Danny McKenzie - A Time To Speak - Speeches by Jack Reed (2009)

A Time to Speak
William Winter and Jack Reed, photograph by Steve Colston

A Time to Speak
speeches
by j ac k r e e d
Danny McKenzie
university press
of mississippi
jackson
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the CREATE Foundation.
www.upress.state.ms.us
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Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Lyrics for “New World Coming,” Words and Music by Barry

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Copyright Secured. Used by Permission.
First printing 2009

∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKenzie, Danny.
A time to speak : speeches by Jack Reed / [compiled by]
Danny McKenzie.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-60473-130-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Reed, Jack
Raymond, 1924—Oratory. 2. Reed, Jack Raymond, 1924—
3. Businessmen—Mississippi—Biography. 4. Civic leaders—
Mississippi—Biography. 5. Politicians—Mississippi—Biography.
6. Methodists—Mississippi—Biography. 7. Mississippi—
Economic conditions—20th century. 8. Mississippi—Social
conditions—20th century. 9. Mississippi—Religious life
and customs. 10. Tupelo (Miss.)—Biography. I. Reed, Jack
Raymond, 1924– II. Title.
F345.3.R44M38 2009
080.9762′063092—dc22
[B] 2008029526
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

In memory of Norman McKenzie Sr.—
a school man, a church man, a gentleman
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Introduction xi
c h a pt er one
1963: A Rare Voice of Reason 3
c h a pt er t wo
1965: Witnessing on Race Relations 17
c h a pt er t h r ee
1956: Beginning to Build Bridges 30
c h a pt er four
1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists 35
c h a pt er fiv e
1971: Christian Testimony for Improved
Human Relations 44
c h a pt er six
1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of
Public Education 53
c h a pt er sev en
1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress 65
c h a pt er eigh t
1970–Present: The Need for Leadership 76
c h a pt er nine
1987: The Plunge into Politics 89
c h a pt er t en
1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark 115
vii
Contents
c h a pt er e l e v e n
1948–Present: Always a Businessman 122
c h a pt er t w e lv e
1998–Present: Still Speaking Out 131
Afterword 149
Acknowledgments 153
Index 155
viii
PR E FA C E
While I have been flattered by my son Jack’s and Danny McKen-

zie’s interest in compiling a few selected speeches I have made
over the last fifty years, I expressed from the beginnings my doubt
that they would be of general interest outside the family. Never-
theless, they have proceeded and I do appreciate it. (Besides, we
have a large family.)
As for my public service, it has simply resulted from my life-
long involvement in the local affairs of an outstanding small city
with strong citizen leadership and a progressive spirit. This has
provided me with ample opportunities to be engaged in almost
all aspects of its social, religious, political, educational, and eco-
nomic life.
From time to time this has also led me to related statewide ac-
tivities (including a brief and unsuccessful foray into politics)
which I have enjoyed, and from which I have benefited. The
speeches included here reflect certain areas of my involvement
in that public life. If I have made a noteworthy contribution in
that participation I am grateful, but that is not for me to judge.
A few years ago at the request of my wife, Frances, and the chil-
dren, I wrote a personal memoir just to give my grandchildren a
little history of their forebears. One granddaughter expressed dis-
appointment that it didn’t include anything about them. I expect
ix
Preface
to hear that same complaint again, because this book doesn’t do

that—very often—either.
So I would like to say here and now that of far more impor-
tance to me than my public life is my private life, which is cen-
tered on my family and friends. My love for them, and theirs for
me, has affected every action, every public position, and every
personal decision that may be reflected in these speeches.
I have been unusually blessed with a beautiful and remarkable
wife and with wonderful parents and brothers, children, grand-
children, in-laws, and other relatives. I am immensely proud of
each child and grandchild and each of their spouses.
When I am occasionally asked, “What would you like your
legacy to be?,” I reply, “My family, because they are Frances’s and
my greatest contribution to society and to the future.” Realizing
this, I have been, and continue to be (except for my golf game),
a truly happy man.
If Danny’s enthusiasm for his subject leads any readers to think
that I regard myself as being worthy to be published and read,
please know that I continue to have serious doubts about that.
Please remember, too, that these speeches were not written with
publication in mind. I do, however, hope that they will be of his-
torical, if not rhetorical, interest.
Jack Reed
x
I N T RODUC T ION
Had Jack Reed been of the nineteenth century, he undoubtedly

would have been in great demand on the Chautauqua circuit—
spreading with great cheer his keen intellect, incisive interpreta-
tion of issues at hand, and his abiding faith in God and human-
kind all across our land as did so many great orators of that day.
Fortunately for Mississippians of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries, Reed has lived among us, and has shared his significant
oratorical skills with us for some six decades now.
The art of public speaking is a dying art, due in large part, no
doubt, to the electronic and technological “progress” of our cul-
ture that has all but eliminated any meaningful dialogue from
the public airwaves, serving us so much pabulum in the form of
thirty- or even fifteen-second sound bites. Even worse are the in-
cessant talk show rantings of yahoos who received an e-mail from
someone who read something on the Internet so it must be true
and must be shouted through the nearest microphone, veracity
or good taste be damned.
It has not totally vanished, though, this art of informing and
inspiring, of enlightening and encouraging through the spoken
word from behind a lectern. Thank heaven. As I write this there
is a young American of mixed race with relatively little political
experience who has used his remarkable skills as public speaker
to become a serious candidate for the presidency of the United
xi
Introduction
States. I have no idea if Senator Barack Obama will take residence

in the White House, but I do know his ability to connect with an
audience in a public setting is something that has not been expe-
rienced since . . . well, at least since the days of Ronald Reagan
and, before him, John F. Kennedy.
That is what this book is all about: leadership through the art
of communication. It is what Jack Reed, Jr., had in mind when he
first approached me with the idea, and it is the central idea I have
tried to maintain throughout the process. Its pages include large
segments of speeches (and a few in their entirety) that Reed, a
prominent businessman from a prominent northeast Mississippi
family, has delivered over the years on public education, racial
reconciliation, community development, and leadership itself.
Interwoven are conversations in which he shared with me what
prompted the particular speeches and the responses to them.
Though it is biographical, it is not intended to be a biography.
Neither is it a history of a particular time in Mississippi’s history,
though it includes slices of Mississippi history. Rather it is a look
at how one man, a private citizen, uses his abilities as a public speaker
to try and make Mississippi a better place—for all its people.
As a civic leader, Reed spoke out on the absolute necessity of
strong public schools when many were trying to shut them down.
As a Methodist lay leader, Reed spoke out on the senseless racial
divide within the church. He spoke out forcefully during a time
when only a handful of white Mississippians had the courage to
speak out at all. Having grown up in the hills of north Missis-
sippi during the fifties and sixties, I know that to be an indisput-
able fact.
These issues—public education and racial reconciliation—
along with economic development were the central theme of his
one foray into politics, an unsuccessful run for governor in 1987.
Well, it was unsuccessful in that he didn’t win the election, but
on the other hand his campaign travels around the state allowed
him to share the “Tupelo story” with thousands of Mississippians
and offered them a glimpse of the leadership that has made his
lifelong hometown a model for community development.
Reed and I spent many afternoons together, riffling through
xii
Introduction
his collection of speeches and talking about the Whos and Whats
of the times. They were enjoyable sessions and always included a
great number of laughs, usually from Reed poking fun at himself.
His speeches were carefully written out in impeccable grammar
and syntax—as might be expected from a Vanderbilt University
English major—but, alas, when he delivered them his jokes were
usually off the cuff. His speeches always included a large dose of
humor, no matter the gravity of the issue. Reed is a really funny
man, but his one-liners rarely made the pages of his transcripts,
and I hate not being able to give the reader a full measure of his
considerable wit.
I think, too, that our sessions were so meaningful for me be-
cause I am the son of a school superintendent and a church lay
leader. Norman McKenzie devoted his life to education and to
the church, and his struggles with the Holly Springs schools and
the Presbyterian Church mirrored the difficulties Reed was ad-
dressing at the same time with the Mississippi Economic Council
and the Methodist Church. While I love history and welcome any
opportunity to visit with those who helped make it, I suspect the
conversations Reed and I had allowed me to revive conversations
of long ago with my father. Those memories are dear to me.
In these pages you will find several mentions of the late George
McLean, the longtime owner and publisher of the Northeast Mis-
sissippi Daily Journal and the man considered by many to be the
very source of northeast Mississippi’s regional economic success.
McLean is the strongest connection between Reed and me; to this
day he considers McLean his mentor in many things, and the five
years I worked with McLean during the 1970s were, in a lot of
ways, the most meaningful of my life. Few are those who can hon-
estly say they worked on a daily basis with a true visionary.
And it was through Mr. McLean and his newspaper that I was
able to first meet Reed and over the years get to know this re-
markable man, hear him speak out, and come to see clearly what
it means to be a leader. I will be eternally grateful to Jack Reed
for the opportunity to work with him on this book, and I cherish
his friendship even more.
Danny McKenzie
xiii
A Time to Speak
c h apt er on e
1963: A Rare Voice of Reason

“We must support public education and keep our schools open!”
There comes a time when a person just has to do what his heart,
what his soul tell him to do. For many, it is the defining moment
in their lives. For most, those moments are private. For others,
they are public.
Jack Reed can pinpoint his “defining moment” of statewide
civic involvement, and it was public, very public: January 22,
1963—when, as president-elect of the Mississippi Economic Coun-
cil, he stood and spoke to hundreds gathered in the grand ball-
room of the venerable Heidelberg Hotel in downtown Jackson for
a luncheon and a “citizens action clinic.”
Among those assembled on that cold Tuesday midday were
dozens from the Mississippi legislature. They would not stay for
Reed’s entire speech.
Then thirty-eight years old, Reed spoke for nearly twenty min-
utes, urging Mississippi’s leading businessmen to become ac-
tively involved in the electoral process—the 1963 elections were
at hand—and to get others involved. He quoted Confucius; he
quoted Will Durant; he quoted Woodrow Wilson; he quoted
Edmund Burke; he quoted Horace Mann.
For good measure, he even quoted leaders of organized labor,
a measure clearly designed to grab the attention of his antiunion
audience. It worked.
3
Then, in a little more than two minutes, Reed helped save

public education in Mississippi.
It had been only four months since the chaotic and deadly in-
tegration of the University of Mississippi. Reed was distressed
over what had happened at Ole Miss, over the violent reaction
to inevitable social progress. He was equally disturbed about
the pall over Mississippi brought about by the actions of Gov-
ernor Ross Barnett, Lieutenant Governor Paul Johnson, Speaker
of the House Walter Sillers, and many other state officials—and
their behind-the-scenes henchmen. The cacophony coming from
the state legislature to close all of Mississippi’s public schools—
elementary schools through graduate schools—rather than inte-
grate them had reached a crescendo.
On that January day, speaking boldly and forcefully, Reed told
his audience that Mississippi must not only keep its public schools
open but that it should actively promote public education. He in-
sisted on academic freedom and support for boards of trustees
among its institutions of higher learning.
Reed, whose four children were already in Tupelo public schools
or about to enroll in them, called for peace and order, and he
did not mince words, telling his audience, “We must not directly
or by implication condone violence of any sort whatsoever!”
Before he could finish, most of the legislators had walked out.
They were not alone.
Undaunted, Reed stayed the course for the remainder of the
luncheon, and in the following weeks would deliver the same
speech with the same emphasis to several other MEC “citizens ac-
tion clinics” throughout Mississippi.
The reaction from around the state was immediate, and much
of it bitter, even threatening, as Reed had known it would be.
“I was very nervous before I gave that first speech,” Reed says.
“The ballroom floor was full, and I knew not everyone would
agree with me . . . My stomach was uneasy. I was young and I had
never dealt with much public criticism.
“I was speaking to some people who were hearing me for the
first time. I was from up in Tupelo, and that Jackson crowd didn’t
care about Tupelo. They seldom came up here. I felt like I was a
4
stranger in a foreign land to some extent—that was true a good

deal of the time of the relationship between Tupelo and other
parts of the state.”
Reed had not told MEC officials what his remarks would be.
Only his wife, Frances, and his brothers (and business partners),
Bob and Bill, knew what he would say.
His brothers were “cautiously supportive,” he chuckles now,
“but I knew there would be a good many others in the MEC who
would try to stop me from saying it—they would think it would
be too controversial. And I think a good many of them thought
so after I made the speech.
“But what I said in the first half of the speech was totally sup-
portive of what we were trying to do in the MEC, and I did that
as well as I could by urging people to take action. Then I thought
it was just the best opportunity in the world to make the rest of
the speech.”
He eased into what he knew would be the controversial part,
and people in the audience began sitting up straight. Their eyes
and their full attention turned toward Reed. Things were about
to get really interesting:
In last week’s papers, one editor was quoted as saying that

