Beaches, Blood, and Ballots

by Gilbert R. Mason, M. D.

  Once we got people to the courthouse in Gulfport, things were very predictable in the office of Mr. E. G. Lindsey. Mr. Lindsey actively aided the registration process by always asking the same question, an easy one, to allow people to demonstrate so-called “literacy.” Mr. Lindsey would say, “One of the things I must ask you to do is read and interpret a portion of the constitution of the state of Mississippi.” He would then say, “Now write this down,” and proceed to read aloud the same predictable phrase from the state constitution: “There shall be no imprisonment for debt.” Then, Mr. Lindsey would explain it to you and ask you what it meant. Voter registration in all three of the Mississippi coast counties took place in front of similarly fair-minded clerks in the early 1960s. This was certainly advantageous, and by 1968, it meant that in the Fifth Congressional District covering the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I could get elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention through the regular delegate selection process. Others from inland counties found the barriers which racists threw into their paths to be insurmountable such that a successful credentials challenge was launched against the Mississippi delegation in Chicago that year. However, if voter registration on the Mississippi Gulf Coast took place in a comparatively friendly atmosphere, it was still inconvenient. The registration books were never taken out of the courthouse. So we had to make many automobile trips to build our voter base. In 1960, we knew that the rest of Mississippi was not so friendly to black voter registration, and we were quick to grasp the significance of the opportunity which trouble-free voter registration presented. We saw our chance to change the power equation in Biloxi through the ballot box.

  The racist cohorts at the State Sovereignty Commission also understood the implications of larger numbers of black citizens exercising their right to vote. As early as February of 1959, they were inquiring about the number of Negroes registered to vote in Gulfport, and they were worried that the Negroes in Harrison County might block vote. White folks block voting in the South didn’t scare the segregationists, but black folks block voting bothered them mightily, even though there were very few of us registered. Of course, on our side it was apparent that survival demanded political solidarity, especially after the 1960 riot. The 1950 census had shown the total population of Harrison County to be 84,073, of which 13, 421 were Negroes. In 1959 the sheriff of Harrison County estimated that as many as 1,400 Negroes were registered to vote locally. Whatever the actual count, we knew in 1959 and 1960 that we had tremendous untapped political potential in unregistered African American citizens.

  The agents of darkness were right to be concerned about our activities in the voter registration arena. The events surrounding the bloody wadein and the frustrating court maneuvers that followed helped stir enthusiasm for voter registration campaigns in both Gulfport and Biloxi in 1960. In the Biloxi branch, we received assistance from the Long Island (New York) NAACP branch in the form of a donated twelve-hundred-pound printing machine, which we installed in my office. We therefore harnessed the power of the printed word in our cause. We made a massive voter registration push in the latter part of 1960. Rallies and voter registration schools were held at the United Benevolence Association Hall on Division Street. There were meetings at McDaniel’s Funeral Home and at New Bethel Baptist Church. All aimed to impart the notion that it was a citizen’s duty to register and vote and to educate himself or herself on the issues to be decided at election time. Our home and my office were headquarters for these types of activities. In one three-month period in 1960, we registered as many as 350 new black voters in Biloxi alone. A similar number were registered in Gulfport, where the Gulfport branch and the North Gulfport Civic Association under Robert Cook’s leadership carried on an organized voter registration campaign in 1960 and 1961.

  I estimated that as many as one thousand new black voters registered in Harrison County in 1960, and our efforts were continuous thereafter. We felt that our 1960 voter project had been a great success. From the Sovereignty Commission files, I have learned that Harrison County elected officials’ estimates of increased black voter registration in 1960 and 1961 exceeded our own. After these substantial voter registration efforts on our part, Harrison County officials told Sovereignty Commission agents in 1961 that countywide there were between twenty-five hundred and four thousand Negroes on the Harrison County voter rolls. This compares to local officials’ estimates of fourteen hundred Negro voters in the same county in 1959.2 The significance of our 1960–61 achievement should be judged against the impact of the “long hot summer of 1964.” In 1964, COFO and SNCC set up freedom schools and voter registration projects in over forty Mississippi counties, but managed to register only two thousand to three thousand new black voters over the entire state.3

  1960 was a federal election year. We were aware of and appreciative of the civil rights legislation that President Eisenhower had signed into law in 1957 and 1960. The 1957 Civil Rights Act made possible the May 17, 1960, federal intervention in the beach desegregation case. Nonetheless, I and most other politically sensitive black leaders determined to cast our lot in presidential politics with John F. Kennedy and the Democrats, rather than with Richard Nixon. Black political activities in Harrison County gained sufficient momentum that year that I was elected to the Harrison County Democratic Committee. I remained a member of that committee for thirty-eight years. Bidwell Adams was the county Democratic chairman in 1960, and Tommy Thompson was secretary. Bidwell Adams, a former Mississippi lieutenant governor, won my respect when he spoke out against Governor Barnett’s bid for Mississippians to vote for an independent slate of presidential electors as a means of protesting John F. Kennedy’s and the national Democratic Party’s pro-civil rights stance. Barnett’s demagoguery easily stampeded the white majority to abandon its manifest economic interest in the programs of the Democratic Party and waste the state’s presidential electoral votes, but men like Bidwell Adams reminded me that this old Jim Crow Mississippi had its corners of sanity and hope even in 1960.

