvement, in that sense I suppose I am, at least, qualified to speak. So this is the Tupelo Story of how we got where we are since World War II and where we came from. As for me, I was born in Tupelo in 1924—I’m a fifth-generation Mississippian who: • lived elsewhere only during college and World War II; • heard President Roosevelt speak in 1933 recognizing Tupelo as the first TVA city in America; • survived the tornado of 1936 in which more than two hundred people were killed; • successfully survived, with my family, the Depression years when per capita income in Mississippi was just $250 to $350; • entered our business in 1947, the year when the Community Development Foundation was founded, and I have been active ever since; • even knew Elvis Presley—although we didn’t run in the same circles, so to speak. In the early twentieth century we were literally in the poorest section of the poorest state in the nation. We had few natural advantages; we had no rich Delta farmland, no river traffic, no university, no government offices, no decent highways, no major industry, very few people. But we did have five thousand small farm families, and we did have progressive civic leadership who wanted to do better. They had started a cotton mill, which failed during the Depression. They began garment manufacturing in 1916. They raised fifty thousand dollars in the thirties to match a Commonwealth grant for a hospital—and today it’s our largest employer, with over four thousand jobs and more than three hundred doctors. They built the South’s first concrete road with local effort. They became the first city to get TVA power. An editorial in the Tupelo Journal in 1881 perhaps suggests the

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out origin of the Tupelo Spirit: “Every man owes a duty to the town in which he resides, to advance its prosperity and to make it the abode of kindly sentiments and brotherly and neighborly feelings. . . . It is a shame for a man to use his community as a shepherd uses his sheep, merely to shear the wool. That man is a disgrace to the 19th century whose every act is regulated by the thought, ‘Can I better myself at the expense of the community to which I belong?’ ” The early days were not easy in Mississippi or in Tupelo. When I graduated high school in 1941, only one in four white Mississippians graduated, and only one in forty black Mississippians graduated. . . . It was in the Depression that George McLean bought the Tupelo Journal—“a bankrupt newspaper from a bankrupt bank.” A social science teacher and former ministerial student, George had a clear vision, boundless energy, and great commitment. . . . (I read once that it takes three people to make a successful enterprise: a visionary, a businessman, and an S.O.B. For various people George filled all three roles in the C.D.F.) He was certainly our visionary and our sparkplug that ignited the C.D.F., our economic engine. He was dissatisfied with the big business domination of the chamber of commerce, and it was George’s idea that the chamber be replaced with a Community Development Foundation with a much broader mission than the chamber of commerce—with the emphasis on job creation and public education. That is still our philosophy today. . . . George had the rare virtue of not only speaking out often, but also of putting his money where his mouth was, even in the early days when he had very little money. He used his newspaper to constantly push his progressive ideas. In the process he also became my mentor. When I was president of the Mississippi Economic Council in the sixties and people asked me what I did, I said I raised money and defended George McLean, which was a full-time job! Actually, without many natural advantages our early leadership consciously decided that if anyone was going to move Tupelo ahead, we had to do it ourselves. . . .

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out So with limited resources and natural advantages, we looked first to ourselves, then to Jackson, then to Washington. As George once challenged us, “What this community will be tomorrow depends on you. There is no great leader here to do what you and I need to do, and are privileged to do. And take my word for it, there is no great, good, wise, warm, wonderful person in Jackson or Washington to wrap up the good community in cellophane and hand it to us.” And we did look first to ourselves, but unlike most of Mississippi we also welcomed state and federal help: LIFT (a community action agency that includes Head Start); public housing; TVA; ARC, which came in the Lyndon Johnson years. We thought we could use federal money as well as anyone else, or better. And, not incidentally, the tornado of 1936, rather than setting Tupelo back, actually served to pull our town together and energized us to move ahead. Other than George McLean and his progressive newspaper, critical elements to our early success were: the C.D.F., three locally owned banks who were willing to lend money for entrepreneurial investment (and we still have two, which is a great asset), business leadership rather than political leadership, but honest government, good public schools (that are now excellent), and perhaps of greatest importance was an inclusive rather than exclusive attitude and the welcoming of outside business leadership arriving with new industrial development. Many of our C.D.F. chairmen have been industrialists who have come into our community; there is no old money in Tupelo trying to maintain the status quo—although I’m hoping some day there will be. Our first efforts at economic growth were to encourage agriculture production—five thousand two hundred farm families before World War II had been reduced to five hundred, and there were no big landowners. We called it R.C.D.C. (Rural Community Development Council), and we started an artificial insemination program to breed good dairy cattle. (I was glad when it was terminated; I thought it was unfair to the cows and the bulls.) One reason for change from the chamber of commerce was that it opposed TVA and really was the agent of big business. We called ourselves the “city without limits.” (Speaking of the chamber,

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out during the cold war, the Department of Defense wired the mayor of a small Mississippi town and asked what was their plan for nuclear defense. “We have no fear of nuclear attack,” the mayor wired back. “Our chamber of commerce has successfully driven off everything that has come our way for the last twenty years!”) We realized from the start that in a city of ten thousand to fifteen thousand there is not enough good leadership to fragment our efforts. So we focused our strongest leadership on C.D.F.: we did not allow proxies. We met on call, day after day, night after night. (Membership on the C.D.F. executive committee was not then, and is not now, an honorary position. You are expected to work and you will.) We have no prima donnas in the C.D.F. We are in it together. We hired a professional staff and have kept it professional. We served as an umbrella for other organizations and spun them off when there was sufficient support. We started with 151 charter members and we now have more than 1,000. In 1947, our budget was $28,000; in 1958 it was $44,000 . . . In the 1960s we asked the county for one-half mill, which brought us $12,500, and we later asked for a full mill, which brought us $25,000. By 1981, that one mill brought us $162,000 and today it brings us more than $500,000. Our C.D.F. budget today is more than $2,000,000. And we established a close relationship with our supervisors, and made heroes of them by having three industrial park locations in Lee County that serve all five districts so each supervisor had industrial development in his district. We constantly worked for good city-county relationships. In the late ‘40s and ‘50s, when most communities offered “two hundred breathing bodies and a bond issue,” Tupelo offered plant sites with medium-size plants hiring men, detailed building costs information, immediate warehousing space for early start-ups, and, frankly, did whatever it took. . . . We did not talk “cheap labor.” We did stress “our work ethic and productivity.” We are trying to meet the current challenge of global competition aggressively. Eight years ago we formed the Northeast Mississippi Regional Commission to improve the quality of life in our

