More Mississippians often vote in elections where race is at least a subtext if not out front and center.
And when Black candidates are on the ballot, in particular, Mississippi voters typically clock record or near-record turnout.
In the 1971 gubernatorial race, Charles Evers of Fayette made history as the first Black Mississippian in the modern era to run for governor. Evers, the brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was a civil rights leader in his own right and was the first Black Mississippian in the modern era to win the office of mayor of a biracial town.
Evers ran as an independent against Democrat Bill Waller. In that 1971 governor’s race, Waller earned 601,222 votes — still the most votes for a gubernatorial candidate in the history of the state.
Remember, in 1971, Mississippi’s population was 2.2 million compared to just under 3 million today, and that 1971 election is still a high water mark in terms of the most votes garnered by a candidate for governor.
It should be stressed that Bill Waller was no segregationist. As a matter of fact, he was a racial moderate, even enlightened on the issue.