  In Biloxi our voter registration efforts were aimed at political targets closer to home. In the wake of apparent official complicity in the white mob action on the beach on April 24, 1960, we looked to change the mayor and city commissioners. Municipal elections were scheduled for the spring of 1961. Mayor Laz Quave and incumbent city commissioners Pete Elder and Dominic Fallo presented themselves as a ticket in the Democratic primary on May 9, and ran on their “record in office.” Mayor Quave touted his police background. He reminded the voters that he had served as the city’s police chief and as sheriff of Harrison County before being elected mayor in 1957. Dominic Fallo, Quave’s running mate for public works commissioner, was also a former detective in the city police department. Fallo and Elder seemed benign enough. However, the influence and repressive attitudes of the Biloxi police establishment hung heavily in the air around Mayor Quave. The mayor’s ticket presented itself as standing for principles: “honesty, integrity, efficient and courteous service, and full devotion” to their duties.4 Of course, these words had a new meaning in the black community. Given that the mayor had cursed me and verbally threatened my life, it was clear that his record of courtesy was one that had been reserved for white folks. The integrity and devotion to duty of which Mayor Quave spoke must have been the special segregationist notions of integrity and devotion to duty involved in keeping black folks in their place.

  Mayor Quave had three opponents in the Democratic primary that year, attorney Daniel D. Guice, Lawrence Semski and Paul Skrmetti. They all opposed the Quave record in one way or another.5 Because a number of us in back-of-town had registered to vote, several candidates, including Mayor Quave, made meetings in our neighborhood. The campaign produced direct and bitter public confrontations between Mayor Quave and black citizens over his behavior in the bloody wade-in and the rioting which followed. At the Elks Hall I stood up in public and on behalf of the black community of Biloxi demanded of Quave, “Where were you when they were breaking our heads on
the beach last year with pipes and chains? Where were you when our neighborhood was being shot up by out-of-control white mobs? Where were you when our cars were being stoned? Where were you when they were firing our people from their jobs in downtown stores? Where were you, Mayor Quave, when Bud Strong was murdered? Where were you when our streets needed fixing and our ditches needed cleaning? Where were you, Mr. Mayor?” No amount of hemming and hawing could supply a satisfactory answer for this crowd. Mrs. Vashti Tanner took up the cry and followed the mayor around with these questions whenever he appeared before a black audience. She never let him forget his many failings in the black community. Things had changed back-of-town, and Mayor Quave had clearly misjudged the reception he would receive if he came to meet with us.

  In back-of-town we rather liked the more reflective, temperate, scholarly, and judicial approach of the Tulane-educated lawyer, Daniel Guice, who was running against Quave. The more respectful attitudes of those on Guice’s ticket made us believe that our voices would finally be heard in city hall. We believed that we would get a fairer shake out of commissioner candidates William Dukate and J. A. “Tony” Creel, who ticketed with Guice in the primary. Daniel Guice was a gentleman by any standards. He was a young man about my own age when he ran for mayor, but he had already served a term in the state legislature. Biloxi had a choice for both a generational change and an atmospheric change in the mayor’s office. Young lawyer Guice was polite and respectful to all citizens, and unlike Mayor Quave, he never once let an uncouth word or threatening remark pass his lips in public. The same was true of Tony Creel, Guice’s much older and more experienced running mate for commissioner of public works. Creel expected polite address from everyone, and he gave it in return. He showed respect by addressing black folks as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” just as he did with white people of every class, and he strongly insisted that everyone observe the same standard of public respect in addressing him. He understood the importance of proper decorum in creating an atmosphere conducive to problem solving. Creel had served as a city commissioner for several terms in the past. He had a reputation for getting things done. If Creel told you that he was going to repair a street, it soon got repaired. William Dukate, Guice’s running mate for commissioner of finance, was a native Biloxian and a graduate of Spring Hill College with a master’s degree from Harvard. This ticket had polish and class and none of the obvious roughness of the incumbents. Moreover, the Guice ticket pointedly promised to “promote the best welfare of all the citizens of Biloxi.”6 In back-of-town, we took this to be an important nuance carrying a carefully veiled promise of a new spirit of inclusion. In back-of-town, the Guice, Creel, and Dukate ticket seemed a much better choice than the insensitive, cursing, threatening, and head-bashing approach of Laz Quave.