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out sixteen-county region by working cooperatively. We believe this has great potential. Our local community foundation named CREATE (another George McLean venture to which he left the ownership of his newspaper) supplies both staff and operating funds for the regional commission. Our major effort this year is in the critical area of workforce development, where in May we received a special award in Halifax, Canada, for our cooperative effort between C.D.F., our community college, and local industry in which two thousand five hundred employees have participated. But back to community development as essential to economic development. Successful community development today must include good race relations, and good race relations have been critical to whatever success Tupelo has had. And we tried to be proactive in dealing with it. Our hospital was the first in Mississippi to voluntarily integrate in 1965. Our public schools were the first to integrate (along with Greenville). Our city parks were never closed. We had no private schools and did not establish a council school, so there was no “white flight” from public schools, as was common elsewhere. We had north Mississippi’s first biracial committee. Fortunately, we survived both KKK demonstrations and United League boycotts over police brutality because we have a reservoir of good will between the races that we could draw on. Believe me, our economic growth would not have happened if we did not offer industry a good quality of life, and industry would not have expanded if they had not found it. It is becoming even more important with technology, the Internet, and instant communications. Times have indeed changed. Today, talented young men and women often decide where they want to live—and then look for a job. Look at how our university towns like Oxford are growing. Why, right now, with the support of a strong Main Street Program, we are developing the Fairpark District in downtown Tupelo adjacent to our coliseum, anchored by our new city hall and a new business incubator with offices, entertainment, and residences along the lines of Harbor Town in Memphis to attract young people

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out and others who are seeking that lifestyle. As a lifelong native, I agree with financial advisor Charles Schwab, who said, “The best place to succeed is where you are with what you have.” Let me conclude with a very personal comment: these things have not happened overnight. They have taken at least fifty-seven years of many citizens working cooperatively together under strong leadership. Thoreau said, “Let a man march to the music he hears.” That’s a great philosophy, but it’s no way to build a community. However, progress does not come without its costs. My family happens to have the oldest remaining apparel plant in Lee County, founded in 1916, and the oldest remaining retail business, founded in 1905. Every new plant that came in increased our costs of operation. We have gone from one thousand employees to fewer than two hundred. Every new store that opened competed for our customers and took many of them. (Frankly, I would rather have the only store in a city of one hundred thousand people.) When I graduated in 1941, I went to the army and finished college under the GI bill. The smartest and most ambitious classmates left Tupelo for greater opportunities. (I worked in New York, but came back to the family business.) When my four children finished college, they came back to a thriving, growing community. Today, all four children and eight grandchildren live in Tupelo. I consider that a great return on my investment in the Community Development Foundation.

Though it was founded in Tupelo and has focused most of its energies on the development of the city and Lee County, CDF has always been concerned with regional cooperation. During its nearly sixty years of growth, CDF, under the leadership of Harry Martin and David Rumbarger, has worked tirelessly with its neighboring counties. In 1995 it joined with the CREATE Foundation to establish the Commission on the Future of Northeast Mississippi, pulling together fifteen counties (the number would soon grow to sixteen) to address common issues. 140

1998–Present: Still Speaking Out Corinth businessman Sandy Williams served for three years as the first chair of the commission; then Reed once again found himself at the helm of an organization. In May 1998, he offered these words to the audience of more than a thousand at the annual meeting: It is only through honest self-examination that we learn how to improve ourselves, and while flattery is good for our self-esteem it does very little to make us better. Besides, it can be subject to misinterpretation. I remember coming home from a big evening some time ago when Frances asked me: “Did anyone ever tell you that you are a good dancer, a charming conversationalist, and a devil with the women?” “No, dear, I don’t think so.” “Then whatever gave you that idea at the party tonight?”. . . What we are about today—in considering the improvement of our region—started long before three years ago and will take considerably more than three years to reach the goals that each of our counties has set for themselves. In fact, our commission’s work is a process, not a cure-all—and it is not for the faint of heart. It’s not so much a job for the sprinter as for the long-distance runner. . . . So we are clearly on our way. Perhaps most importantly of all, we have learned (or we are learning) that we are dependent upon each other—that none of our communities or counties exists in a vacuum. . . . If we have learned anything from the past, it is that while honest competition is good, jealousy and selfishness are selfdestructive—and I’m sure that the most important achievement of this organization is the breaking down of artificial barriers that have tended to keep us apart, which was in fact our first goal adopted when we first met. I’m talking about the natural suspicion—even jealousy—of each other’s motives and actions, whether between town and country, agriculture and industry, city and county, or even between county seats on rare occasions.

