Biloxi municipal politics has also undergone gradual but revolutionary change. In city government, if Mayor Guice’s election in 1961 represented a kind of 1960s budding of a new southern politics of respect for minorities, Mayor Jerry O’Keefe and Mayor Gerald Blessey in the 1970s and 1980s brought that trend to a full flowering in Biloxi. O’Keefe, a World War II ace pilot, and Blessey, a highly decorated Vietnam-era infantry officer, brought real vision and a true and deep personal commitment to the highest ideals of inclusion to the mayor’s office. The introduction of the mayor-council form of government to replace the at-large mayor-commissioner system in 1981 gave an additional positive boost to the evolving political climate of the city. In this transition, the Biloxi branch of the NAACP helped draw the boundaries for the new city council wards. In 1981, the new black-majority ward in back-of-town elected Michael Esters the first black city councilman in Biloxi’s history. Shortly thereafter, under Mayor Blessey, Biloxi employed its first black police chief, Tommy Moffett. The appointment of black citizens to municipal committees and boards is now commonplace and rarely controversial. We’ve come a very long way in Biloxi from the old days of Laz Quave.
Significant and meaningful municipal appointments have come to me and others as this new Biloxi evolves toward racial inclusion. In 1968 Mayor Guice appointed me to the Biloxi Planning Commission, and I was reappointed by Mayor O’Keefe in the 1970s. In this capacity, inclusion brought real responsibility. All of us together on the planning commission learned that our best intentions and our most creative efforts could not bring back the business health of the old downtown area of Biloxi when the Edgewater Mall opened on the west end of town. As businesses within walking distance of the old black and poor white neighborhoods folded up or went to the mall, black people and poor people were placed at a great disadvantage. Moreover, when stores closed in the old part of town, service workers, custodians, and stock helpers lost their jobs. Our concerns with these negative side effects of the loss of downtown business led us into an urban renewal effort that in the end only exacerbated the problem. We determined to make an effort to bring back the old market area along Howard Avenue, the so-called Vieux Marche, by creating an outdoor pedestrian mall and closing two blocks of this storefront business district to automobiles. I had seen a beautiful pedestrian mall in Boston that appeared to be reviving an old part of that city. Architects and planners from Tennessee convinced us all that just such a revival might be possible for Biloxi.
Closing Howard Avenue to automobiles turned out to be a great mistake. Businesses that were barely hanging on in this location now lost almost all of their customer base. Stores closed right and left, and old downtown virtually died as a shopping district. Shopping options for the poor people, white and black, in east Biloxi were greatly diminished. Many elderly people or those on the bottom rung could not afford cars. To get the best choices in food or dry goods on the west side of town, they now had to either pay for bus transportation or take pain and walk (TP and W, as black folks say). The mistake was a hard one for all of us. We had to face the limits that the laws of economics imposed on the best intentions and best judgements and best efforts of planners. Through the many meetings of the planning commission and the Citizens Participation Organization, I learned much about building codes and the ways in which neighborhoods function, or why they fail to function and fall into decay. We made our share of mistakes, but we learned from them, or at least we learned that when one approach did not work, we should admit it, pick ourselves up, and try another.
Still, inclusion has not always been automatic. Sometimes we still have to speak emphatically to assure that minority concerns will be heard. However, a little story of a late 1970s struggle for black inclusion on the Mississippi Coast Coliseum Commission illustrates an interesting change in the tone of coast politics. The first coliseum board, appointed to build this facility after Hurricane Camille, was all white. In 1976, NAACP chapters across the coast took it upon themselves to remedy this oversight. I well remember meeting with Les Newcomb, the director of the South Mississippi Regional Planning Commission and one of the mayors, in the new Hilton Hotel in Biloxi at two in the morning to make them aware that we intended to do our best to see that a black was appointed to this board. I did not expect to be chosen myself, but I was soon surprised with a mayoral appointment to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum Commission.