  The first primary did not produce a majority for any mayoral or commission candidates. With 5,773 total votes cast in the first primary, Laz Quave led the four-candidate field, but fell 336 votes short of the majority required for outright election. This number coincided with the approximate number of new black voters registered in our voter registration drive. Our new political power was felt. Votes in the black community back-of-town were sufficient to deny the bullying Quave an outright victory. We succeeded in forcing a runoff election pitting Mayor Quave with his team against lawyer Daniel Guice and his ticket.7

  Guice had polled 2,078 votes in the first primary and had to find at least 809 new votes to defeat the incumbent mayor. The main focus of the runoff campaign was on the obvious temperamental differences between Guice and Quave and the importance of that difference for the city’s image. I am told that political professionals generally expect lighter turnouts in runoff elections, because once the field of candidates has been narrowed, the number of persons actively working to draw friends and family to the polls is greatly reduced. The usual effect is a decreased turnout. This did not happen in the May 16,1961, runoff between Laz Quave and Daniel Guice. One hundred and twenty-three more votes were cast in the runoff election than had been cast in the first primary. Daniel Guice won a narrow 50.6 percent victory. His margin of victory was a mere 74 votes out of the 5,830 cast in the mayor’s race. The rest of the Guice ticket won more handily,8 but the results in each race were close enough that any analysis would show that the black vote back-of-town had produced the margin of victory for the entire Guice ticket.

  The 1961 municipal election was a watershed in Biloxi politics. Mayor Daniel Guice became the first mayor in Biloxi’s history to seek out and appoint qualified black citizens to city boards and commissions. Under Mayor Guice, Biloxi’s first black police officers, Bernard Seymour and Florian Tichell, began walking the beats back-of-town. A vibrant black community in Biloxi, Mississippi, had awakened to the opportunity to empower itself through voter registration. A new level of civic involvement and influence came as a result. The power we found in the ballot box had cracked open the doors of city hall. Since that municipal election of 1961, every mayor of Biloxi has sought the formal advice and involvement of the black citizens in governing the community. The message had been sent clearly to all of the potential Laz Quave-type old-style segregationists that black folks’ votes added up in Biloxi. Black citizens took their first steps toward political power in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1961, three years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 destroyed Jim Crow in public accommodations, three years before the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ended the poll tax, and four years before the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 swept away literacy tests.

  From 1961 onward, we heard friendlier, more reasonable voices in Biloxi City Hall, but we still had our differences with city officials. Court battles over beach and school desegregation remained to be fought and won. Like all of the other public school districts in Mississippi, the Biloxi Municipal School District was strictly segregated. Despite a friendlier public demeanor in city hall, the city’s appointed school board continued to stall on our request for negotiations to integrate the schools. This stall tactic necessitated an expensive court challenge. Then, there was the ongoing matter of black access to the beach. In fairness, it must be pointed out that Mayor Guice inherited the beach controversy from Laz Quave’s administration. The 1960 wade-in had sent the issue forward in a confusing array of court actions in county, state, and federal jurisdictions. The May 17, 1960, Justice Department civil rights suit had named the city of Biloxi and Mayor Quave personally as defendants, along with the Harrison County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Curtis Dedeaux. We held hopes that since Mayor Guice was not a personal party to the suit, something might be worked out locally at an early date that would save the time and trouble of all of these court cases. However, local politics and local family relationships frustrated this hope.

  Robert Carter, the NAACP legal counsel, had cautioned us in April of 1960 that if we chose to undertake legal action with NAACP assistance it would probably be a long and drawn-out proceeding. The question at issue as to whether the beaches were publicly owned or were essentially the private property of the homeowners and business owners on the north side of Highway 90 could go either way, Carter had warned. We knew that we were in for a tough fight, and Carter had cautioned us to carefully gauge the mood and determination of the people in the community. The local people, after all, would be the ones who would have to live with the side effects of a long legal struggle. The decision to proceed was thus left in our hands. The local people decided to proceed. We were therefore elated when the U.S. Justice Department filed suit in federal court on our behalf on May 17, 1960, the sixth anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka.

  We still had the option of filing another suit that would go through the federal courts independently of the government’s case. We initially decided that an independent suit would be a waste of money. There were advantages, however, to be gained if we petitioned the federal court to allow us to intervene in the government’s case. If the court recognized us as an activ
e party to the government’s suit, we would have some say about the terms of any decision to settle out of court, and if a lower court decision went against us, we would have a say in decisions about appeal. Therefore, the NAACP filed a motion asking to intervene on our behalf in the government’s case. We knew there would be long delays, but we were still surprised at the variety and time-consuming nature of the maneuvers that unfolded over the next three years.

  On May 18, 1960, Mississippi’s frothy-mouthed segregationist governor, Ross Barnett, pledged to Harrison County officials that the state would provide “aid in every way possible” to keep the beach segregated.9 The governor and the state’s attorney general, Joe Patterson, characterized the Justice Department suit on our behalf as the “sternest” legal test yet for the state’s Jim Crow laws. The state feared that our case would undermine the segregated status of any public park or facility in Mississippi in which any federal funds were invested. The state legislature had just funded a new assistant attorney general’s post especially to fight desegregation cases.10 Mississippi’s two United States senators, James O. Eastland and John Stennis, echoed state officials in a joint press release claiming that Harrison County had fulfilled all of its obligations under the 1948 federal contract which had funded the construction of the beach. In these gentlemen’s minds, since segregation was the law of the land before 1954, Negroes had not been included in the “public use” which Harrison County had pledged for the beach. Stennis and Eastland predicted that “when the heat” of the 1960 presidential election year “dies down, the action of the Justice Department will die with it.” They labeled the Justice Department suit “a travesty on justice,” and bemoaned the “use of official processes for such a nefarious purpose.”11