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out I know full well that Tupelo’s growth and favorable publicity can be a little hard to take when Lee County announces five hundred new jobs and your county just announced a plant closing. . . . But that isn’t anything new. When I was in school and Tupelo High played Corinth, I can remember well having the air let out of our tires during the game. Those were simpler times when shooting each other seemed extreme. But then I fell in love with a Corinth cheerleader, married her, and realized to my surprise, Sandy, that there were wonderful people in Alcorn County. Of course, when I ran for office and failed to carry northeast Mississippi, I realized I still had a little personal work to do! But we do indeed have much to learn from each other. Each of our counties has its own assets and successes which can benefit us all, and our good progress should be shared. On tough issues like roads and infrastructure, environmental measures, legislators from both Jackson and Washington respond most quickly to a united front. . . . In fact, we have so much in common that it strikes me as ridiculous to dwell on what separates us. What we have going in this organization is that we are united in a common cause, and there is joy and satisfaction. . . . I am proud to be associated with people who have a vision that is defined and realistic, and who are working to make that vision a reality. And I am grateful that in years gone by we have had people in each of our communities who have cared enough to make a difference—many of whom are here today. There is a verse in the Talmud that says, “It is not up to you to finish the work, but neither are you free not to take it up.” Your presence here today indicates your willingness to do just that. When I think of our legacy in our region I inevitably think of George McLean, from whom we all continue to benefit years after his death. . . . Fifteen or twenty years ago, George spoke to the Mississippi Economic Council on quality of life, which is really our main concern in this commission. I think you will be interested in what he had to say: “We need to stress as never before the necessity for honesty and efficiency both in government and in business and professional

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out life. What you and I do, or fail to do, will determine the fate of the state in the years ahead. The true principle for quality of living or for enlightened private enterprise is the statement found in Luke, chapter six: ‘Give and it shall be given to you. For the measure you give will be the measure you will get.’ “We must freely give of our time, our abilities, and our money to the development of our state. Otherwise, we shall certainly continue to remain at the bottom among the American states. “No one can lift Mississippi except Mississippians.” And many years before George, John Ruskin gave a challenge that speaks to us here in this room (and after watching two senior grandchildren graduate last night it speaks to me): “When we build, let us not build for present use and present delight alone, but let it be such works that our descendants will thank us and say, ‘See, this is what our fathers did for us.’ ”

Four years later, when Reed turned over the chairmanship of the commission to New Albany contractor Denotee Martin, he reminded his audience once again of its mission of regional co -operation and of each member’s responsibility—and again quoted McLean. “From the very beginning of CREATE, our parent and financial supporter, George McLean envisioned a regional organization,” Reed told the gathering. “He said then, ‘We should use private dollars to develop model programs to meet local needs to solve regional problems.’ (And to give George his due, most of the private dollars so far have been his.)” Unaware that he was engaging in a bit of foreshadowing, Reed then offered these thoughts about the state of the region: After seven years we are well on the way. We have, to a marked degree, broken down many barriers of county lines, of political issues, of simple jealousies and competition that divide us. We have shown that we can accomplish far more by working together than by going it alone—that in many areas we either move ahead together or we do not move ahead at all. . . . Our commission has taken up the work. We are making

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out substantial and measurable progress and we are committed to moving ahead for the benefit of all.

In 2004, the area’s historical concept of regional cooperation took on new dimensions when three contiguous counties—Pontotoc, Union, and Lee—among the commission’s sixteen joined forces and combined resources to form the PUL Alliance. The new alliance’s sole purpose was to attract a major industry, one that would serve not just their three counties but all of northeast Mississippi, and beyond. Three years later, the efforts of the PUL Alliance were rewarded when Toyota announced that it would build its next North America manufacturing plant in Blue Springs—in the conjuncture of Pontotoc, Union, and Lee counties. “I was among a group of several leaders in our area who met privately with Japanese officials,” Reed says. “At some point, almost all community leaders were involved in the project led by CDF and Three Rivers Planning and Development District. It was regional cooperation at its finest.” More than two thousand jobs will be created to build the massive plant, and when it begins production in 2010, two thousand more jobs will be created and countless “spin-off companies” will locate in the region, offering even more employment opportunities. While regional cooperation was of significant importance in Toyota’s decision to locate in northeast Mississippi, equally important was the support for and success of the region’s public schools. The foundation of all that is northeast Mississippi is and has been for the past six decades its strong and unwavering support of public education. Statewide, citizens who valued the importance of public education and clearly understood its role in community and economic development knew they had a champion in Jack Reed. On March 26, 2007, at the Hilton Hotel in Jackson, the Mississippi Association of Partners in Education (MAPE) paid tribute to Reed and Winter, the longtime friends and cohorts in the battles for public education, as “two of Mississippi’s most outspoken and effective proponents of public education.” The orga14 4

1998–Present: Still Speaking Out nization also introduced the Winter-Reed Partnership Award, to be presented annually to Mississippians “who carry on their legacy of educational involvement and support.” At age eighty-two, Reed traveled to Jackson—not just to accept his portion of the award and share the lectern with Winter, his ally in so many of the good fights, but to speak out for the students of Mississippi. I want to thank all of you for coming—including my family, who, along with Frances, have provided the greatest support group that anyone has ever had, as well as the greatest motivation to go to work every day. I learned during my campaign that it’s safer to bring your own cheering section with you. To be honored along with my friend William Winter for our involvement in what I truly believe is the most important responsibility of state government is recognition that I do not accept lightly. Not only because I regard William as Mississippi’s most dedicated leader of my generation, but also because William can always draw a crowd. (Although I don’t see as many lobbyists here as when he was governor.) It is inevitable that if you remain publicly active during a long life, a certain amount of recognition comes your way. I refer to these as my Seniority and Senility Awards. (Of course, I am not speaking for William—he is older than I, and may be sensitive about senility. However, I am afraid that we are both like the elderly lady who said, “I can’t see, I can’t hear, but thank God I can still drive!”) Tonight really is different. MAPE represents all of the efforts over the years by so many who actively support public education that to be included in this number is distinction enough, and to be honored by you in this way reassures me that I am still on the right track with the right people and moving in the right direction—even though my engine might be slowing down. And I am deeply grateful, worthy or not. Over the last fifty years, whenever (and if ever) I am introduced, I automatically leap to the podium and start making a speech about public education—or rather, I formerly leapt to the podium. Tonight will be no exception, but I promise to be brief.