A short time later, Governor Cliff Finch appointed a local white businessman, Mr. Lawson Gallotte, to the coliseum commission also. On the occasion of our first commission meeting with Mr. Gallotte in attendance, Gallotte made a pointed public statement that I, who had long served on the Biloxi Planning Commission and the Governor’s Emergency Council, was there only because I was black. In Mr. Lawson Gallotte’s view, Dr. Gilbert R. Mason was a token who was otherwise unqualified to sit on the commission. Well, that public statement provoked an immediate verbal challenge from me. Furthermore, the publication of Mr. Gallotte’s remarks in the newspaper created a furor for several weeks. The more the man said in public the more the public turned its wrath upon him. The press quoted Mr. Gallotte as saying that he was a very “liberal” man, because he owned a business in “jigtown” in Gulfport Soon the Daily Herald and a host of both black and white civic groups were calling for Gallotte’s resignation and urging Governor Finch to replace him. After several weeks of controversy, Mr. Gallotte resigned. The most influential members of the white community, the folks who in 1959 would not let me swim on the public beaches, were now, eighteen years later in 1977, embarrassed, up in arms, and rising to my defense over a foolish public racial insult delivered to me by an insensitive white businessman. The winds of change were indeed remaking the political atmosphere of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
As Natalie would say, it’s been quite a life. Because the sweat of the committed and the blood of the martyrs has turned this world upside down, a poor boy born on Riggins Alley in Jackson, Mississippi, has seen boardrooms and cabinet rooms, the Governor’s Mansion and the White House. However, the most meaningful service has been that to which I felt called as a boy. It has come where I have been able to ease the births of babies, help heal the sick, and give comfort to the dying now for forty-five years. In this, my cherished practice of medicine, I have seen dramatic changes, too—changes that fulfill the hope of America in ways that I could only dream of in 1955 when I opened for service. The hospital staff, a sizeable minority of whom seemed ready to withdraw my staff privileges twice in the 1960s because of my civil rights activities, in the 1980s elected me its staff president and chose me to rewrite its staff bylaws and constitution.
Institutions do change, and so do individuals. Beginning in 1970 or 1971, I started seeing large numbers of white patients in my practice. This revolutionary change took place when I won the bid to provide U.S. Public Health Service medical benefits to seamen, fishermen, and other offshore workers. The government had long provided medical coverage to seamen and fishermen, because their vessels and services were subject to conscription in time of war. The previous physician who held this contract in Biloxi continued to run a segregated practice with separate waiting rooms for his black patients and white patients. The U.S. Public Health Service preferred my bid. So it was that until the early 1980s, when the Reagan administration ended this program, about one-third of my practice was made up of a combination of white seamen and fishermen and white Medicaid patients. It was said that some of these white patients or their families had been involved in the rioting over desegregation of the beach in 1960. However, as I got to know them individually, and as they got to know me, we developed mutual respect. I found that many of these hardworking men and their families had their good qualities. After the U.S. Public Health Service dropped the seamen’s program, a number of these white patients from the poor neighborhoods of east Biloxi continued to use me as their family physician.
In my medical practice, and in my experiences of public service, I have seen that individual relationships built
one-on-one are capable of helping many of us bypass or rise above the tendency to view others exclusively through a racial filtering lens. Reaching for each other as individuals, we can often connect with that common humanity that lives just beneath the surface.
Worlds can turn upside down.
Epilogue
Last year, in preparation for the tricentennial of the founding of the first French settlement on the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History opened an exhibit in the Old Capitol Museum celebrating the three cultures which came together with the colonial settlement of Mississippi and Louisiana—Native American, European, and African. As a member of the board of the department of archives and history, I attended the opening ceremony. The Old Capitol is a building whose bricks were laid by slave hands. It is the building where the secession vote was taken at the beginning of the Civil War and where John R. Lynch presided as the first black speaker of the house. The Old Capitol is the place where the infamous 1890 Mississippi State Constitution was written, disenfranchising blacks.
There in that packed rotunda, a remarkable public tribute unfolded as representative citizens of Mississippi’s various present-day ethnic groups—black, white, and red—enacted a ceremonial smoking of the calumet. Former governor William Winter represented the English, Edmond Boudreaux of Biloxi stood in for the French, Choctaw and Chickasaw chiefs smoked the peace pipe for their people, and my friends Ñ. C. Bryant and Barbara Middleton represented African American Mississippians. Here was Ñ. C. Bryant, a long-time NAACP state and local officer whose house had been bombed during the civil rights movement, smoking in peace for all of us, along with William Winter, Native American chiefs, and all the others. The scars of the past being what they are, there was a spiritual beauty in this moment that moved me to tears. It represented an affirmation of respect for the character and value and contributions of all of our peoples in making us who we are as Mississippians and Americans. I think I have seen hope for healing in such affirmations—public and historic affirmations of human dignity and worth that could not have happened in Mississippi forty years ago.
I have seen the power of affirmations of worth and respect accorded persons both in private lives and in public places. In 1986» when I began serving on the board of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, I took my place as a great-grandson of a slave sitting at the table of history alongside the great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of slave owners. I have always loved history. During my days in medical school in Washington, D.C., I found great personal inspiration in the monuments and museums celebrating our national heritage. I have been witness to a time of momentous change. The opportunity to promote the collection of archival resources for a broad-based and inclusive history based on facts appealed to me. Too many people have been ignored in our historical writings» and too much has been written from a narrow perspective or selected to perpetuate some myth of a superior race. I believe that broadening the types of archival materials available to scholars will make possible histories which extol the common humanity of us all. As a member of the board of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, I tried to serve this ideal.
