GOP Senator Who Made ‘Hanging’ Remark Attended ‘Segregated’ Academy

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., campaigns with Teresa Carter, a old friend from Kentucky, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, at Mama Hamil’s Restaurant in Madison, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican Mississippi senator who made comments condoning “public hangings,” attended a “segregated” school when she was younger, the Jackson Free Press reported Friday after unearthing a 1975 yearbook photo.

The school, Lawrence County Academy, was set up for white parents to avoid sending their children to school with black children, according to the Free Press. Many such schools, dubbed “segregation academies,” were created in the South following desegregation as inexpensive, private educational options…

The senator faces Democratic challenger Mike Espy in a special election Nov. 27. She was appointed by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to fill the seat vacated in April by former Sen. Thad Cochran, who stepped down for health reasons.

Hyde-Smith has been heavily criticized this month for making racist comments on the Confederate South.

In a state with an ugly history of terrorizing African-Americans with lynchings, Hyde-Smith said of a local rancher in early November, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” Espy called the comment “reprehensible…”

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