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out In Lessons of History, Will Durant wrote, “Education is the transmission of civilization, and if this transmission should be interrupted for just one century civilization would die, and we should all be savages again.” So, he says, “Our finest achievement is the unprecedented expenditure of wealth and toil in the provision of education for all.” I believe that—and I believe that if educated, the children of our state are our greatest asset. If not, they are our greatest liability. And if they are to have a better opportunity to succeed—to achieve a better quality of life than their parents—to compete for more and better job opportunities that are available to educated people wherever they live (not only in America but throughout the world), then we here in Mississippi must do more than just keep up, and we must do more than we are now doing. Even in this landmark year, when we have strong and most welcome support from both the legislature and our governor, we must more effectively commit an increasingly greater effort with greater resources both financially and otherwise to preschool, to kindergarten, grade school, high school, community colleges, and universities, and we must make a greater effort to end school drop-outs and truancy and to increase learning. And don’t faint, but we even need to make two-year community colleges tuition free statewide, as is now being done in Meridian. While it is tempting on occasions like tonight to reflect on worthy past accomplishments, this is not the time to stop and look back with pride or self-satisfaction, even though Nancy Loomis, Brad Pigott, Dick Molpus, Beverly Brahan, Frank Yates, Sam Bounds, and others who have worked so hard for full funding have every right to do so. As older labor-intensive industries move to China and Vietnam; as modern technology requires even more college graduates; as physical strength becomes less important than mental strength, now is the time to rededicate ourselves to the future—the future of our state and our families. Thomas Paine, whose writings inspired the American Revolution, wrote: “Those of us who expect to reap the benefits of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”

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1998–Present: Still Speaking Out Substitute education for freedom—though they are indeed inseparable—and you have tonight’s message to our fellow Mississippians: “Those of us who expect to reap the benefits of an educated electorate must, like men and women, undergo the financial burden of supporting it.” So, we “octogenarians against ignorance” are still at it, although I am quite sure that some, both in and out of government, wish we would shut up, retire, and leave well enough alone. One reason we will not is because of our personal experience over the years (the many years). William and I, by accident of birth, have been fortunate enough to be members of America’s so-called “Greatest Generation.” As such, we have enjoyed the many opportunities that came with America’s optimism and confidence following our victory in World War II—when a young nation overnight became the world’s greatest superpower. It may well be that the most significant and rewarding of these opportunities was being provided by the GI bill of rights that made education, and even higher education, available to all or any servicemen and -women ambitious enough to take advantage of it, as both William and I did along with two million others. If we here tonight will pass on to our children and grandchildren the same educational opportunities—and more—that were available to us sixty years ago, Mississippi’s Greatest Generation may well be yet to come. I pray God that that will come to pass.

Reed says he has no regrets about his life of public service even though he has, except for his run for governor, remained a private, but vigorous, citizen balancing the responsibilities of church, family, and business. “It has been a most rewarding life,” he says. “It has allowed me to get to know people all over Mississippi and, for that matter, the country. The governor’s race exposed me to all sorts of people around the state and only made my love for Mississippi stronger. “When I think back over all my years, I don’t know of very many things I’d do differently. I just think a fellow ought to do his part.” 147

A F TERWOR D

A Son’s Perspective

I suppose that many of us have our fathers as our heroes. I hope so. When I read the annual Father’s Day essays in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, I am reminded of the many different, poignant ways our fathers influence not only our lives but also the lives of others. Frequently, as we listen to children of all ages reminisce about their fathers, we hear comments like: “he loved his vegetable garden, and he grew the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted”; “he could tell the scariest ghost stories”; “he was the most fun coach I ever had.” There are as many fond recollections as there are good fathers. For my siblings, Camille, Catherine Dale, Scott, and me, the most frequent accolade we heard again and again as children was “your daddy is the best public speaker I’ve ever heard.” After we became adults, we, as well as our spouses, Lisa, Crofton, Buzzy, and Annette, continued to hear it, and our children still do. I agree. He has a unique ability to bring important, thoughtful messages on meaningful issues—peppering them with a contagious sense of humor—and leave his audiences both entertained and inspired. People will say, “He’s a natural-born public speaker.” But I can tell you from a lifetime of personal observation that he spends hours preparing for a thirty-minute speech. He continues to 149

Afterword learn. He reads voraciously—about a book every two nights. He listens incessantly to “Great Courses” on tapes which are constantly playing in his car. (This can be a bit annoying if you hop in at midlecture and he remarks, “I think you’ll like this,” and then keeps it on—at a fairly high volume!) He saves quotations and has a file of jokes and humorous sayings. He keeps a date book in his coat pocket so that he can jot down any remark which might bear repeating. He revises and revises his talks, and then he practices delivering them to a critical reviewer. For most of the past fifty years that person was our mother, who, according to him, was a pretty tough audience—lots of “B-plusses.” He prepares seriously because he always wants to do his best— and he sets high standards for himself. His father, my grandfather, Bob Reed, had a personal motto: “Aim high.” I know Dad has done that. As a result, he has traveled all over our state making speeches to hundreds of civic clubs, charitable and school organizations, and churches. Amidst all this traveling he did make our mother and us one pledge—“I’ll be there for breakfast.” And he was. He drove home every night, and every morning we would all sit around the breakfast table just off our kitchen and have that meal together; then he would drive us to school and he would go to work at our family store. Occasionally he would take one of us along with him to an out-of-town speech. I remember once as a teenager riding down a country road to the Itta Bena United Methodist Church and sitting by the pastor and his wife on the front pew listening to Dad’s message on race relations and the Golden Rule. These were special opportunities: to be treated to one-on-one time with him was unusual in a home with four children. (When we were all at summer camps, he would write one letter and send the original and three copies, each declaring: “this is the original!”) Ultimately, his greatest contributions to our family were not these speeches, of course, but his unwavering love and generosity to us children and the role model he gave us as a husband. 150