“eight of eleven persons in the chemistry department (including
the department head) and the Director of Institutional Research at
the University of Mississippi are reported to be planning to leave.”
It is a fact that we are faced with the threat of at least some
personnel at Ole Miss leaving. It is a fact that the entire system of
public education is indispensable to the economic welfare of all the
citizens of this state. It is a hard and unpleasant fact that integra-
tion has been forced upon us once, and will very likely be forced
upon us again, and it is a fact that as concerned citizens we have a
personal responsibility to face up to this situation.
In this area I personally believe that our course should be as follows:
• We must not directly or by implication condone violence of
any sort whatsoever!
• We must insist on impartial administration of the laws!
• We must maintain peace and order and insist that our officials,
5
our neighbors, and our schoolchildren from kindergarten to college

do likewise.
• We must support public education and keep our schools open!
• We must support our boards of trustees of all our schools and
let them run our schools without being abused by citizens in or out
of public office!
• We must insist on academic freedom under a responsible ad-
ministration and do nothing to jeopardize the financial support or
accreditation of our schools!
A responsible citizen who sincerely wishes to see Mississippi
prosper and realize her full economic potential can hardly do less!
No serious person underestimates the difficulty of the controver-
sial nature of these problems, but they do have to be met.
We all want the freedom to do as we please. We want states’
rights to be respected. We want to be left alone to handle our own
affairs. This is perfectly natural and not new to this generation.
Woodrow Wilson had this to say about liberty, but few under-
stood it as Wilson did. He knew that liberty was the source of
America’s greatness, but he also knew that liberty undisciplined
was like a horse unbridled.
“Liberty,” Wilson wrote, “is not itself government. In the wrong
hands, in hands unpracticed, undisciplined, it is incompatible with
government.”
Democracy, he was saying, is organized self-restraint. And if we
fail to discipline ourselves we shall be compelled to submit to the
discipline of others. It might be good for us to think about that as
we wrestle with our problems in the days ahead.
There were more general remarks to follow, but not everyone

in attendance bothered to listen. The exodus from the Heidel-
berg had begun. Within that twenty-minute speech, Reed had
spoken only two minutes about Mississippi schools, “but that was
all a lot of people heard,” he recalls.
Truth be told, if all his listeners had heard that day was his plea
for public education, that would have been fine by him.
In the fall of 1962, James Meredith had become the first African
American to enroll in the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”
6
to practically everyone in the South), and a small but bloody

battle between the U.S. government and the state of Mississippi
had been fought on the beautiful Oxford campus over his regis-
tration.
Nearly 31,000 troops had been mobilized in Mississippi and
more than 15,000 had been stationed in the Oxford area. Two
civilians were killed in the riot and nearly 250 U.S. marshals, Mis-
sissippi National Guardsmen, and others suffered injuries rang-
ing from gunshot wounds to lacerations from broken glass to tear
gas inhalation. It had indeed been a battle.
In the waning days of 1962, fifty incoming members of the state
legislature had been polled by the United Press International of-
fice in Jackson. They had been asked one question: “If public
schools in Mississippi were integrated, would you vote to close the
public schools?” Twenty-nine of them replied “yes”; twelve said
“maybe”; and only nine said “no.”
The Ole Miss “folly” had made Reed “sick at my stomach,” as
had the legislators’ determination to close Mississippi’s public
schools. He was determined to do something, to say something,
and he finally had a pulpit.
Before then, Reed’s only real statewide activism had been on
behalf of the Boy Scouts and the Methodist Church. By his own
admission, beyond those avenues he had no statewide stature.
“Being president-elect of the MEC gave me a platform,” he
says. “It gave me the credibility I needed to express what I thought
was best for Mississippi. I didn’t have much of my own at that time
around the state, but being president-elect gave me the credibility
I needed to speak out. It just seemed to me that [the Barnett ad-
ministration] was so completely wrong. I think we all have a re-
sponsibility that we do what we think is right, and I thought if I
wasn’t going to say it, who was?”
Reed readily admits to being uneasy before he made his speech
the first time, and each time thereafter. He knew many, even
among the MEC membership, would disagree with him, and
many of those in disagreement were men he admired.
“I went in with my eyes wide open,” Reed says. “But I wanted
to say it; I felt it needed to be said. The things that motivated me
7
to give this speech, honestly, were issues I thought were harmful

to Mississippi, that I hated had happened to Mississippi. I really
loved our state and it had put Mississippi in such a bad light.”
Vaughn Watkins, a prominent Jackson attorney, was president
of the MEC when Reed gave the speech. “I didn’t know what his
position would be; I didn’t know Vaughn’s philosophy at that
time.” He soon found out.
Watkins wrote Reed a letter: “I cannot tell you how much I ap-
preciate you. You are a very astute man, highly skilled as a public
speaker and fearless in your presentation of that which you be-
lieve.”
“That really meant something to me,” Reed says. “I was a little
surprised when he was as receptive to the speech as he was.”
From Robert Weaver, Watkins’s Jackson law partner, Reed re-
ceived a letter stating: “John Stennis [ Jr.] and myself are still talk-
ing about your splendid address before the Mississippi Economic
Council meeting, Tuesday. Really, I have never heard a better ad-
dress and have never enjoyed one nearly as much.
“The things that you said are irrefutable and I have been wait-
ing for someone of high import to make them publicly and I am
delighted that it was you.”
The letters continued to pour in, both to Reed and to news-
papers around the state, and not all were complimentary. Many
were unhappy with his remarks and stated so in no uncertain
terms. William B. Alexander, an attorney in Cleveland and a
member of the state senate, wrote to Reed, “If we in Bolivar
County or in Sunflower County should find it necessary to close
a school, this is in my view no concern of yours.” (It is a measure
of Reed’s pleasant demeanor that he and Alexander would later
become good friends.) Reed also received a letter from Alec Pri-
mos, a well-known restaurant owner in Jackson and a staunch seg-
regationist, who wrote that he “was saddened by [the speech’s]
tone of surrender and co-existence.”
A letter to the editor in the Clarion-Ledger by Edwin White of
Lexington quoted Jefferson Davis, former president of the Con-
federate States of America, and stated: “We can do nothing less
than ‘Stand Fast’ in opposition to the integration and consequent
8
destruction of our public schools.” The Citizens’ Council, in a

typical and expected response, issued a statement saying Reed
and his fellow “moderates” were wrong.
And, of course, the unsigned letters arrived. One stated: “Time
is getting short, the day is far spent, night for us is rapidly ap-
proaching, the low-down traitors in the State Dept. are selling us
down the river. If white men don’t wake up and get busy, they will
get what they deserve and that is doom.”
Not even everyone in his hometown agreed with Reed. Tupelo
businessman N. E. Dacus took out a one-third page advertise-
ment, an open letter, in the Tupelo Daily Journal disagreeing with
nearly everything Reed had said. Sam Long wrote a letter to the
Clarion-Ledger stating Reed had “lost sight of the chaos and con-
fusion that has resulted from the integration of public schools.”
Reed had been forewarned by editor Harry Rutherford that
Dacus’s open letter would appear in the next day’s Daily Journal,
“but I was still surprised by the tone of it.
“Sam Long, who was a good friend, wrote the letter to the
editor in Jackson disagreeing with me but he was not insulting,”
Reed says. “He certainly felt as strongly the other way.”
But the letter from Dacus hurt.
Titled “An Answer To Jack Reed’s Speech,” it was an open, ram-
bling letter in familiar-at-the-time rhetoric about forced desegre-
gation of schools being “unconstitutional.”
Appearing on February 5, it read in part: “You are quoted . . .
as saying that, we must recognize that racial integration may
be forced upon the State and that we must face up to this situa-
tion . . . that we must not directly or by implication condone violence
of any sort whatsoever. ‘We must insist on impartial enforcement
of our laws’. (?) Are these ‘our laws,’ Jack, or are they NOT A
DISTORTION of our American Constitution?” And later: “No
group of businessmen, preachers, professors, or officials or you
or I have the right to demand or to force any one to meekly sub-
mit to un-constitutional conditions that common sense tells him
will destroy his children and his government. Especially when
he knows that CONFUSION—HATRED—FEAR—R APE—and
V IOLENCE—has continuously followed in the wake of integra-
9
tion.” And still later: “Of one thing I am sure, your speech did
not represent, or voice the opinions of the Tupelo businessmen,
including myself, and your individual neighbors, who are paying
for printing this letter.”
And on and on it went, including, of course, the obligatory
phrase of the time: “The State of Mississippi and its institutions are
under heavy pressure from both outside and inside professional
‘agitators’ and federal officials with caesarian complexes.”
Dacus’s remarks were nothing Reed hadn’t already heard many
times before, but he had not experienced very much like that in
print, especially in his hometown.
“Considering the source, I really didn’t mind,” Reed says. “If
it had been somebody I respected it would have hurt more. All I
knew about him was that he was a local manufacturer who sup-
ported the Citizens’ Council. I didn’t really know him and I’m not
sure he knew me. But to be criticized at home . . .
“When Dacus ran the ad in my hometown newspaper, that gen-
erated a substantial amount of comment and encouraged people
to criticize and be critical of the speech. Even though many of
them had no idea what I’d said, they had read Dacus’s letter and
they formed their opinions on that. But I don’t think I ever heard
from him again after the initial impact of his letter wore off, and
it wore off pretty quick.”
This was new territory for Reed and especially for his family.
They were independent business owners whose very livelihoods
depended on the good will of Reed’s Department Store patrons,
and controversy was certainly not in the family business model.
“Our family, as far as civic leadership was concerned, had never
been seriously controversial. We always supported the mayors and
all the people we could. We were certainly less controversial than
George,” he says, laughing while remembering many controver-
sial opinions Tupelo Daily Journal publisher George McLean had
espoused over the years.
McLean had become the most powerful voice for progress in
northeast Mississippi since buying the bankrupt newspaper from
a bankrupt local bank in 1934, and Reed unabashedly admired
10
him and considered him a mentor. McLean and Rutherford had

both stood fast, both privately and corporately, with Reed in his
public school stance.
Still, the public criticism in his hometown cut deep.
“Each of my four children, from time to time, suffered within
their peer groups for things I was involved in. All the kids would
repeat what they’d heard their parents say and that hurt our
children.”
But no one in the Reed family ever told him to back off.
“Frances always supported me,” he says. “I would always talk
things over with Frances and she would give me an honest assess-
ment. She was my best critic and the best supporter I had. She
was fiercely loyal. She hated all the criticism for me—she abso-
lutely hated it. She was vice president of Mississippi Women for
Public Education the next year and they took a very active and
supportive position.
“Both my brothers shared my sentiments. They didn’t make
any speeches but I knew they were behind me. Bill told me to be
ready for the fallout. Both he and Bob asked me if I really felt that
way, and when I said I felt that it was important, they both said
do it.
“And you know, when I think about it, while I’ve had my fair
share of criticism at home, I have never felt unappreciated in
Tupelo.”
Reed says his commitment to public education started well be-
fore 1963. “It had to be in the late forties,” he says. “I think it
came from my serving with black soldiers in World War II and see-
ing the treatment they got when they came back home. I thought
it was terribly unfair, and that’s probably when I started thinking
more about these things.”
Joe Wroten, the late clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in
Aberdeen, vividly remembered the fallout from Reed’s speech.
Then an attorney in Greenville, Wroten was also a member of the
house of representatives—and he and Karl Wesienberg of Pasca-
goula were the only two legislators waging battles to keep Missis-
sippi’s schools open.
11
“I had known Jack through our work in the Methodist Church,”

Wroten recalled, “and I knew he was a deeply consecrated Chris-
tian gentleman. This speech was nothing more than his faith com-
ing through in public utterances.
“It took a lot of courage for him to say what he did. His stance
was much appreciated by thoughtful people all over the state, and
we would have had much more turmoil in the sixties had it not
been for Jack Reed.”
David Sansing, history professor emeritus at Ole Miss who in
1990 penned Making Haste Slowly: The Troubled History of Higher
Education in Mississippi, the definitive study on higher education
in the state, called Reed “one of the lone voices crying in the wil-
derness.
“The MEC during those times was a voice of reason and calm,”
Sansing says, “and Jack Reed was one of the main voices, if not
the main voice, in the MEC.”
While Reed never once considered himself a “lone voice,”
he was still, and pleasantly, surprised at the amount of support
he received after his speech on that cold January day in 1963.
He says that more than 85 percent of his personal mail compli-
mented him not only on his message but for having the courage
to speak out.
The Associated Press had picked up the story, and newspapers
across the country published it. Reed was astonished at the re-
sponses from all over the nation.
“That was the surprising thing to me,” he says. “That all of
a sudden I was being referred to as ‘a voice of reason in Missis-
sippi.’ I didn’t know all these people or where they came from.
The sincerity of their letters was very affirming. That pleased me,
obviously. I’m no fool.”
Reed says he wasn’t thinking in terms of statewide impact
when he spoke at the MEC luncheon. “The MEC was a very con-
servative group and I knew I wasn’t pleasing many of my cohorts.
But a few people in the MEC were certainly supportive.
“Mr. Fred Smith of Ripley spoke out for me and told me how to
deal with the Dacus letter, and I certainly appreciated that. W. H.
12
“Billy” Mounger in Jackson spoke out on my behalf and so did

