Black mayor of Mississippi town brings 'atomic bomb of change'

Source: CNN

Black mayor of Mississippi town brings 'atomic bomb of change'
updated 48 minutes ago

By Ed Lavandera
CNN Correspondent

PHILADELPHIA, Mississippi (CNN) -- James Young still remembers the Ku Klux Klan tormenting his neighborhood. He can still see his father holding a gun on the living room couch ready to shoot anyone who threatened his family.

Nothing about Young's childhood ever made him think he could be the mayor of Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town best known for the killings of three civil rights workers in 1964.

That's the way it was for black kids growing up in this crucible of racial hostility -- big dreams were often squelched. Sitting on a sprawling Southern front porch this week, Young broke down in tears about what it means to be elected the town's first black mayor.

"When you've been treated the way we've been treated," he told CNN, choking up and then pausing to wipe the tears from his face. Watch tearful Young describe victory »

For a moment, he couldn't speak. He then regrouped, "That's why it's so overwhelming to be a part of this history."



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/22/mississippi.black.mayor/index.html

:(

Wasn't it just last year a historically elected black sheriff died in a mysterious accident and there was no investigation? There are still a hell of a lot of people with a violent amount of racism, and on willingness to compromise or accept change.

I hope this town is really backing him, and I hope the police department is willing to protect him.

May his term go well and be a productive one.

Anyway, I wish my mother was here to see this day. She died in 1973, but she was born in Philadelphia in 1918...well, just outside of Philadelphia.