Afterword These speeches represent a lifetime of one man’s efforts to do his part to bring a better quality of life to all of our citizens. In the 1960s his leadership gave strength to many other Mississippians who felt similarly about race relations, but needed to hear a voice proclaim it. Later, as Mississippi’s first chair of our first appointed state board of education, he steadfastly beat the drum for increased support for our public schools. Now into his eighties, he has not relented. (Witness the photograph on the cover.) Throughout his life he has continued to speak out on the critical importance of community development and the roles private citizens must play in the public arenas. I believe these speeches are convincing evidence that leadership through public speaking can still inspire, encourage, inform, and influence public opinion and behavior. Surely we are all better off because Dad has felt there was “a time to speak.” Jack Reed, Jr.

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ACK NOW LEDGM EN TS

This book could have never been completed without the constant support of Jack Reed, Jr. This was his brainchild to begin with, and it was his passion for our project that kept me going through a rough period in my life. I am indebted to him for sticking with me. Indeed, the entire Reed family—its numbers are legion— has my eternal gratitude, and I am a lucky man indeed to have them as friends. As always, my own family—wife, Lee, son and daughter-in-law, Drew and Kim, and daughter, Katie—has been there for me, bless their hearts. Our tribe even grew during the final stages of writing with the arrival of Hannah Grace McKenzie. She is a beautiful and perfect first grandchild. There are those—Joe Rutherford, Joe White, Dale Thorn, Andy Mullins, Jere Nash, and Mac Gordon—whose professional advice was invaluable. I always appreciated it and sometimes took it. Without Lucia Randle, there might not have been any photos. I owe her. And a special thanks goes to K irk Reed Forrester, who combined her incomparable skills as an editor with her love for her grandfather and turned a manuscript into a book. After spending thirty years in the newspaper business, I know about editing. Kirk’s efforts were remarkable.

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Acknowledgments One night at a party a few years back, Frances Reed and I sat on the sofa, oblivious to the considerable merriment all around us, and had a long talk about life in general. Before rejoining the festivities, she gave me a kiss on the cheek, and for a brief moment that will last a lifetime I understood how lucky her family was. She was a special person.

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INDEX

African Americans: and the church, 35–43, 46, 49; and the economy, 33; as equals, 26, 32, 36; and the governor’s race, 109–10; leaders in Tupelo, 54; and prejudice, 11, 17, 28, 32, 34; in World War II, 11 Alcorn State University, 108 Alexander, Lamar, 70 Alexander, Owens, 13 Alexander, William B., 8 Allain, Bill, 64, 69, 90, 108 Allen, Roy, 85 American Crisis, The (Paine), 52 anti-war demonstrations, 51 Archie, Chad, 85 Aristotle, 83, 129 Army, U.S., 17, 57, 122 Associated Press, 12 Atlanta, Ga., 50 Augenblick, John, 58 Babson, Roger, 86 Bagby, Grover, 26 Bailey, Joe, 85 Bailey, Russell, 85 Baker, W. D., 45 Barnett, Jamie, 92 Barnett, Ross, 4 Beasley, Bill, 53 Beasley, Joyce, 54 Becker, Jamie, 100

Bell, Allison, 86 Benchley, Robert, 115 Bennett, Bob, 99 Berlin (East), 80 Biloxi, Miss., 65 Birmingham, Ala., 50 Black, Felix, 18, 53, 86 Black, Roy, 85 Black, Scott, 85 Black Hawk, Miss., 101 Blackmon, Ed, 132 blacks. See African Americans Bloomingdales, 123 Blount, Joe, 64 Blue Ribbon Committee on Education, 15, 57–64, 104 Blue Springs, Miss., 144 Bosley, Harold, 25 Boult, Reba, 117 Bounds, Sam, 146 Boy Scouts, 7, 85–88 Boyd, Richard, 67 Brahan, Beverly, 146 Brevard, Henry, 53, 86 Brooks Brothers, 123 Burbank, Luther, 86 Bush, George H. W., 70, 107 business, 122–30 Caldwell, Mary Elizabeth, 54 Carley, C. T., 45

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Index Cash, Johnny, 78 Cass, Mama (Cass Elliot), “New World Coming,” 78 CDF. See Community Development Foundation Chicago, Ill., 50 Chinese Americans, 48 Christ. See Jesus Christ Christians: call of responsibility for, 19, 22, 27, 28, 29, 31; female, 21–22, 52; leadership of, 20–22, 46; role of, 19, 23, 31, 36; and witnessing, 18–19, 23–26 Christmas Carol, A (Dickens), 127 church: commitment to, 48; relevance in society, 47; as tool for racial reconciliation, 24, 51–52 Churchill, Winston, 84, 86, 94 Citizen’s Council, 9, 10, 26, 29, 36, 101 civic involvement: in Boy Scouts, 7, 87; business as a means of, 127, 129–30; in community, 20, 81, 86; disappointments in, 132; in Methodist church, 7; statewide foray into, 3; in Tupelo, 134–40 Civil Rights Act, 18, 22–23, 38 Civil Rights Commission, 23 civil rights movement, 30–31 Clanton, Bobby, 113, 114 Clarion-Ledger, 8, 9, 111 Clark, Robert, 58 Clarke County, Miss., 111 Clarksdale, Miss., 98 Clayton, Claude, Jr., 92 Clayton, Claude, III, 92 Clayton, Frances, 92 Clayton, Hugh, 85 Clinton, Bill, 71 Coalition for Children and Public Education, 71, 74 Cochran, Thad, 98 Coleman, Willie Frances, 26 Collins, Helen, 92 Commercial Appeal, 111 Commission on the Future of Northeast Mississippi, 71, 140–44 Community Development Foundation (CDF), 54–55, 57, 71, 103, 133, 136–40 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 31