Harvey Lee Morrison of Okolona. There were a lot of others who
supported me, too, and I greatly appreciated it. It wasn’t easy for
them, either.”
Theirs weren’t the only letters of support. Members of the
faculties and administrations at Mississippi State University, Ole
Miss, Millsaps College, Emory University, and the University of Mis-
sissippi Medical Center, the state college board, and a chamber of
commerce official in Cleveland expressed their gratitude to Reed
for his public statements.
Owens Alexander, manager of the CBS-TV affiliate in Jackson,
wrote: “Congratulations on being elected to the MEC Presidency,
but in my opinion more sincere congratulations are due for your
rational, thoughtful, common-sense approach to some of the
state’s acute problems.”
An editorial in the McComb Enterprise-Journal praised Reed for
his speech, and editor Oliver Emmerich wrote him a personal let-
ter stating: “We need more such expressions. I am glad you spoke
out so earnestly.”
Church leaders, insurance executives, housewives, and all sorts
of private citizens from all around the state sent letters thanking
Reed. There was even one congratulatory letter from Walter Gell-
horn, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York, who had
read a newspaper story about the MEC address while spending
the night in the Lamar Hotel in Meridian.
The impact of Reed’s speech would become measurable a short
while after he became MEC president when the board of direc-
tors voted overwhelmingly to support his position. But even be-
fore the very positive action was taken by the MEC, his speech
had sent a message—a very clear, concise message—to those who
would hold back Mississippi.
“I think more than anything it let the legislature and others
know that there were dissenting opinions in Mississippi,” Reed
says. “Many of those opinions had not been heard at that time,
and I just thought it was time.”
Reed minces no words in discussing Barnett, Johnson (who a
13
year later would be elected governor), and many other elected of-
ficials of the time who were so vitriolic in their stances opposing
desegregation of the state’s public schools.
After a moment or two of reflection, however, Reed says that,
in the grand scheme of things, Johnson wasn’t a bad governor. “I
think he did wind up making a good governor. I believe he was
the right man at the right time. I supported him once and even
helped him raise some money. He was much more moderate after
he became governor than he was while he was running. When
Paul said we had to accept federal ‘interference,’ his supporters
accepted it as fact, and that made a pretty big impact.”
Reed had no patience, though, for the political diatribes of the
time—usually made under the guise of garnering votes—and still
doesn’t.
“I think we all have a responsibility to do what we think is
right,” Reed says. “Somebody—and I forget who it was—said that
we ought to give a dual test of morality and reason to everything
we do. I tried deliberately to do that. Is it moral and is it reason-
able? I thought that speech certainly met the test.”
Almost overnight, citizens from across Mississippi had become
familiar with the retailer from Tupelo. The 1963 MEC speech had
thrust Reed into the state spotlight—a position he would find
himself in for years to come. In the ensuing years, he would serve
on nearly every local education committee and board around, as
well as on those of many state and national groups.
In April of 1964, he left the presidency of the MEC, challeng-
ing its membership to become more involved in affairs of the
state and to strengthen its statewide leadership role.
At the fifteenth annual banquet of the MEC, Reed clearly
stated his belief in the potential of the organization, a resolve
that had been strengthened during his many months of traveling
throughout Mississippi and speaking to and visiting with groups
and individuals from all walks.
Gathered once again at the Heidelberg Hotel in downtown
Jackson, more than three hundred business leaders listened as
Reed touted the potency of the MEC in his typical forthright
fashion:
14
The most significant fact about the MEC as I see it is that it pos-
sesses the potential to exert the most powerful influence on the af-
fairs of this state of any organization outside the state legislature—
and not as the most powerful political lobby, either.
Not by strong-arming legislators, not as a special interest group,
but as a respected group of business and professional men address-
ing themselves to statewide problems and issues of long-range and
lasting import, whether they be controversial or not, and by address-
ing themselves to these issues as objectively as possible.
I personally believe it is our duty to guide and create public
opinion, not just reflect it—to be a voice, not an echo.
It is far more important that we be right than that we be popu-
lar. I do not believe the MEC should ever deliberately seek contro-
versy, but God help us if it sacrifices principle to avoid it.
Reed’s words were more than “marching orders” to his friends

and associates in business and industry throughout Mississippi;
they were his personal guidelines as well. As the MEC continued
to grow and indeed become more influential in matters of the
state, so too did Reed’s voice become stronger, clearer, and more
influential.
For the next fifty-plus years, he would continue to speak out on
business leadership, race relations, his church, and most of all on
his passion, public education.
In 1980, Governor William Winter would appoint him chair
of the Special Committee on Public School Finance and Admin-
istration, and later the first chair of the newly revised—and all
lay member—Mississippi Board of Education. In 1989, President
George H. W. Bush would appoint Reed chair of the National Ad-
visory Council on Education Research and Improvement.
He also would go on to serve as an original member of the
United Methodist Church Commission on Religion and Race, and
in 2002, Reed would be honored by the Martin Luther King Day
committee in Tupelo for his contributions to race relations.
“When I look back on all this,” Reed says, “I find it really inter-
esting that it’s come the way it has. I’ve felt the most challenging
issue in my life in Mississippi has been race relations, and that’s
15
closely akin to public education issues. They have been the great-
est challenges of my generation in Mississippi, and I would put
them on parity with each other.”
Reed raised more than a few eyebrows when he told his busi-
ness constituents in several speeches to become “economic states-
men—not beggars asking for a backdoor handout” from the state
legislature. It was his deep conviction that business leaders had
a responsibility outside their stores, their shops, their factories.
Leadership, Reed felt, did not stop at the end of the work shift.
16
c h a pt er t wo
1965: Witnessing on Race Relations

“I honestly do not see how God can solve problems in human
relations without our help.”
Jack Reed’s passion for improving race relations in Mississippi

was not confined to his family’s department store or manufac-
turing business, or to the Mississippi Economic Council, or to
public education. It was a passion that was perhaps atypical for a
southern white male in the 1960s, and it was a passion that by his
own admission did not begin to grow until his tour of duty with
the U.S. Army during World War II.
“In looking back, I realize my parents accepted the belief that
blacks were inferior,” Reed admits. “But my parents also treated
them with respect. We were never allowed to use any pejorative
terms, and as a teenager, or even before, I was offended by ‘nig-
ger’ jokes and stories about them.
“Then in the service I really became conscious of prejudice
when we enlisted men were denied admittance to restaurants in
Australia. But perhaps what made the greatest impact on me was
that after the war blacks were still denied admittance to movies,
restrooms, restaurants, libraries, and other public places. Even
after they’d served our country just like I had. It just didn’t make
sense.
“Now, I’m not trying to say I changed overnight because I’m sure
I was still prejudiced, but I’ve tried awfully hard to change.”
His passion for this change became evident on June 10, 1965,
17
at the annual conference of the North Mississippi Methodist

Church held in his hometown of Tupelo and in his home church,
First Methodist.
Racial tensions were at their very peak when Reed spoke to his
fellow Methodists, many of whom he openly admired. The North
Mississippi Conference was made up of all-white churches. The
all-black Methodist churches in the northern part of the state be-
longed to the Upper Mississippi Conference. There had been
murmurings of merger among the two conferences, following,
among many things, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
but it had not yet been moved to the front burner. It would be
several years and nearly as many court orders before Mississippi
schools would be fully integrated, so there was no great rush to
desegregate the church.
Reed was asked by Bishop Edward Pendergrass to speak about
his faith to the hundreds of white Methodists gathered from all
across northern Mississippi. While he had been active in his Tu-
pelo church and in the North Mississippi Conference for many
years, and while his 1963 speech to the MEC had catapulted him
into a more prominent statewide role, it was not a task he wel-
comed. True to his Methodist beliefs, however, when the bishop
called, Reed responded.
“This one took a lot of soul-searching for me,” he says. “I don’t
like to witness, and I was called on to witness. I do not take it casu-
ally when I speak publicly on church affairs. I do not consider my-
self as good a Methodist as, say, Felix Black [another leading and
progressive Tupelo businessman and also a devout Methodist].
I am committed to the Methodist Church; the Methodist the-
ology suits me—I love the tolerance and the broad-mindedness
of Methodism. But I was concerned about this speech.”
Still, in his typical straightforward manner he spoke from his
heart as few had spoken before at an annual conference:
When I was a boy in this church, the primary social concerns of

the North Mississippi Conference (as I remember them) were: to-
bacco, card-playing, drinking, and dancing.
But as serious as those concerns seemed then and as some re-
18
main, it is my belief that the conscientious Christian is being chal-

lenged today as never before in the North Mississippi Conference
to give Christian witness in an area where such witness has too
often been sadly lacking or nonexistent—and where even at best it
has been woefully inadequate.
This is in the broad area of “human relations,” which in Missis-
sippi we have come to define too narrowly, I think, as “race rela-
tions.”
Certainly problems in human relations are not new, for it seems
to me that they were the basic concerns of Jesus Christ. But the
problem has taken on new dimensions for us here tonight and it
demands new decisions and immediate attention.
To ignore it is to deny the Christian call of responsibility to others.
To belittle it is to deny reality.
But to consider it beyond the capacity of men and goodwill to
diminish this problem, as it now exists, is anti-Christian!
In my opinion, whatever permanent progress is made will not be
made by legislation, or Bible reading, or by prayer alone, but will
result from Christian witness, both lay and clerical, in our homes, in
this conference, and in this state.
Several Sundays ago, our minister quoted a verse of scripture
from the fourth chapter of Esther that dealt directly with this prob-
lem. Esther, a Jewess, was queen. There was a plot by Haman to
kill all the Jews. Her family asked Esther to intervene for them with
the king, but she refused for fear she would reveal that she herself
was Jewish and might be killed. She knew what she should do, but
was afraid to take action!
They said to her: “For if you keep silent at such a time as this,
relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter.
But you and your Father’s house will perish.” Esther said: “Then I
will go to the king and if I perish, I perish.”
Surely, it is a great temptation today to do nothing about these
difficult problems; but this is not the message we find in the scrip-
tures. As with Esther, this situation may well be resolved without
our help (or witness), but I cannot see how our personal relation-
ship with our Lord can be resolved without our coming to grips as
individuals with this worldwide movement of the colored races,
19
who, in our country, are demanding equal treatment in our courts,

our communities, and our churches.
I honestly do not see how God can solve problems in human
relations without our help! I don’t see how presidents or governors
can solve these problems without including our participation as in-
volved citizens, and I do not see how the proper role of the Missis-
sippi Methodist in this matter can be determined without our tak-
ing a personal position.
Not, of course, by hurling bombs or insults at those with whom
we disagree, but by prayerfully using our minds and hearts in ap-
proaching this conflict with compassion and concern—not only for
the Negro, but for those within this conference and within this very
room who disagree. This, I believe, is what Christ would have us do!
And yet, all too often we have sidestepped our responsibilities at
a time when our state needs the leadership of Christian men and
women as, perhaps, it has never needed it before. We live in a time
when our people want such leadership and will respond to such
leadership. I believe the record will bear me out in this.
In 1962, immediately following the Ole Miss riot, a group of
some 250 businessmen gathered in Jackson and adopted a state-
ment calling for law and order and support for the school. . . .
In November 1962, newspaper polls indicated that the majority
of the state legislature would close every public school in Missis-
sippi before allowing any school to be desegregated. The Missis-
sippi Economic Council stated in essence that “public schools must
remain open, law and order must prevail, and forced integration
should be endured.”
The following day, eighty board members from all over the state
voted in favor with only one voting against. . . .The leadership
shown by the committee made the difference to the board. The
board action made a real difference in this state! The leadership of
concerned Christians made the difference.
As president-elect it was my responsibility and privilege to pres-
ent this position throughout the state in January of 1963. In a
week’s time—which brought considerable criticism—I received
more than a hundred letters and eighty-five percent of them were
favorable.
20
I realized then, as I do now, that the right-thinking people of

Mississippi will respond to the right kind of leadership—but they
cannot respond if such leadership is not offered!
This was the first time Reed referred to God’s inability to solve
human relations problems without human help, but it would not
be the last. For some, it was outright blasphemy and almost as
troublesome as his progressive stance on racial issues. Almost.
Reed knew his remarks would be welcomed by many, but he
knew, too, that he would be vilified in many quarters within the
Methodist Church. He knew his remarks would be published in
the Mississippi Methodist Advocate and circulated throughout the
entire state. He remembered well the feedback, good and bad,
from his 1963 speech to the MEC on public education, and as
dedicated to the preservation of the state’s school system as he
was, this talk was different. This was his church, and these were
his church friends. He knew all too well that many disagreed with
him on race relations, even some of those fellow members at Tu-
pelo First Methodist. There were many, though, who were sup-
portive.
“My good friend, M. B. Swayze [then executive director of the
Mississippi Economic Council], said he thought I’d given a nice
speech even though he really didn’t think God needed our help,”
Reed says with a chuckle. “But the response I got from that first
Methodist talk was quite different from the MEC speech a couple
of years earlier.
“As I look back on it now, I think within the Methodist Church
itself I was expressing a viewpoint that many were pleased with,
and to hear from them in that vein was most gratifying.
“Again, there were people who were, and still are, just as se-
rious about their Christian beliefs and about their relationship
to the Methodist Church as I am. I certainly meant them no dis-
respect, and I don’t think any of them thought I was being dis-
respectful, but I did want to at least express ‘our’ views. I think I
accomplished that, if nothing else.”
Without mentioning her name, or that of any other women
who also shared in the belief that Mississippi churches must move
21
past the race issue, Reed spoke about an organization his beloved
wife, Frances, was associated with as vice president. He held it up
as a model of Christian love and understanding.
Early in 1963, a group of women from over the state formed

