The Accidental Governor

Almost a hundred years ago, an embattled Mississippi Governor staked his 1927 campaign on his vow to give a confessed black murderer and rapist a fair and open trial. It was another era in American social culture.

His opponent, a former governor, was the most radical racist in state history. He was an admitted member of the KKK besides being the most cunningly corrupt public figure to ever hold Mississippi state office. It was a time when the lynching of black folk was an unforgotten urge, and the muted voices of the real Jim Crow were again becoming loud and strong.

Only 6 weeks before the vote, a black man brutally raped and murdered two white women in Hinds County. The vicious crime sucked the air out of all other campaign issues as the perp desperately flees in the distinctive new green Chrysler of the victim's husband.

The Accidental Governor vows to catch the perp and give him a fair trial while the KKK and lynch mob gives chase to the sheriff and perp in a caravan on a 90-mile highway dash to capture and lynch him.

In the closing weeks of the campaign the whispered voices of the real Jim Crow become the voice of the former governor and reached a culmination in a dramatic clash on the fenced lawn of the County Courthouse with the National Guard, bayonets drawn and machine guns posted.

Was this determined resistance by the Accidental Governor to become the Price of Honor paid for the state of Mississippi?