Cooper, Owen, 23, 26, 46, 90 Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), 31 CREATE (Christian Research Education Action and Technical Enterprises), 71, 139, 140, 143–44 Crews, Billy, 91, 92, 100 Crews, David, 92 Culp, Lori, 92 Curry, George M., 42 Czechoslovakia, 80 Dacus, N. E., 9 Daily Journal. See Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal Dallas, Tex., 44 Davidson, Donald, “Morning Was Golden,” 120 Davis, Jefferson, 8 Delta, Miss., 29, 30, 46, 101 Delta Ministry, 38–39 democracy, 6 Democratic Party, 91 Dickens, Charles, A Christmas Carol, 127 Downtown Tupelo Coffee Club, 131 Dudley, Guilford, 117 Duke, Vera, 54 Durant, Ariel and Will, The Lessons of History, 50, 146 Dye, Brad, 58 early childhood education, 62, 69 Eason, Paul, 86 economic development, 92–95, 102–4, 134–44 education. See public education Education Reform Act of 1982, 59, 63– 64, 65–69 Emmerich, Oliver, 13 Emory University, 13 Esther, 19 Eubank, Jack, 46 Fairpark District, 139 Fant, Glenn, 85 Feltus, Will, 100 Fields, Cora, 54 Fields, Norma, 98, 106 First Methodist Church, Tupelo, 18, 24, 46

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Index opposition to, 4, 7–10, 61; of public schools, 4, 5, 53, 60, 77, 79; as social litmus test, 31; support of, 5–6, 23–24, 46–47; of University of Mississippi, 4, 6–7 Itawamba County, Miss., 124

Fordice, Kirk, 113, 114 Forest, Miss., 97 Forrester, K irk Reed, 92, 131 Foster, Palmer, 54 Franklin, Benjamin, 68, 86, 105 Galloway Memorial Methodist Church, 35 Gellhorn, Walter, 13 George County, Miss., 111 Germany (East), 80 Gibens, Bo, 99 God, 19, 20, 21, 25, 39, 46 Godwin, Chauncey, 86 Godwin, Louise, 54 Gonzalez, José, 50 Gordon, Jack, 58 Gray, Lloyd, 106 Grayson, Harry, 54 Greene County, Miss., 111 Greenville, Miss., 98 Greenwood, Miss., 28 Grenada, Miss., 57 Greshem, Bill, 98 Grizzard, Lewis, 119–20 gubernatorial campaign, 89–114, 129 Gulf Coast, Miss., 97 Gulfport, Miss., 98 Gwin, Carolyn, 64 Harris, Smitty, 82 Hattiesburg, Miss., 98 Heard, Alexander, 84, 119 Heidelberg Hotel, 3, 14 Hereford, Robert, 54 High, Jim, 53 highways, 95–96 Hill, Dick, 99 Hispanic Americans, 48 Hodgkinson, Harold, 71 Hollomon, Bo, 37 Holly Springs, Miss., 30, 31 Holtz, Lou, 129 Hudson, Irby, 119 Huntley, Jack, 45 “If” (K ipling), 112 Indian Americans, 48 Ingram, Jim, 53 integration: as Christian problem, 20, 33; of Methodist Church, 36, 38–40;

Jackson, Lex, 92 Jackson, Miss., 3, 14, 29, 35, 92 Jamison, Robert, 54 Japanese Americans, 48 Jefferson, Thomas, 73, 89–90, 104 Jefferson and His Time (Malone), 89 Jenkins, Sonja, 92 Jesus Christ: as example, 24, 28, 33, 46; faith in, 25, 39; on minority groups, 33; and race relations, 19, 20; as servant and ranson, 32 Jiminez, José, 50 Johnson, Claude, 26 Johnson, John, 106 Johnson, Paul, 4, 14 Johnson, Pete, 113, 114 Jones, Jameson, 85 Jones, Paul, 85 Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 68 Kennedy, John, 81 K ipling, Rudyard, “If,” 112 K iwanis Club, 129 Ku K lux K lan, 29 Lafayette County, Miss., 110 Lake Junaluska, 45 Landers, Ann, 77 Laurel, Miss., 98 Lay Membership Assembly, 46 leadership: in business, 129, 137; call to, 16, 46, 52, 76–88; of Christians, 20–22, 76; civic, 29, 76, 105, 135; in education, 54, 76; in Methodist Church, 36; as vital to social progress, 3, 6, 76 Leadership Mississippi, 81 Leake, Medford, 86 Lee County, Miss., 54, 56, 57, 110, 134, 138–44 Lee County Republican Women, 92 Lessons of History, The (Durant, Ariel, and Will), 50, 146