Mississippians for Public Education. At first, they met “sub rosa” to
avoid the attacks that were sure to come and did come from Citi-
zens’ Councils, certain newspapers, and other individuals and orga-
nizations.
They sought to do only one thing: keep the public schools open
for all children! At the time they were called communists, integra-
tionists, and what have you. But today, no school has been closed.
We have come a long way because a few women with a Chris-
tian concern for the education of children spoke out in time, when
it was unpopular to do so. It was a matter of Christian concern and
responsibility. Not one of them that I knew wanted integration;
they just felt that it was wrong to deny little children of any color
the opportunity to read and write.
Reed knew exactly what he was doing. Certainly, the mores of

the times dictated that the leadership of most organizations—
churches included—be all, or nearly all, male. But he also knew
that if his group of progressives—or, to use the word of the time,
“moderates”—was going to accomplish its goals, the support and
strong encouragement from the females in the church would be
essential. While paying homage to the Christian women was cer-
tainly the gentlemanly thing to do, it was also politically very ex-
pedient.
His message of leadership outside the church, but based on
church values, never wavered. And again he called on his tried-
and-true standard, the dual test of morality and reason.
In February of this year, the Mississippi Economic Council again

issued a statement urging law and order, compliance with the Civil
Rights Act, and the right for any qualified citizen to vote. I think
it is true that the overwhelming support that this position has re-
ceived from the business community is due in large part to the
22
fact that men have faced up to the economic realities of the Civil
Rights Act, which in short says: 1) comply; 2) go to jail; 3) go out of
business.
But I can say, also, in all sincerity that the small group who was
responsible for that statement being presented was primarily moti-
vated by the desire “to be a Christian” in these troubled times.
This was equally true of those who agreed to testify before the
Civil Rights Commission earlier this year, when it was tremendously
unpopular to do so. In so doing, they saved Mississippi a serious
setback in national public opinion by pointing out that some prog-
ress was being made. Of course, these men—led by Owen Cooper
[president of Mississippi Chemical Corporation in Yazoo City]—did
not say they were giving Christian witness; with them, it was an
“act of conscience.”
In every case, I sincerely believe that the basic decisions were not
emotional or economic, but were, rather, the result of conscientious
citizens applying the dual test of morality and reason, and being
willing to take the consequences for their decisions. I believe in this
test myself and, frankly, it is not always easy to determine when
reason takes over from morality, or vice versa.
Fortunately, the Christian will seldom find the two in con-
flict. What is needed to apply the test is an open heart and an
open mind.
No witness, Christian or otherwise, is convincing unless it is
based on facts and on solid conviction. Facts must come from ex-
perience and objective investigation, but convictions involving per-
sonal relationships must come largely from spiritual faith!
Certainly, it is the purpose of the church today to supply and
support and replenish that faith in its individual members. If we fail
to do so, we have failed in our purpose despite the size of our bud-
gets, our buildings, or our membership.
I have been asked to suggest what the Methodist Church can
contribute in this area, and to tell how the church has affected me.
I am not accustomed to answering such questions, but I will try to
give a brief and honest answer to each.
1. I think the church must take a strong position in support of
the total Methodist program, financially and spiritually. Not only is
23
this right, but [it] will demonstrate our faith in the ability of other
Methodists, of a different background, to be Christians, too.
2. We need not be defensive. We need not be afraid of losing
membership because our program is unpopular with some. To do
so is to underestimate the personal faith of those who disagree. If
we can’t have something for everybody let’s at least have something
for the faithful. We do not need to lower the standards of our
church to the lowest common denominator of our membership.
3. We can emphasize the need to witness first at home and in
our community as Jesus did. I am satisfied that the reason many
ministers have come to Mississippi and Alabama in recent months
is because it is easier to give witness away from home, but that is
not the place to start.
4. We can use the church to open the door to closer communi-
cation between the races.
5. We can witness in terms this generation can understand. Old
time imagery and platitudes, expressions and phrases, though dear
to many of us, simply do not reach the young people of today; it is
our responsibility as churchmen to make the effort to reach them
and not require that they adjust to us.
Even then, he could not leave the issue of race out of his re-
marks. “I guess I was always slipping it in there,” he says. “It’s just
something I believed in very strongly then, and still do today.”
Reed closed his remarks to the annual conference on a per-
sonal basis. Though he says he’s not particularly fond of “witness-
ing” from the pulpit, he left little doubt that spring day in 1965
as to his feelings for his church:
As to what the Methodist Church means to me, I am sure I am

unaware of much of the effect that it has had; but its broad, social
concerns have certainly influenced my thinking and actions during
the forty years I have been exposed to First Church Tupelo. Some
conscious effects upon me have been:
• The connectional responsibilities of Methodism which have
broadened my outlook.
24
• The Christian fellowship of this church whose members have

always tolerated freedom of expression in the pulpit and in the
Sunday school.
• The financial responsibility of this particular church over the
years has testified to the appeal and validity of its program in a ma-
terialistic society.
• Certain of our preachers and our Sunday school teachers, as
well as great preachers brought in for special services over the
years, such as Dr. Roy Smith, Dr. Harold Bosley, Bishop Moore, and
others. Older, proven men of great faith and long service have al-
ways had a great influence on me.
• Teaching a Sunday school class of high school seniors for four-
teen years and of young adults for three years has taught me far
more than I taught my students, and in my opinion has probably
exerted the greatest influence on me of any part of my church life.
• In recent years, the Christian witness of several Mississippi
Methodists has been an inspiration to me. To name a few: Dr. W.
B. Selah; the statement of the twenty-eight ministers of the Missis-
sippi Conference and the opposing reaction to their statement; the
loyalty of the Mississippi Methodist Advocate and of such contribu-
tors as Dr. J. P. Stafford; the responsible action of the Millsaps trust-
ees under pressure; and, most recently, the forthright leadership of
our own bishop.
These are things that have strengthened my faith and loyalty to
our church.
I have many shortcomings as a Methodist. In addition, I have
never had a revelation or a momentous decision in my Christian ex-
perience that I have recognized as such; but I do have a great re-
spect for the real Christians I have known.
I do have a great faith in the capacity for goodness that lies in
nearly every man. I believe with my heart and my mind in the truth
of the teachings of Jesus Christ. I believe that there is God and that
God is good.
I believe, also, that both morality and reason require that we
concern ourselves with the welfare of our fellow man . . . that if
we are judged on this particular issue, it will not be by whether or
25
not we have solved our racial problem, but by the effort we have
put forth and by our attitude toward the Negro and toward each
other as individuals and not as ethnic groups.
I believe that Christian witness is needed as much in a democ-
racy as it is needed under Fascism, Nazism, or Communism.
I believe in the Spirit of Liberty. Judge [Learned] Hand says: “The
Spirit of Liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds
of other men and women. The Spirit of Liberty is the spirit which
weighs their interest alongside its own bias. The Spirit of Liberty is
the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”
Despite our critics, the Spirit of Liberty is very much alive in Mis-
sissippi today and in the North Mississippi Conference. I believe
that it is up to us, through Christian witness, to be sure that it re-
mains alive in the days and years and centuries ahead.
The response from those in attendance at the North Mississippi

Conference and from those who read Reed’s remarks in the Ad-
vocate the following week was similar to the response to the 1963
MEC speech, and it proved once again that there were many in
Mississippi ready for change.
“Your address at the rally of Methodists . . . is an example of
the intelligent and courageous leadership you are giving in our
church,” wrote J. D. Williams, chancellor of the University of Mis-
sissippi. “One of the most encouraging signs to those of us who
are moving off the current scene is the observation of younger
leaders such as you who are taking over what I am confident will
be a new and better day.”
From Grover Bagby, the associate general secretary of the Gen-
eral Board of Christian Social Concerns of the Methodist Church
in Washington, D.C., came these words: “My personal pride as a
Methodist in what you had to say is very great. I and all Method-
ists far beyond the borders of Mississippi are indebted to you for
your clear, courageous word of witness concerning Christian faith
and human relations in this troubled time.”
The Reverend Claude Johnson, minister of St. Andrew’s Meth-
odist Church just down the road in Amory, Mississippi, wrote to
Reed, stating: “I am grateful to you for the witness you gave be-
26
fore the Conference. . . . The standing ovation which came when

you had finished speaks more eloquently than words of apprecia-
tion. May God continue to use you in establishing better relations
between His children.”
Reed’s MEC good friend Owen Cooper, president of Mississippi
Chemical Corporation in Yazoo City—and himself no stranger to
controversy for taking a progressive stance on race relations—
also weighed in on the conference speech: “It’s a good statement,
thought provoking and exceedingly timely. All of us will continue
to be faced with some real problems in this and other areas in the
months and years that lie ahead. I count it a great pleasure that
I have come to know you, to value your friendship and to appre-
ciate the courage of your convictions.”
Willie Frances Coleman in El Dorado, Arkansas, read Reed’s
address in the Advocate and wrote: “It is one of the best state-
ments I have seen on the obligation of Christian citizens in Mis-
sissippi. . . . Your kind of leadership and witness is badly needed
everywhere today, but especially in the deep south.”
Katie B. Rogers from nearby New Albany, Mississippi, had at-
tended the conference meeting in Tupelo, and she wrote Reed:
“I was so glad to hear you speak, as I have noted your stand on
the Civil Rights issues for some time now . . . and have wanted to
write and tell you how proud I am to have someone with courage
to speak out for those of us in North Mississippi who feel that the
time is long past due for us to take a moral stand and face the
consequences.”
Frank Smith, chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board
of Directors and a native of the Mississippi Delta, stated: “It was
certainly a very wonderful statement.” Those were few words, but
considering Smith was a former member of the U.S. House of
Representatives who had lost his seat because of his moderate po-
sition on race relations, it was a tall compliment.
And Fred Smith (no relation to Frank Smith), one of Mississip-
pi’s most respected attorneys from up the road in Ripley, Missis-
sippi, wrote to Reed: “I thought the sentiments expressed in your
talk were splendid. Mississippi needs more people with your cour-
age and breadth of vision.” (It should be noted that Fred Smith’s
27
nephew, Robert, had been the prosecuting attorney in the 1955

trial of the three men accused of murdering Emmett Till.)
Though he had been speaking in Methodist churches all around
north Mississippi since the early fifties, this was Reed’s first time
to both offer his personal testimony and speak specifically on race
within the church.
“In my earlier speeches I would talk about improving or chang-
ing our hearts,” he says now, with a wry smile. “That doesn’t cost
you anything. And I would often speak about prejudice, though
I wouldn’t necessarily couch it in racial terms.”
Reed, of course, knew his audience understood his implied
message. But, he says, as long as he spoke in general terms he
stayed out of trouble. And even when he did speak in specific
terms about a Christian’s duties when it came to race relations,
most of the response was positive.
“I remember speaking at Greenwood one time,” he says. “That
reception was a little cool, so I just stayed for lunch and came on
back home. I remember one conversation I heard over in the
Delta between a minister and one of his elderly, female church
members: he asked her what she thought Jesus would do if a black
man came to their church and she said, ‘I guess he would let him
in, but he would be wrong.’
“But, generally, I was saying what the preachers who invited me
wanted me to say. Undoubtedly, they must have been speaking on
the same issues, and they wanted me to bolster their positions. But
I never really endorsed anyone’s position; I never said I agreed
with anyone, period. I could have gotten them into trouble.
“It really depended a lot on who the minister was,” he says. “A
lot of the old ‘throwback’ preachers wouldn’t have me. The only
people who invited me were where the pastors approved of what
I’d said in other churches.
“I wasn’t normally controversial when I spoke in churches . . .
oh, maybe I was. I guess I was. I don’t see how you can say those
things and not be controversial. But I was well received in churches.”
The times were such that many in the congregations agreed
with Reed and wanted to take a similar stance, but the threat of
28
a boycott by the Citizens’ Council in their towns, or worse, a visit

by the Ku K lux K lan, tended to quash many folks’ bravado.
“I always had people come up afterwards and say how much
they appreciated what I had to say,” Reed recalls. “They wanted
to speak out, but they couldn’t for whatever reasons. There wasn’t
much of that in northeast Mississippi that I know of, but the Citi-
zens’ Council was strong in Jackson and in the Delta. In some
areas of the state private citizens had to watch their words care-
fully.”
That is not to suggest that all of Reed’s thoughts, words, and
deeds were welcomed with open arms by the general populace of
Tupelo and northeast Mississippi. Indeed, they were not.
Still, Reed’s region of Mississippi—predominantly white—was
not as bitterly entrenched in its resentment toward the desegre-
gation of schools, churches, and businesses as other areas around
the state. The Citizens’ Council movement that was prevalent in
the Mississippi Delta, the Jackson area, and many other places
around the state was impotent in Tupelo. It existed there, to be
sure, but was for the most part inactive and no match for the
strong civic leadership that had emerged throughout the imme-
diate region. While that undoubtedly made things a bit easier for
him as a public speaker and civic leader, he says he would have
spoken out anyway.
“I wasn’t actively seeking these speaking engagements, and I
certainly wasn’t seeking any kind of personal recognition,” he
says. “I just felt that it was part of my Christian obligation to do
it, and I tried to do whatever I was asked to do in the church.”
29
c h a pt er t hr ee
1956: Beginning to Build Bridges