In this role, I saw the power of affirmation at work when that Mississippi board, made up of eight whites and one black, voted unanimously to induct outstanding black citizens into the Mississippi Hall of Fame. A portrait of J. R. Lynch, Mississippi’s black Reconstruction-era speaker of the state house of representatives and U.S. Congressman, now hangs, forever enshrined, where future generations can see the worth accorded to the life of a brilliant, self-taught ex-slave who reached the heights of Mississippi and national politics a century ago. Later, the same Mississippi board unanimously inducted my friend and inspiration, Medgar W. Evers, into the Mississippi Hall of Fame, announcing to the world the accolades appropriately bestowed on a black martyr to the cause of human rights and the highest ideals of freedom. Actions like these have potentially powerful symbolic and healing significance.
Recently at a meeting of the Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association, Dr. Robert “Bob” Smith and I were noticing how much healthier looking the children and teenagers are today than when we first began our medical practice in Mississippi. We attributed those improvements to the health care and treatment afforded through Head Start and various women’s and infants’ nutrition and health programs and to the efforts of the dedicated professionals who work with them. However, we observed that somehow we had not obtained optimum psychological health and wellbeing for many of the children and young adults we see. Herein lies the challenge of the present and the future. Psychological well-being requires a fertile environment filled with appropriate affirmations of worth and respect for persons and their known or unknown potentialities.
While the hard lesson of history is that we cannot underestimate the potential viciousness and destructiveness of racism, neither should we forget the potential redeemability of our adversaries. There is hope for the future in individuals, in political coalitions, and in the courts of these United States. The road we have trod in Biloxi and in Mississippi has proven this hope. However, we have not yet reached the promised land. The nasty head of racism lurks near. There is work yet to be done. But I believe that there are brighter days ahead and that the struggles and progress of the recent past have enabled members of a new generation to make their way to the starting gates, and some are away and running.
To the new generation taking the first steps up the ladder of work and study toward the fulfillment of dreams, I would say, in the words of Langsten Hughes in “Mother to Son,” that “life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” but I’m “still climbin’.” Now, you keep climbing, too. There remain steps to take, challenges to meet, and races to be won, but we’ve come a long way. For the generations yet to come I pray for health and healing. Seeing how much we have progressed in one lifetime, I see a world coming where great promise exists. I believe that America is moving toward a truer reflection of the beauty of its ideals.
Looking over the horizon just a short distance ahead, I see possibilities for our children and grandchildren beyond what our fathers could have hoped for. I feel comfortable about foreseeing Dr. Gilbert R. Mason, Jr., founding and heading some great medical foundation of the future, or imagining Angela Rose Juzang as a future Constance Baker Motley, or Yolanda Marie Juzang Craft owning her own art gallery and studio, or David and Adam Owen producing epic films equivalent to The Ten Commandments through their own movie production company. I feel good about a future in which Gilda Yvette Sizor can head her own diversified enterprises, and Omar Mason, a recent graduate of Loyola Law School, can be elected to the Louisiana state legislature, and Aria Monette Mason can become a thespian or terpsichorean worthy of her proven abilities. For Carolyn Mason Stamps, Shonda Alean, Gia, Ranjie, Helema, Shyare, and Little Willie, I want and can see a world where they will be able to excel at business entrepreneurship and investment. I see a world coming where Reginald can make his way as a large electrical contractor, and where Arthur will receive respect for the value of the work of his hands. For Willie Arthur Mason and Hiram, his brother, I want a world where they can aspire to own a shipping line, and I foresee a world where Little Hiram can become director of the FBI. For our nurses Yvonne and Yvette, I foresee a world where they can own their own home health services or become nursing directors at a large hospital The world I see is a world where Diane Marcelin can develop her math skills sufficiently to explain some unknown equation or theory and be acclaimed for it, and where Vanessa can win international acclaim as a photographer and Surayel can give flute concerts at Carnegie Hall. The thought of a world where Paul Atwood can rise to great heights in landscape and design and where Philip can become a fire chief in a large city thrills me. A world where each and all of the children—Amber Layne, Tai, Jaylan, English, Sedrick, Little Philip, Numia, Darían, Ranjie and Sheru—can realize their fullest potential is just ahead. That is the future for which I have struggled.
May we pray and work and live and dream in the faith that these possibilities are real. And may we affirm the children, and so give them unconquerable spirits and the faith and determination to keep on climbing.
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
—William Ernest Henley
Notes
Chapter 4
1. The Biloxi police reported this first wade-in to an agent of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission on May 27, 1959. However, the Biloxi Police Department had first reported to the Sovereignty Commission that I, along with Wilmer B. McDaniel, a funeral director, was a member of the NAACP in response to an agent’s inquiry on February 16, 1959. See Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 16 February 1959, State Sovereignty Commission Files (SSC Files), Victim Classification, ID: 2-56-16-1-1-1, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi; and Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 27 May 1959>
Beaches, Blood, and Ballots Page 29