157

Index liberty, 6, 26 Locke, John, 47 Lombardi, Vince, 124 Long, Erst, 85 Long, Sam, 9 Loomis, Nancy, 146 Lott, Trent, 108–9 Lovorn, John, 92 Lowery, Joseph, 108 Mabus, Ray, 106, 108, 111, 114 Main Street Program, 139 Making Haste Slowly (Sansing), 12 Malone, Dumas, Jefferson and His Time, 89 Manier, Bill, 116 Manier, Mary Lee, 116 Martin, Denotee, 143 Martin, Harry, 53, 140 Martin Luther K ing Day committee, 15 McComb Enterprise Journal, 13 McCoy, Lee Marcus, 34 McIntosh, Elton, 85 McLean, George, 10–11, 53, 57, 69, 76, 103, 130, 136–37, 142–43 McLean, K irsey, 100 McRee, Dick, 85 MEC (Mississippi Economics Council): citizens action clinic, 3; influence of, 7, 12, 14–15, 20, 57; on integration, 5–6, 8, 12–13, 20, 22; Leadership Mississippi, 81 Meredith, James, 6–7 Meridian, Miss., 97 Methodist Advocate. See Mississippi Methodist Advocate Methodist Church: Action Crusade, 35– 43; activism in, 7; Association of Independent Methodists, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42; commitment to, 18, 23–24, 39; and conference merger, 18, 23–24, 36–43, 45–52; General Conference, 38, 44; influence of, 24–25; on integration, 21, 36; lay Sundays, 45; Mississippi Conference, 43; North Mississippi Conference, 18, 43, 45; Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference, 45, 48; United Methodist Church, 44; United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race, 15, 45,

48–52; Upper Mississippi Conference, 18, 43, 46 Mexican Americans, 48, 50 Milam Junior High School, 77 Mills, Jake, 99 Millsaps College, 13 Mims, Eddie, 116, 120–21 Minor, Bill, 108, 114 Mississippi, 4–8, 17, 33–34, 52, 53–56, 60, 65, 93–98, 113, 133, 147 Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), 72–75, 131 Mississippi Association of Educators, 60, 110 Mississippi Association of Partners in Education (MAPE), 144–45 Mississippi Board of Education, 15, 63, 64, 66–69 Mississippi College Board, 13 Mississippi Delta. See Delta Mississippi Department of Education, 69 Mississippi Economic Council. See MEC Mississippi Flag Commission, 132–33 Mississippi Industrial College, 31 Mississippi legislature: on desegregation of public schools, 4, 7, 53; and education reform legislation, 58–64, 66, 72, 74–75 Mississippi Methodist Advocate, 21, 25, 41 Mississippi Press Association, 65, 66, 69 Mississippi State University, 13, 68 Mississippi Teachers Assessment Instrument (MTAI), 110 Mississippi University for Women, 128 Mississippi Women for Public Education, 11, 22, 54 Mississippians for Public Education. See Mississippi Women for Public Education Mize, Bennett, 92, 131 Mize, Catherine Reed, 56, 92, 126 Mize, Paul, III, 92, 131 Mize, Paul “Buzzy,” Jr., 92 Molpus, Dick, 146 Moore (UMC Bishop), 25 morality, 14, 22–23, 25, 37, 50 “Morning Was Golden” (Davidson), 120 Morrison, Harvey Lee, 13 Mounger, W. H. “Billy,” 13

158

Index Mullins, Andy, 64 Murry, Charles, 45, 85 Musgrove, Ronnie, 131–33 Napier, Denson, 41 Natchez Democrat, 111 Natchez Trace, 95 National Advisory Council on Education Research and Improvement, 15, 70–71 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NA ACP), 31 National Committee on Excellence in Education, 68 National Council of Churches, 38 Negroes. See African Americans Neilson’s, 123 Neshoba County Fair, 101–6 “New World Coming” (Cass), 78 New York University, 85, 122–23 Newman, Buddie, 58 Newton County, Miss., 111 No Child Left Behind, 73 Norman, Roger, 85 Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 9, 62, 70, 91, 98, 100, 111, 135–36 Northeast Mississippi Regional Commission, 138 Nussbaum, Perry, 52 Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), 70 Oktibbeha County, Miss., 110 Ole Miss. See University of Mississippi Owsley, Frank, 118 Oxford, Miss., 7, 123 Oxford Chamber of Commerce, 123 Paine, Thomas, The American Crisis, 52, 146 Patterson, Frances, 54 Peden, Homer, 41 Pegues, Len, 53, 92 Pendergrass, Edward, 18, 40 Perry County, Miss., 111 Peyton, Arthur, 64 Pickering, Charles, 92 Pigott, Brad, 146 Pittman, Paul, 106 Pittman, Tom, 92, 114

Plato, 94 politics, 89–91, 96, 97, 101, 113 Pontotoc County, Miss., 110, 144 Portis, Talmadge, 64 prejudice: in communities, 31; in churches, 42; witness to, 17, 133 Price, James, Jr., 64 Primos, Alec, 8 public education: as democratic right, 60; as greatest challenge, 16; in Mississippi, 53–64, 71; as moral responsibility, 61, 146; origin of support, 11; as political platform, 94; and the press, 66–67; as related to economic welfare, 5, 71, 74, 144–47; school choice, 71; support of, 4, 6, 56, 57, 60, 71–74, 104; and taxes, 55–56, 71. See also public schools public schools: and academic freedom, 6; attempted closing of, 4; and community, 55; and economic development, 144; in Mississippi, 53–55, 57, 68, 104; in Tupelo, Miss., 53, 54, 56, 79, 137, 139. See also public education Puckett, Betsy, 54 Puckett, Son, 53, 131 PUL Alliance, 144 Pursor, D. L., 85 Purvis, Perrin, 53 Quinqs, 115 race relations: and Christian duty, 28; in the church, 21, 48–52; contributions to, 15, 79–80; and Flag Commission, 132; as “human relations,” 19; passion for improving, 17; and segregation, 31; in Tupelo, 139; views about, 44, 57 Ramada Inn, 90, 112 Ramsey, Claude, 58 Raspberry, William, 67 Rather, Ed, 85 Reagan, Ronald, 99 Reardon, Rory, 92 reason: MEC as voice of, 12; and Methodist merger, 36; and morality, 14, 22–23, 25, 37, 50 Redd, J. C., 59 Reed, Annette, 92