“I do not believe the Negro race is an inherently inferior race.”
While Jack Reed’s address to the annual conference of the North

Mississippi Methodist Church in June of 1965 was the first time he
had “witnessed”—spoken from the heart about his Christian con-
viction and strong belief in the Methodist Church—it wasn’t the
first time he’d spoken to a large group about his faith.
Though it was a rare occurrence for a white, male Mississippi
businessman to state publicly his “moderate” views on racial is-
sues in the state, as Reed had done prominently both in his 1963
speech to the Mississippi Economic Council and then again in
1965 to the Methodist conference, neither of these was his first
public speech on the most troublesome issue facing Mississip-
pians.
And neither was the 1965 speech to his fellow Mississippi Meth-
odists the first time Reed had combined his Christian beliefs with
his personal beliefs about racial issues.
As early as the spring of 1956—only a year after the death
of Emmett Till, whose brutal murder in the Mississippi Delta
is generally acknowledged as the catalyst for a more aggressive
civil rights movement—he stood before an all-black audience at
Rust College, a Methodist college in the north Mississippi town of
Holly Springs, and spoke about his faith and the issue of integra-
tion. There were already rumblings of activity on the Rust cam-
30
pus, and over the course of the next few years the college would
become closely identified with “the movement.”
Rust College was directly across U.S. Highway 78 from (now
defunct) Mississippi Industrial College, another all-black institu-
tion of higher learning on the north side of Holly Springs. The
student body at Rust was beginning to become extremely active
in the civil rights movement, and in the next few years many of its
members would join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com-
mittee (SNCC). Some of the homes just across the street to the
south of the campus would soon become places of refuge for
workers from the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO),
a group that included members of SNCC, the National Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Colored People (NA ACP), and the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
So it took more than a little courage and Christian conviction
for Reed to appear before the Rust student body. But it was a time
to speak.
Today, of all times, we must learn to respect our fellow man. If

we are to be of service to God in making this a Christian world, re-
spect may not come too easy sometimes but it is a clearly defined
Christian responsibility.
Of course, we cannot talk about respecting our fellow man in
1956 without getting into the subject of race relations. Indeed, I
think it would be almost impossible for a Negro to address a white
student body in Mississippi today, or for a white person to address
a Negro student body without his audience wondering how he
stands on segregation! Segregation (or integration) has become so
vital a question that unless we know a man’s politics we are very
skeptical of whatever he has to say.
As for me, I have no answer, but I do feel morally obligated to
discuss it—I don’t see how a Christian can avoid it.
A) It is most important for the races to understand each other;
B) We must not let extreme radical forces of either side confuse
the issues and mislead us;
C) It is a mutual problem which we should work out ourselves. . . .
31
The next question, obviously, is “What do I believe?”

I believe in equal facilities for all. I believe in equal opportunity
for all. I do not believe the Negro race is an inherently inferior race.
I believe we are all equal in the sight of God.
Now, the Citizens’ Council would probably consider me an inte-
grationist. The NAACP would probably consider me a segregation-
ist. Like some of you I believe there exists support for both, but nei-
ther is wholly correct.
This I know: many whites are prejudiced. This I also believe:
many Negroes are prejudiced as well. Both of us should try and put
ourselves in the other’s shoes!
You say it is impossible for me to know how a Negro feels. Per-
haps. I’ll agree that you get more than your share of prejudice. I’ll
also agree that as a race you practice some, too.
One thing I know absolutely: as Christians, you and I both had
better be a lot more concerned with what God thinks than what
we think about our fellow man. The extreme integrationists think
it will mean security, happiness, popularity for them. The extreme
segregationists think it will mean security, happiness, popularity for
them. But what does Christ say about our fellow man?
Reed then quoted several of Jesus’s teachings—with a special

emphasis on the beatitudes—then said:
Yes, Jesus said these things, which, as Christians, we believe. Of

course, Jesus didn’t suit his times. He suited no times. He came to
serve others and to give his life as a ransom for man—for those
who neither appreciated or understood. For you, yes! And for me,
too! For black, yellow, red, and white.
Reed knew better than anyone that his words were being re-
ceived coolly at best. No one was discourteous; there were no dem-
onstrations or disruptions. Neither, though, was he interrupted
by applause. Always and forever the optimist, Reed plowed ahead
with his white man’s attempt to offer hope to his all-black audi-
ence during a time when few cared enough to even try.
32
Now, let’s see what Christ had to say about minority groups.
Good? Not necessarily. Bad? Sometimes. Inevitable? Yes. All people
will never be equal in all things on this earth.
Does Christ think we all have equal opportunities? Not here, to-
day, but in the things that really count, yes. In the things that come
from God, we do indeed.
We have the opportunity to enjoy the world’s beauty, to enjoy
the world’s people, to fall in love, to build strong character, to marry
and have children, to learn about Jesus and God, to do God’s work.
These, Jesus considered important—more important than gov-
ernments, or states’ rights, or even constitutions, or racism. These,
and these alone, can bring life eternal and fellowship with God.
These opportunities are extended to all, black or white, and some-
times the harder your lot the greater they are.
Does this mean that integration and segregation are unimpor-
tant? No, indeed! It simply means that there are some other things
that are even more important, and that we should never sacrifice
these in attempting to get the other.
Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” Was he talk-
ing to us here in Mississippi today? You bet your life he was!
Just as surely as if he were on this platform. Well, then, what did
he mean?
If you think integration and segregation are Christian problems,
then pray to God. Go ahead and work for your choice, but re-
member Christ set the example of peace and love. He knew that he
could not conquer for God by returning hate for hate! He was per-
secuted, criticized, lied about, cursed, run out of town, and cruci-
fied. But he did first seek the Kingdom of God and today is wor-
shiped as the son of the Almighty God.
Reed knew he had taken it about as far as he could take this is-
sue, so he closed his remarks with positive words about the state
of Mississippi’s economy and how as it improved so, too, would the
lot of its black citizens. It was still an era, however, when people
of color were not allowed to use public restrooms, drink from
public fountains, shop in many stores, or eat in many restaurants
outside their neighborhoods. African Americans in 1956 were
33
forced to sit in movie house balconies and attend separate (but

hardly equal) public schools. Nonwhite voters in Mississippi were
rare, practically nonexistent. Many who breached the social mores
of the day paid dearly; many simply vanished.
Yet Reed tried to convince the black students that the Missis-
sippi of 1956 was much better than the Mississippi of bygone eras.
Ever the optimist, he wanted them to believe as he believed that
they faced a brighter future, and he finished his address simply,
by saying, “We all have lots to be thankful for.”
Today, as Reed looks back over the manuscript of the speech
at Rust, he chuckles softly. “In retrospect, it was a pretty weak
speech,” he says. “But in the context of the time I gave it, I guess it
wasn’t weak at all. Was I tiptoeing around the issue? I don’t think
so, not really. I tried to be as forthright as I could.”
He says it was obvious that many, if not most, of his audience
were “very suspicious” of what he was saying. “But they were all
very cordial. I received a nice round of applause when I finished.
“The president of the college [Dr. Lee Marcus McCoy] and I
were very good friends, and I think most of my remarks were well
received by the administration. I was treated with a great deal of
courtesy and probably with respect.”
That was no small accomplishment. Not for a white man on the
campus of an all-black college in Mississippi. Not in 1956.
34
c h a pt er fou r
1965: Strong Words for

Fellow Methodists
“But as for me and my people we intend to stay.”
It’s a good thing Jack Reed felt it was his Christian obligation to
speak out on matters that many in Mississippi preferred to avoid,
because he soon received opportunities—and appointments—
beyond his greatest expectations. His address to the annual con-
ference of the North Mississippi Methodist Church in June of
1965 resulted in an invitation a couple of months later to speak
to a “mass rally” of Mississippi Methodists at Galloway Memorial
Methodist Church in downtown Jackson.
Located midway between the state capitol and the Governor’s
Mansion, where in 1965 segregationist Governor Paul B. Johnson
presided and resided, Galloway is considered the “mother church”
of Mississippi Methodism.
The Galloway meeting on September 9, 1965, was billed as
an “Action Crusade for Mississippi Methodists,” and hundreds of
church members from every corner of the state crowded the pews
of the storied old sanctuary.
Nat Rogers, president of Deposit Guaranty Bank, the state’s
largest at the time, gave the keynote address. As Reed had ear-
lier in the year—and would later that same day—Rogers spoke
of his devotion to and love of Methodism. While most of his ad-
dress focused on the growth of Methodism in Mississippi and the
financial resources that would be needed to sustain it, Rogers also
35
1965: Strong Words for Fellow Methodists
refused to sidestep what he referred to as “the knotty problems

of social concerns”:
As Methodists and as Christians, we cannot escape the knotty

problems of social concerns in the future. . . . In Mississippi, we
Methodists have been too emotional in our approach to the racial
problem. . . .
We will be more successful in the future if we will recognize that
the responsible leadership in the Methodist Church is merely facing
the realities of the times. It is doing nothing more than asking us to
look at Negroes as individuals instead of a group apart.
As we accept the Methodist position, we need have no fear of
being deluged or destroyed. Few Negroes are likely to attend many
of the Methodist churches represented here today. We badly need
to restore this issue to a place where it can be studied with reason.
It is going to be with us from now on, and we must master it or it
will destroy us. As we view it in a calmer perspective, we can pro-
ceed to devote our main energy and attention to the positive and
constructive program which our future requires.
By today’s standards, Rogers’s words are mild. In 1965, however,

they were nothing if not bold, considering that many businessmen
in the state were both his customers and members of the Citizens’
Council—a group of prominent white citizens dedicated to the
preservation of segregation.
Rogers’s words affirmed what Reed had been telling people
within both the Mississippi Economic Council and the Methodist
Church—that strong leadership was the answer to any problems
the state would face, and that the state’s true leaders were suggest-
ing a more temperate approach in addressing the race issue.
For Reed, the suggestion of restraint and reason was hardly
new. He was, after all, one of a growing number of “moderates”
in Mississippi, considered by many of the state’s power brokers
the most dangerous threat to the status quo of segregation. He
was willing to look at all sides of any issue or argument, consider
the various viewpoints, make a decision, then go forward.
“I don’t like controversy,” he says. “I really don’t. But I don’t
36
avoid it if I think there’s a problem that needs to be addressed.

There are ways to disagree without being disagreeable. It’s not
easy but it can be done.”
And for Reed, there was always his one standard that would
serve him well in whatever endeavor he found himself involved
with: “I always tried to apply the dual test of morality and reason.
I’ve done that all my life. I don’t know when I started using that,
but as far back as I can remember I’ve tried to apply it to every-
thing I do. I don’t know how others feel about some of my deci-
sions, but I feel good for the most part because I’ve found that no
matter what I was trying to accomplish, if it would pass that dual
test then I knew I would be all right.”
It was in that light that Reed spoke to the hundreds of Missis-
sippi Methodists gathered on that fall day at Galloway for the Ac-
tion Crusade. He knew where he was standing; he understood
who was in the audience. He was aware that his words would be
heard beyond Galloway’s walls.
Always a man of good cheer, Reed opened his address in typical
fashion, poking fun at himself, expressing his love for and devo-
tion to the Methodist Church, and making it clear he was speak-
ing for no particular group.
While driving down the Natchez Trace this morning with Brother
“Bo” Holloman, I asked Bo if he thought I would be well received.
He said, “Certainly better than I would be.” To which I replied,
“Well, after all, I’m not a preacher.”
So, while I officially represent no one, perhaps unofficially I rep-
resent those “whose heart is as my heart” on these accounts.
Frankly, I believe this to be a considerable number of our member-
ship, and I will try to speak for them in a responsible way.
Upon examination, I have realized that Methodism’s “mistakes”
have resulted primarily from its fundamental Christian concerns,
from its broadminded tolerance, from its sense of responsibility
to and for others, and not from a doctrine of distrust and
exclusiveness. . . .
I am concerned because we do have real problems in Mississippi
today that are making it difficult for our church—and because
37
if we do not put these problems into a proper perspective they

are perfectly capable of destroying not only our program but our
fellowship itself. For that reason I think that we must look at them,
admit them, examine them, and lay them to rest if possible—
for they are the shackles on the feet of Methodists in Mississippi
today!
With that, Reed listed a group of “concerns” and offered his

thoughts on them, including the very controversial position of
the General Conference (the national governing body of the
Methodist Church) on segregation, and especially the Association
of Independent Methodists, a small group of churches scattered
throughout Mississippi not willing to consider at all the possibility
of allowing people of color in their houses of worship, not even in
the slave galleries of the antebellum churches among their lot.
As for the General Conference’s position on segregation, to

be quite candid, this issue is just as dead as the congressional de-
bate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and to fight this particular
battle is simply to beat a dead horse. The final answer, of course,
will be found only at the local church. But the majority opinion of
the delegates to the General Conference in favor of integration is a
matter of record that intelligent people who wish to remain loyal to
the Methodist Church will have to accept.
It must be noted that Reed was hardly a flaming liberal, even by

the standards of the 1960s. He and many other white churchgoers
of all denominations were “disenchanted” with the Delta Minis-
try, a National Council of Churches program designed to em-
power African American communities. Though he felt the Delta
Ministry was overly disruptive in its dealings with congregations
in the Mississippi River counties, Reed’s voice was one of but a
few who pleaded for “his” Methodist Church to maintain its asso-
ciation with the National Council of Churches.
Our disassociation with the [National Council] would not

end the Delta Ministry, it would only end our ability to protest it
38
through the strength of our membership. So let us not sacrifice our

church on the altar of expediency in the headlong rush to hit back!
Let us recognize the Delta Ministry for what it is . . . [and] let us do
the best we can with it, and get on with the Lord’s work which in-
volves every Methodist in Mississippi and not just a few ultraliberals
from out of state.
Reed’s words regarding the Delta Ministry were nothing if not

frank, but it was the final “concern” on his list—the Association
of Independent Methodists—that he spoke about most passion-
ately:
And finally, let’s consider the Association of Independent Meth-

odists, which is the most overt action opposing our church unity
today. I would say this, and I say it carefully and prayerfully:
If a man is fundamentally opposed to the connectional aspect
of our church, which through its conferences seeks to extend our
faith and our programs to those whose hearts are as ours, wher-
ever and whoever they are . . .
If a man’s very conscience is offended by the general philosophy
of our Discipline (and I am by no means suggesting total agree-
ment—in a program as broad as ours this is virtually impossible) . . .
If a man is convinced that Jesus Christ would have us exclusive
rather than inclusive in our fellowship, and . . .
If a man has come to such a position sincerely, I suggest that he,
too, consider a change!
But not, please, under the guise of loyalty to John Wesley, who
said, “Dost thou love and serve God? It is enough, I give thee the
right hand of fellowship.”
But as for me and my people we intend to stay. I suppose I
could be run out of the Methodist Church (I hope I don’t give you
any ideas), but it will take a lot more than the things I have enu-
merated here to do it.
Everyone here today knows that we have a great church, but
we have ourselves limited its greatness with our own petty con-
cerns about what the church can offer us. Our vows are simple and
basic: “Belief in God, faith in Jesus Christ, and a pledge of faithful
39
support to Christ’s church.” We were each asked this when we

joined the Methodist Church. This is all that we are being asked
today.
Reed’s words, coupled with what Rogers had said earlier in the
program, had a clearly positive effect on those gathered in the
Galloway sanctuary. Many in each of the Mississippi Methodist
conferences who had wanted to speak out on the same issues but
had not were now emboldened by Rogers and Reed. The Inde-
pendent Methodists had little to say—there were few of them,
if any, at the Action Crusade—but the responses Reed received
were plentiful and positive.
“Judging from the letters I got, and I got a good many from all
around, I would have to say my remarks were extremely well re-
ceived,” Reed says.
In a letter to Reed, Bishop Pendergrass wrote: “We believe that
the success of this meeting, and certainly think nothing but that it
was a major success, was stemmed by you and Mr. Rogers. I want
you to know that we are obligated to you beyond any expression
of words.”
Reed appreciated the kind words from the church’s leader in
Mississippi, but he also remembers how even the bishop had to
treat such issues with more than a little sensitivity.
“The interesting thing is that Bishop Pendergrass told me, pri-
vately, how pleased he was with what I had to say, but publicly he
took it pretty easy,” Reed recalls. “He tried to trod in carefully; he
didn’t want to offend anybody. There were some congregations
who were trying to decide if they wanted to stay in the confer-
ence or pull out, and he didn’t want to give them another reason
to pull out.”
The letter from the bishop was hardly the only letter of appre-
ciation Reed received following the Action Crusade. Like the re-
sponse to his 1963 MEC speech, letters came in from every corner
of Mississippi and elsewhere. Their words underscored some of
the first words of his speech—that while he was officially repre-
senting no one, he was indeed unofficially representing many
Methodists, inside Mississippi’s borders and out.
40
The Reverend Homer Peden of Court Street Methodist Church

in Hattiesburg wrote to Reed: “I believe you did us an invaluable
service and that your optimism and progressive attitude will be
contagious. The entire day was good and may prove to be a mile-
stone in our church in Mississippi.”
From Columbus, the Reverend Landis Rogers wrote: “In all my
years in the Methodist church—both as layman and minister—
this was one of the highlights of my entire experience thus far.
I couldn’t help thinking later that it should be required reading
for all Methodism. . . . You demonstrated a depth of spirituality
that is so refreshing in this day of doubt, distrust, and widespread
cynicism.”
The Reverend Denson Napier of the Wesley Foundation at
the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg wrote: “As
a minister it is easier to hold my head higher when remembering
dedicated laymen like you.”
The Mississippi Methodist Advocate had also carried Reed’s re-
marks in full, resulting in another round of letters. Surely, many
of the Independent Methodists had read his remarks in the Advo-
cate, though they did not correspond with Reed. Many who agreed
with him, however, did.
One of the most heartfelt letters came from Dr. W. B. Selah,
who had been asked to leave Galloway Methodist because of his
more liberal racial views. Reed had mentioned him prominently
in his earlier speech to the North Mississippi Conference, and
Selah, then living in Huntsville, Alabama, had read the speech
in the Advocate.
“I have read it carefully and I want to commend you on it,”
Selah wrote. “You challenged Mississippi Methodists to face reali-
ties. Keep on bearing your witness. You and others like you will
turn the tide in Mississippi in favor of truth and justice.”
Jim Waits, the former pastor of Epworth Methodist Church in
Biloxi, who was in graduate school at the University of Chicago,
wrote to Reed: “I wish that I could have been on hand to hear it
at Galloway Church. It certainly puts the issues facing the church
in Mississippi unequivocally, and I’m sure it will have far-reaching
results. . . . Please note that our thoughts are with you in times
41
which are frequently trying. The thoroughly Christian commit-

ment that your actions display is refreshing and meaningful for
ministers and laymen alike.”
The Reverend George M. Curry, associate publisher at The
Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, Tennessee, and a for-
mer Mississippi preacher, wrote Reed that he was “grateful to you
for a clear and trenchant statement, which should prove to be en-
couraging to Mississippi Methodists in the days ahead. . . . I be-
lieve that the Church will emerge stronger than ever from this
very trying period.”
While the undercurrent of a merger between the white and
black Methodist conferences in Mississippi was beginning to grow,
when Reed gave this speech that was not what he had on his
mind. He was far more concerned with what he and many others
perceived as the weakening of the conference if the Association
of Independent Methodists continued to go unchecked.
“The Independent Methodists were insistent on pulling out
and they were fragmenting the church,” he says. “Several of us
were trying to hold the church together.
“The driving force for me was that [unity] was the Christian
thing to do. People had to sublimate their own wishes for what
was the greater good, what was true Methodism, what we stood
for. Our actions had to be consistent with our words.”
But it was the prospect of the two conferences actually merg-
ing that fueled the Independent Methodists in their withdrawal
efforts—much like those who in the coming years would help
start all-white private schools around Mississippi (and the rest of
the South) under the guise of “better education.” Racial preju-
dice was the overriding factor, pure and simple, in these churches
threatening to leave the conference, and it carried over into the
dispute over merger among the churches that vowed to stay.
While the Independent Methodist movement eventually subsided
without the loss of many congregations, many individual Meth-
odists did leave the church. In the meantime, the march toward
merger moved ahead, slowly but steadily.
It would not happen until 1973, but merger would indeed be-
come a reality, both in organization and function. The all-white
42
North Mississippi Conference combined with the all-black Up-

per Mississippi Conference and the name North Mississippi Con-
ference was retained. In the southern part of the state a similar
merger between the all-black and all-white conferences would
come to pass and the integrated Mississippi Conference would be
born. (In another fifteen years the North Mississippi Conference
would merge with the Mississippi Conference to form today’s Mis-
sissippi Conference of the United Methodist Church.)
Over the course of the next few years, Reed would find him-
self more heavily involved in the merger issue than he had ever
imagined.
43
c h a pt er fi v e
1971: Christian Testimony for

Improved Human Relations
“Is the church relevant in today’s crazy society? I think it is.”
In 1968, Jack Reed attended the General (national) Conference

of the Methodist Church in Dallas, as an alternate delegate from
Mississippi. Though he had for many years been an outspoken
advocate of merging the white and black conferences, it was at
this meeting that his views on race relations would begin to be-
come more focused.
“I found out at that time the church had already moved further
toward inclusiveness than I had realized,” he says. But it was at
the Dallas General Conference that the true plan of merging the
jurisdictional conferences and statewide (annual) conferences
were written into Methodist policy.
It was also at this conference that the Methodist Church be-
came the United Methodist Church, with the constitution declar-
ing: “The United Methodist Church is a part of the Church Uni-
versal which is one Body in Christ. Therefore, all persons, without
regard to race, color, national origin, or economic condition,
shall be eligible to attend its worship services, to participate in
its programs, and when they take the appropriate vows, to be
admitted into its membership in any local church in the con-
nection.”
That pronouncement achieved what Reed and many of his
moderate cohorts in several southern states had longed for. He
got more than he bargained for, however, when he was elected
44
1971: Christian Testimony for Improved Human Relations
a delegate to the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference to be

held later that summer at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. While
there, Reed would be elected to another new United Methodist
body, the Commission on Religion and Race—the only white lay-
man from the Southeast to serve on what would become a panel
of thirty-two members that also included ministers and other
members of the laity from around the country.
Reed’s popularity as a public speaker in Mississippi had grown
immensely over the years. His good humor and positive outlook
combined with his forthright approach to addressing serious and
complex issues had churches and civic groups from around the
state inviting him to their luncheons, dinners and meetings of all
sorts. It was hard for him to say no, though it required time away
from his family, which had grown to include four children, and
from his family business, which included a manufacturing plant
as well as department stores in Tupelo and Columbus.
Reed was especially partial to local United Methodist churches
and their Lay Sundays, and it was in those that he had all the op-
portunities he could ever hope for to address the merger of the
black conferences and white conferences. After his appointment
to the Commission on Religion and Race he became even more
prominent in the pro-merger movement.
Though the General Conference of 1968 had declared all an-
nual conferences be merged, to no one’s great surprise Missis-
sippi did not willingly follow the mandate. Neither, it should be
pointed out, did many other southern states. Few Methodists of
either race were eager to leave the comfort zones of their historic
conferences.
For the next few years the issue was discussed, dissected, and
debated, and in 1971 a pro-merger group of white laymen and
laywomen in the North Mississippi Conference was formed. The
chairs of the various committees among the group were: James
Robertson, Jan Robertson, Joe Wroten, Jack Huntley, and W. D.
Baker, all of Greenville; Reed and Frank Riley of Tupelo; Charles
Murry, Jerry Robbins, and Louis Zehnder, Jr., of Oxford; Mr. and
Mrs. E. J. Watson of Leland; C. T. Carley of Starkville; and J. T.
“Bud” Young of Maben.
45
It was this group of white leaders that sat down with the lead-
ers of the all-black Upper Mississippi Conference and began dis-
cussing opportunities and challenges inherent in such a historical
union.
Reed is quick to point out that while much of the opposition to
the merger came from the Mississippi Delta, there was resistance
from churches all around the state, including Tupelo.
“Look, even in our church we had some ushers who didn’t
want to seat blacks if they came to our services. We had a meet-
ing of the ushers to talk about what to do, and it was Jack Eubank
who said we should just do what we thought Jesus would do. That
pretty well ended that.
“We adopted a policy that we would seat them, but there were
some who dropped out as ushers. There were some really fine
people who had some really strong feelings—you know how it is
about race. That was paramount everywhere.”
Progressive actions in even the smallest of communities did
not go unnoticed on the national level. One example was an ar-
ticle in the Wall Street Journal about conditions in the South that
included this sentence: “By way of encouragement the United
Methodist Church of Tupelo, Miss., voted to seat negroes by a vote
of 40 to 4.”
On May 7, 1971, an interdenominational, interfaith “Lay Lead-
ership Assembly” was held in Jackson, drawing church and reli-
gious leaders from all around Mississippi. Reed was one of the
speakers—invited by his Yazoo City friend Owen Cooper—and,
as usual, cracked a couple of jokes, including one in which a
Catholic asked his Baptist friend if he believed in infant baptism,
and the Baptist friend replied, “Believe it? Heck, yes. Why, I’ve
even seen it done.” Then Reed got straight to the point—the rele-
vancy of the church in a society seemingly gone mad:
If the lay leadership of our churches and synagogues cannot to-

gether profitably address themselves to the problems and oppor-
tunities of our state, I don’t know who can. And if God would not
have you and me here tonight, I have no idea where—in His world
or in Mississippi—he would rather us be.
46
I wonder if any of you ever experience the feeling I sometimes

have nowadays. I read the paper or hear the news and an unreal
sensation comes over me—a feeling that what’s happening can’t
be real.
We’ve killed thousands of boys in a miserable no-win war and
can’t find a way to stop it . . . young radicals burning and bombing
colleges they pay to attend . . . nuts and revolutionaries continue
to hijack planes full of innocent people . . . policemen assassinated
for no reason at all . . . black people hating white people and vice
versa . . .
What’s the answer to all this? Maybe part of the answer is right
here in our church. Look around you; I don’t see any revolution-
aries, hijackers, Black Panthers, or Ku Klux Klansmen. I see a group
of decent human beings—not perfect by any means—but funda-
mentally responsible, concerned, and (I hope) tolerant people try-
ing with all our faults to be better people. That’s why we come to
church, isn’t it?
Is the church relevant in today’s crazy society? I think it is. Today,
as in the past, church members are people who profess concern
about morality, ethics, and the true meaning of life. The church
continues to stand for individual responsibility, accountability, and
a disciplined life as opposed to the irresponsibility, permissiveness,
and total lack of restraint we find too prevalent in modern society.
He spent the next few minutes reaffirming his belief in God

and in the church, and in restating his belief that all change must
begin in the homes and home churches, then grow outward from
there.
And so another conviction I have is that right now we need in