159

Index Reed, Bill, 5, 11, 53, 92, 115, 125 Reed, Bob, 5, 11, 53, 92, 122–23, 125– 26, 131 Reed, Camille. See Sloan, Camille Reed Reed, Catherine. See Mize, Catherine Reed Reed, Dakin, 131 Reed, Frances, 5, 11, 22, 54, 90, 97, 99– 100 Reed, Jack, Jr., 56, 88, 92, 118, 123, 126 Reed, Jack, III, 92, 131 Reed, K irk. See Forrester, K irk Reed Reed, Lilla, 131 Reed, Lisa, 92 Reed, R. W. “Bob,” 85, 88, 115, 122, 124–27 Reed, Scott, 56, 88, 92, 126 Reed Manufacturing, 122–23 Reed’s Department Store, 10, 88, 122– 30, 133 Republican Party, 90–91, 113–14 Riley, Frank, 45 Robbins, Jerry, 45 Roberts, Lucimarian, 64 Robertson, James, 45 Robertson, Jan, 45 Rogers, J. J., 124 Rogers, Katie B., 26 Rogers, Landis, 41 Rogers, Nat, 35, 39 Rogers, Will, 130 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 117 Roosevelt, Teddy, 130 Ross, Joe, Jr., 64 Rotary Club, International, 129–30 Rote, Kyle, Jr., 128 Rumbarger, David, 140 Rural Community Development Council (R.C.D.C.), 137 Ruskin, John, 143 Rust College, 30–31 Rutherford, Harry, 9, 10, 53 Rutherford, Joe, 92 Sadler, Catherine, 54 San Antonio, Tex., 50 Sansing, David, Making Haste Slowly, 12 Sarratt, Madison, 119, 128 Sayers, Gale, 83 schools. See public schools

Schwab, Charles, 140 Schweitzer, Albert, 82 Scott County, Miss., 111 segregation: as Christian problem, 33; “moderate” position toward, 36; as vital issue, 31 Selah, W. B., 25, 41 Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 506, 63 Seventeen (Tarkington), 77 Shakespeare, William, Julius Caesar, 68 Shannon, Oscar, 85 Sheffield, Phillip, 85 Sillers, Walter, 4 Sloan, Camille Reed, 56, 92, 126 Sloan, Crofton, III, 131 Sloan, Rollin, 131 Sloan, Shipman, 131 Sloan, Spencer, 131 Smith, Frank, 26 Smith, Fred, 12, 26 Smith, Ron, 132–33 Smith, Roy, 25 Southaven, Miss., 98 Special Committee on Public School Finance and Administration. See Blue Ribbon Committee on Education Spivey, Ebbie, 90 Stafford, Howard, 85 Stafford, J. P., 25 Stanley, John, 85 state legislature. See Mississippi legislature states rights, 6 Stegall, Art, 118 Stennis, John, Jr., 8 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 31 Sturdivant, Mike, 101, 108 Sun Herald, 111 Swayze, M. B., 21 Syrus, Publilius, 55 Talmud, 142 Tampa, Fla., 50 Tarkington, Booth, Seventeen, 77 teachers, 109–10 technology, 82, 146 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, “Ulysses,” 120–21

160

Index Third Wave, The (Toffler), 82 Thomas, Edith, 54 Thoreau, Henry David, 140 Three Rivers Planning and Development District, 144 Tilden, Miss., 124 Till, Emmett, 28, 30 Tillotson, Dolph, 111 Toffler, Alvin, The Third Wave, 82 Toqueville, Alexis de, 128 Toyota, 144 transportation. See highways Tuck, Al, 101 Tupelo, Miss., 4–5, 11, 53–57, 79–80, 107, 124, 126, 133–43 Tupelo Daily Journal. See Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal Tupelo Journal, 135–36 Turbeville, Gus, 118 TVA, 135 “Ulysses” (Tennyson), 120–21 United Methodist Church. See Methodist Church Union County, Miss., 110, 144 University of Mississippi: faculty defection, 5; integration of, 4, 6–7, 13; Medical Center, 13 U.S. Department of Education, 70 Vanderbilt University, 57, 81, 115–21, 128 Waits, Jim, 41 Walker, Bill, 98–99, 112 Wall Street Journal, 46, 103

Warriner, Richard, 85 Washington, Joseph, 54 Washington, Lucinda, 54 Watkins, Vaughn, 8 Watson, E. J., 45 Watson, Mrs. E. J., 45 Wayne County, Miss., 111 Weaver, Robert, 8 Webb, Caroline, 116 Webb, Jimmy, 116 Webb, Tommy, 64 Weidie, Wayne, 106 Wesienberg, Karl, 11 White, Edwin, 8 White, Hugh, 93, 103 Whitehead, J. C., 53, 86 Whitfield, Lewis, 91 Whitson, Buddy, 116 Whitson, Sue, 116 Wicker, Tom, 92 Williams, J. D., 26 Williams, Sandy, 141 Wilson, Woodrow, 6 Winter, William, 15, 57, 59, 62, 63, 72, 107–8, 132, 144–47 Winter-Reed Partnership Award, 145–47 Wolfe, Buster, 98 World War II, 11, 17, 96, 103, 122 Wroten, Joe, 11–12, 45 Yates, Frank, 146 Yazoo City, Miss., 98 Yocona Area Council, 85 Young, J. T. “Bud,” 45 Zehnder, Louis, Jr., 45

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