America and Mississippi less passion and more compassion—less
revolution and more resolution. . . .
John Locke (whose writings inspired the leaders of our American
Revolution, which itself is the basis for most of our modern mili-
tants) said that “man can achieve his fullest self-realization by a life
in which he balances his own aspirations with society’s rightful de-
mands.”
47
Specifically, I believe that our society rightfully demands that

we concern ourselves here and now with the welfare of our fellow
man and balance our own aspirations accordingly.
This, of course, takes us into the broad area of human relations,
which, in Mississippi we have come to define too narrowly, I think,
as race relations. Now, I realize that many of you do not know me
personally, so my own opinion on this subject would be worth very
little. For this reason, in the time that I have left, I want to tell you
about a personal experience I have had in this field during the last
three years during which I have had the privilege of serving on
the United Methodist Church Commission on Religion and Race.
Some of you, no doubt, have had similar experiences, but this has
had a considerable effect on my life and on my commitment to my
church.
This commission was appointed in our General Conference of
Methodism in Dallas in 1968 with the express purpose of elimi-
nating racism in the United Methodist Church and to aid in com-
pleting the merging of the black conferences in our church with
the white conferences.
This has been the general aim of the Methodist Church for many
years, but the actual merger had not been effected and the pres-
sures of the sixties resulted in direct action being taken to do this.
Personally, I was not much concerned; I somehow felt that it was
reasonable and I was satisfied to let the conference delegates work
it out. Furthermore, I had never been a delegate to any conference
in our church and had no desire to be, so it wasn’t my problem.
Well, to make a long story short, by some quirk of fate I was
elected a delegate to our Southeast Jurisdictional Conference
(where most black Methodists reside), and while there I was elected
a member of this national commission.
The constituency of the committee is rather unusual. Start-
ing off with twenty-five members plus one black bishop and one
white bishop, we now have thirty-two members in all: twelve
blacks, twelve whites, eight from other ethnic groups—Japanese-
Americans, Indian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Hispanic-
Americans, and Chinese-Americans. We have twenty-five ministers,
two laywomen and five laymen.
48
This has been a fascinating involvement, truly a liberal education

and a unique experience for me. I have been both impressed and
encouraged by the attitude of the members of our commission. We
certainly have some real liberals, but we also have moderates and
conservatives as well, and the breakdowns are not all along racial
lines by any means.
Our members all love the church and share a commitment to re-
newal within the church. They are not separatists. They are trying
to save rather than destroy.
Being outnumbered fifteen to one in this Southeast Jurisdiction,
the blacks’ greatest fear is a fear of absorption and loss of identity
within the church—and I think this fear is well grounded.
At least up to now the commission has been willing to agree
that the inclusive church has the power, through its redemptive
fellowship, to change lives and to create a brotherhood of mutual
concern and respect that can encompass both activist blacks and
segregationist whites. Only time will tell whether this is the case.
We’ve made meaningful progress, though I make no great claims
for our success. We do have a great fellowship. . . .
Now, we know each other well enough to say what’s really on
our hearts and minds, and like all good friends, we get a little mad
occasionally, but we don’t stay mad. Merger is working on our
commission.
I will admit the blacks can get us whites a little disturbed occa-
sionally, too. Like when Woodie White says: “If one is unable to
accept me because of my blackness, the color of my skin, the tex-
ture of my hair, the thickness of my lips, the broadness of my nose,
then his quarrel is not with me, but with my Father, God, who cre-
ated me.”
You know, I still haven’t thought of a good answer to that.
Then the preachers are quick to quote the Bible to us laymen—
particularly from Acts about the coming of the Holy Spirit at the in-
ception of the church at Pentecost when they say the church began
as interracial and international with every color represented.
And in the light of this reference, let me say that all of our
eyes have been opened to the plight of other ethnic groups in our
church who are actually more ignored than the blacks.
49
We meet in various parts of the country, so far in Washington,

Birmingham, San Antonio, Tampa, Chicago, and Atlanta, and begin
by inviting the local leadership of the minority groups to appear
before us and tell us directly what their problems are—and they
aren’t bashful either. Generally, we have our eyes opened.
Usually it’s the blacks who are unhappy, but in Birmingham we
had more protesting from the ultraconservative whites!
In San Antonio, where one-half the city is Mexican-American,
we learned that in the poorest section of the city the educational
level is less than fourth grade and unemployment never gets under
fifteen percent.
Our host there was José Gonzalez, a member of our commis-
sion. Raised a sharecropper in the Rio Grande Valley, he finished
high school at twenty-five, college at thirty-four, divinity school at
thirty-eight, and he loves the church as only a man can who has
given his life to it.
One of our speakers was a Mexican-American graduate of
Princeton Seminary. He told us of their frustrations, all the way
from being ignored historically for their part in the Alamo and
Texas war for independence to the common image of the Mexican-
American as being like José Jiminez, a humorous underdeveloped
people, not to be taken seriously as either Americans or church
leaders.
In a very ironic statement he said, “People love Mexican food,
they love Mexican music, they love Mexican dances, but they don’t
give a damn about Mexicans.”
So I have learned something of tolerance myself as we have
wrestled with these problems. And, in attempting to interpret the
South’s position, I have asked for another kind of tolerance from
my associates—tolerance for the conservative who is being caught
up and carried so fast by this changing world, and in this I have
been somewhat reassured by Will and Ariel Durant’s latest book,
The Lessons of History, gleaned from two lifetimes of research.
“The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the
radical who proposes it, perhaps more valuable. . . . It is good that
new ideas should be heard for the sake of the few that can be
used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go
50
through the Mill of Objection of Opposition and Contumely; this is

the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed
to enter the human race.”
Now, in fairness, I think that some of the new ideas we still
question have already survived this ordeal and are a part of our
time (as well as of our churches) and I’m thinking now of civil
rights and church rights. But others, I think, are still rightly in the
process of legitimate debate.
For example: I am by no means convinced that the current phi-
losophy of the antiwar demonstrators that abuses the right of oth-
ers, that destroys property and mouths obscenities, and that obvi-
ously believes that the end justifies the means is legitimate. In fact,
I am pretty well convinced that it is not. And in questions like these
I think we (in or out of our churches) have the responsibility of put-
ting the dual test of both morality and reason to each of the burn-
ing issues of today! History offers some consolation by reminding
us that sin has flourished in every age.
In conclusion I would like to make a few personal comments:
I did not want this assignment to this committee and, in fact,
I tried hard to be excused. I felt from the outset three years ago
that my critics would condemn me and that my friends would mis-
understand my participation—and, frankly, I have found little
reason to believe otherwise.
It is controversial, it is difficult, and in many ways it has been a
truly disturbing experience. As the only white southern layman, I
am on many of the critical subcommittees. (I go to Atlanta at 5:30
Monday morning to meet with a group who is still turning away
blacks from the doors of their churches in Americus, Georgia.)
Many times I have been with the minority, and occasionally I
have been the lone dissenting voice, but generally I have approved
our action. I have not tried to speak for my local church, but I do
believe that on almost all issues a great many of our members
would have voted as I did under the same circumstances. But one
thing this has done is strengthen my faith in the relevancy and in
the importance of my church during this time of social upheaval
and turmoil.
I am convinced that this is something the church ought to be
51
doing, that this is God’s work and that if the good and decent
church people of America, like you and like me, do not give leader-
ship in the improvement in human relations, He will find other
ways and other institutions to build his kingdom.
At least we can give the lie to the old accusation that “Like a
mighty tortoise trods the Church of God, and today we are trod-
ding where always we have trod.” At least this is a change in the
church. . . .
Surely, it’s disturbing, but it is also challenging, and when I get
upset and frustrated about the violence and unrest and conflicts at
home and abroad—about Vietnam and Washington, about bus-
ing and marching, I am truly strengthened by Thomas Paine’s state-
ment in The American Crisis in 1776, when he wrote: “If there
must be trouble let it be in my day, that my children may have
peace.” And our children may live in peace if we will do our part—
where we are, as we are.
I believe that religious witness is needed as much in a democ-
racy, and as much in Mississippi, as it is needed under fascism,
Nazism, or communism.
As before, Reed’s remarks were well received, but this time he

was preaching to the choir—churchmen and churchwomen from
around the state who thought as he thought on these issues, many
of whom were as active and as outspoken as he.
Reed says now that one of his greatest compliments came from
Rabbi Perry Nussbaum of Temple Beth Israel in Jackson (and a
participant in the meeting) when he asked for a copy of Reed’s
speech for his personal files.
Four years earlier, Nussbaum had become the first white clergy-
man whose home and house of worship were dynamited by rac-
ists. Temple Beth Israel was bombed in September 1967 and his
home two months later.
“That meant a lot to me,” Reed says of Nussbaum’s request.
“Because that’s all I’ve ever tried to do when I gave a talk—reach
out to all people and try to find a common ground.”
52
c h a pt er si x
1964–1984: An Indefatigable
Champion of Public Education
“If educated, people are our greatest asset.”
Mississippi’s public schools were in a state of turmoil during

the 1960s and 1970s. Being the poorest state in the Union obvi-
ously meant the state budget was woeful, but because of the racial
prejudice that permeated state politics at the time whatever funds
were available for education were carefully scrutinized, making
desegregation more difficult. Education in general was never a
top priority in any of those legislative sessions, and individual
legislators who dared mention integration did so at great risk—
politically and personally.
Tupelo, of course, faced the same problem as every other
school district in Mississippi, but educators and civic leaders took
matters into their own hands and ensured a reasonably smooth
transition from all-white and all-black schools into an integrated
system. There were no public protests, no marches, no rallies, and
certainly no riots. There were some frayed nerves, to be sure, but
with strong civic leadership from men such as George McLean,
Jack Reed and his brothers, Bob and Bill, Harry Rutherford, Bill
Beasley, Felix Black, Harry Martin, Jim High, Son Puckett, Henry
Brevard, Jim Ingram, Len Pegues, Perrin Purvis, J. C. Whitehead,
and many others, Tupelo schools were able to avoid the tribula-
tions of most Mississippi schools. Their success came primarily
because the establishment of private schools was discouraged;
53
1964–1984: An Indefatigable Champion of Public Education
thereby, the “white flight” from public schools that was becoming
typical in other Mississippi communities was avoided.
While the aforementioned group could usually be found out
front of most civic endeavors, they were joined in their work for
Tupelo schools by such equally passionate and effective leaders in
the African American community as Palmer Foster, Harry Gray-
son, Robert Jamison, Robert Hereford, Joseph and Lucinda Wash-
ington, and Vera Duke. A very determined and forceful group
of white females was also instrumental in the orderly deseg-
regation of the schools; its numbers included Louise Godwin,
Catherine Sadler, Edith Thomas, Frances Patterson, Cora Fields,
Mary Elizabeth Caldwell, Betsy Puckett, Joyce Beasley, and, not
surprisingly, Frances Reed, Jack’s wife, who was vice president of
the statewide group Mississippians for Public Education.
For Jack Reed, the desegregation of the state’s public schools
was merely a natural, albeit difficult, progression, and no one
spread the gospel of education for all more or more effectively
than Reed. His many speeches over the years on race relations
within the United Methodist Church coupled with his out spoken
support for public education within the Mississippi Economic
Council assured him a leadership position in the education battles
of the times.
Throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, Reed played
an extremely active role in the growth of the Community Devel-
opment Foundation, Tupelo’s economic development organiza-
tion made up of business and industry leaders in Lee County. He
served as chair in 1968–69 and on its executive committee for
more than thirty years. Based on the premise that community de-
velopment precedes economic development, CDF, with Reed as
one of its main spokesmen, began stressing the need for strong
public schools in Tupelo and Lee County. Even though its popu-
lation was only twenty thousand or so, Tupelo was still the “hub
city” for most of northeast Mississippi, and its message of progres-
sive public schools was picked up throughout the entire region.
Reed rarely strayed from his message, and he restated his for-
mula for successful schools time and again. “I believed then and
I still believe,” he says, that “Mississippi schools needed qualified,
54
professional superintendents, whether appointed or elected, who

can communicate effectively with both their communities and fac-
ulties, and whose priority is hiring and supporting good, strong
principals. These principals would in turn hire and support quali-
fied teachers, who would be left alone to teach. The teachers are,
without a doubt, the key to public education success.”
He was called on to speak to all manner of civic and profes-
sional groups throughout northeast Mississippi and rare were the
occasions when he did not respond. Even more infrequent were
the times he failed to speak on public education.
“Our [CDF’s] message was always the same—and it still is to-
day,” Reed says. “If you want to have a truly strong community
you’ve got to have truly strong public schools. That’s just as true
today as it was in 1966, and I’m proud to say that there are some
very strong communities in northeast Mississippi—and I’m cer-
tainly proud that Tupelo is one of them.”
On May 14, 1964, Reed spoke at the CDF annual banquet on
the need for quality education. He began with a quote from the
ancient Roman consul Publilius Syrus: “It is only the ignorant who
despise education.” It wasn’t long before he began using the most
up-to-date statistics of 1964 to state his case:
Over one-third of Mississippi tax dollars goes for education. This

is four and a half percent of all personal income in Mississippi, and
that compares to three and a half percent which is the national av-
erage. This is good, but because personal income in Mississippi is
only one-half the national average this means that in actual dollars
we spend $220 per pupil in Mississippi versus $414 per pupil in the
United States. . . . The average teacher salary in Mississippi pays
$3,700 while the national average is $5,700—and all our surround-
ing states pay more. One result of this system is that in 1960 over
one half of Mississippi draftees failed the mental examination of
the armed forces—in this category we led the nation!
But our concern tonight is really not what education is costing
us but, rather, what can we expect to get back in return for our in-
vestment?
The United States Chamber of Commerce says that a man
55
with a college degree will, from age twenty-five to sixty-five, earn

$180,000 more than a high school graduate; and a high school
graduate will earn $109,000 more than a man with less than eight
years of school. In an average year, the man with less than eight
years of school will earn $2,860; the man with the high school di-
ploma will earn $4,700; the man with a college degree will earn
$9,100.
And did you know that in Lee County seventy-five percent of
our men over age twenty-six have not finished high school? I was
at Milam Junior High last week . . . there were over two hundred
bright, good-looking boys and girls, and yet twenty-five of these
won’t even show up for the tenth grade next fall. Certainly there is
a need for quality education.
We are now making a great effort—one hundred and thirty per-
cent in the last ten years for education versus a seventy percent
national increase [in spending for education]. Even so we are not
gaining much ground. To do so means higher school budgets, and
higher school budgets mean more tax dollars.
This may mean higher taxes today but it also means greater in-
come tomorrow—and greater opportunities for our children. I sin-
cerely believe that money spent on quality education is an invest-
ment with a handsome dividend guaranteed.
Reed offered a number of suggestions for the improvement

of education, including passing an education bill that would in-
crease teacher salaries and, thereby, increase teacher retention;
enlarging the state board of education; strengthening the ju-
nior college system; and investing more in both Tupelo and Lee
County schools, even if it meant higher taxes.
During the next several years, Reed became even more involved
in public education, especially the Tupelo schools. All four of his
children—Jack, Jr., Camille, Catherine, and Scott—were active in
the Tupelo schools and that, of course, meant the parents were
equally involved.
Reed’s father had died suddenly in November 1956, and the
three Reed brothers had become equal partners in the family
business and in civic affairs, including the public schools. While
56
Jack was the most prominent spokesman in support of public edu-

cation, maintaining strong schools was a family mission, and his
brothers were supportive and also committed to keeping their
children in the Tupelo public schools.
It was through his work with the MEC on a statewide level and
with CDF back at home that Reed says he became so heavily in-
volved in public education. “The MEC was determined that our
public schools would not only remain open but succeed,” he says,
“and the CDF, driven by George McLean’s one million dollar
challenge to put reading assistants in each Lee County elemen-
tary school, was vitally concerned with early childhood education.
Between those two organizations it was easy for me to become in-
volved.”
While he had become deeply involved in the family business,
Reed says during his days as a student at Vanderbilt University
he had fully intended to become a college English professor. He
even considered the possibility while in the army. “When I was in
the service, I thought very seriously that that was what I wanted
to do,” he says. “But when I got back I realized that it didn’t suit
my personality, but I never lost my love for education.”
In 1980, the progressive William Winter, Reed’s longtime friend
and staunch ally in support of public schools, became governor
of Mississippi. During his campaign in 1979 it was the broadest
and sturdiest plank in his platform, and, once elected, Winter set
in motion his plan for lifting Mississippi schools from the bottom.
Reed would become an integral part of that plan.
Theirs was an easy alliance. They were similar in myriad ways:
rural north Mississippians (Winter was from Grenada, a hundred
miles southwest of Tupelo) who were church leaders and “mod-
erates” when it came to race relations. Both had a steadfast faith
in the people of Mississippi and longed for the day when her chil-
dren would receive the education they deserved.
One of Winter’s first accomplishments as governor was to con-
vince the legislature to establish a twenty-member Special Com-
mittee on Public School Finance and Administration, and it would
soon become known as the Blue Ribbon Committee on Edu-
cation.
57
Reed was one of Winter’s eight appointments to the commit-

tee; Lieutenant Governor Brad Dye appointed six senators, and
Buddie Newman, speaker of the house, appointed six represen-
tatives. At the committee’s first meeting Reed was unanimously
elected chair.
Reed’s appointment to the Blue Ribbon Committee had a sig-
nificant impact on his public life. For six months he, the layman,
was immersed in a detailed study of public education in Missis-
sippi and was closely involved with the leading members of the
Mississippi legislature.
As chair, Reed quickly became aware of the adversarial rela-
tionship between the senate and house of representatives, and he
says that tenuous and often tumultuous relationship was so per-
vasive and the twelve legislative members disagreed so often that
the balance of power rested in the eight governor’s appointees,
who worked well together.
Reed commented at the time, “While I, as past president of
the MEC, and Claude Ramsey, Mississippi’s leading labor leader,
agreed more than 90 percent of the time, the house and senate
members never agreed on anything!”
Ramsey was considered by some as a bane to the business com-
munity, and that he and Reed would find themselves allies on the
Blue Ribbon Committee was beyond interesting. Both, however,
respected each other and shared a commitment to public edu-
cation.
“Actually, it was Claude who made the motion that the chair-
man should be one of the governor’s appointees,” Reed recalls.
Discord among the politicians on the committee, however, did
not restrain the affable Reed from forging close ties with lead-
ers of both legislative chambers. He became good friends with
Representative Robert Clark and Senator Jack Gordon, chairmen
of their respective legislative committees on education, whose
knowledge and understanding of the problems faced by Missis-
sippi’s public schools he came to respect.
After one memorable and heated debate between Gordon and
Clark over which consultant should be chosen to work on a new
funding formula for the schools, Dr. John Augenblick with the
58
Education Commission of the States was hired and a progressive

new blueprint was devised.
The blueprint, however, proved impossible to implement with-
out a statewide reappraisal of property. This reappraisal would
equalize the efforts of each of Mississippi’s 152 school districts to
meet their taxation support of school finance. Fortunately, under
the leadership of J. C. Redd of Jackson and other business lead-
ers (including Reed) a lawsuit against the state of Mississippi was
successful in bringing about the statewide reappraisal.
This was hardly the first time a committee had been formed
to study public education in Mississippi. Report after report had
gathered the dust of the ages on the shelves of the state capitol.
Winter, however, was determined this group’s work would not be
in vain.
The Blue Ribbon Committee laid the groundwork for the pas-
sage of the historic Education Reform Act of 1982—a sweeping
piece of legislation unmatched by that of any other state in the
Union and one that forever changed Mississippi’s schools.
It had not been easy. Indeed, it had been extremely frustrat-
ing for Winter and his staff, and also for Reed and his nineteen
associates on the Blue Ribbon Committee. During the 1981 ses-
sion, the committee presented seventeen pieces of legislation it
felt would improve public schools in Mississippi—including ap-
pointed superintendents, kindergartens, mandatory attendance,
lay boards of education, and equity funding—yet not a single one
made it to the floor of either the senate or house of representa-
tives. It made little, if any, difference that the Blue Ribbon Com-
mittee had been established by the legislature and even included
a dozen legislators. Clearly, education was still not a top priority
in the state legislature.
Others around the state, however, were beginning to clearly
understand what Winter, Reed, and their cohorts were trying
to get across to the legislature—that Mississippi’s floundering
public school system was blocking any real progress in economic
development and quality of life. While there was little positive re-
sponse and no positive action from the legislature, Mississippi’s
public school leaders, not surprisingly, had paid close attention
59
to the Blue Ribbon Committee’s efforts, and the Mississippi As-

sociation of Educators presented Reed its 1981 Friend of Educa-
tion Award.
In his acceptance speech at a banquet on May 5, 1981, in Tu-
pelo, with Winter and several legislators among those in the audi-
ence, Reed did not hold back his feelings about the legislature’s
inaction.
I believe in education, both public and private. I believe public

education is of primary importance. And, frankly, I believe that inte-
grated public education is a precept of democracy.
However, in the past year I have discovered that everybody does
not share the intensity of my feelings about this. In fact, I can tell
you that with a few notable exceptions (some of whom are here
tonight), the Mississippi legislature really does not consider the im-
provement of public education to be a priority of state government
today.
As a matter of fact, I think many in the legislature were surprised,
some perhaps even dismayed, that our committee took its work so
seriously.
Even Reed’s sense of humor was a bit more pointed on this

night. He remarked that on the last day of the legislative session
for bills to be introduced on the floor he had called the gover-
nor’s office and learned that none of the seventeen bills his com-
mittee had recommended had made the cut.
I told him that proved our point. Public education in Mississippi

was woefully inadequate—since virtually all of the legislators are
products of the system! I also told him that I felt like the woman
whose tombstone read: “She lived with her husband for fifty years
and died in the confident hope of a better life.”
It was during this speech that Reed introduced his set of “three
Rs” that he believed were holding back Mississippi. They would
become a central part of his presentations in the months and
60
years to come whenever he spoke out on behalf of public edu-

cation.
There are, of course, several reasons for this lack of commitment,

including a new set of Rs that we ran into: resentment, reluctance,
and race.
Resentment of federal interference; reluctance of private school
supporters to tax themselves for public education; and, despite
tremendous progress in this regard and without dramatizing the
point, racism. Racism remains a major influence in our state, and
public schools are still the focal point of its expression.
But against these objections we need to weigh these factors
and the conclusions of our committee. Our recommendations were
essentially identical to those made by every study committee and
consultant group that has studied Mississippi schools—for the last
twenty-five years!
We called for more professionalism and less politics, for a lay
board of education, for appointed school superintendents, for fiscal
independence of school districts, for a better formula for distrib-
uting state money among 152 school districts, for compulsory at-
tendance, and for public kindergarten.
Plus, we called for some less important matters, practically all of
which are commonplace in every other state in the Union. And not
one single bill even got out of committee!
In effect, the legislature—whose members comprised sixty per-
cent of our committee’s membership—said: “So what? What’s the
big deal?” Or as one prominent member from south Mississippi
was quoted by U.P.I. as saying: “All these things have come up be-
fore. If there was a need for them it would have been passed long
before now.”
Such logic frustrated Reed, and he made no attempt to cover

his disdain for such a remark. He says he believed it was a “moral
issue of our responsibility as adults to our children and to God’s
children” and then quoted the U.S. Department of Commerce
figures on the per capita income of southern states—figures
61
that, as usual, placed Arkansas and Mississippi at the bottom of

the list.
In 1970, we were $150 behind Arkansas. In 1980, we are $700

behind Arkansas.
My friends, you can be idealistic and altruistic or cynical and self-
ish. Either way, you will still come to the inescapable conclusion
that we must either educate our young people and prepare them
for jobs of the future, or we can put them on welfare rolls and sup-
port them for the rest of their lives.
So let me say to you tonight—and to the legislature—that this
is a choice we cannot afford to make. . . .
I have often asked myself the questions: If we had an active
state board of education; if we had appointed superintendents; if
we had the money, what would be the first thing the educators
would recommend our doing?
After months of intensive investigation I am convinced that it
would be: to enact a good compulsory attendance law and insti-
tute a statewide public kindergarten program for the purpose of
early childhood education—and I know that is what we should
dedicate ourselves to achieving during this administration. . . .
Personally, I believe that it is more than just coincidence that
Mississippi is the only state in the Union without public kindergar-
tens and we are also last in most all standards of economics and
educational measurement.
And we can do something about it. Yesterday’s [Northeast Mis-
sissippi Daily] Journal began: “To achieve is to believe that what
ought to be can be.”
I believe that, and we have a lot going for us. For one thing, the
public has become better informed. For another, we have never be-
fore had a governor who has the commitment to public education
and to excellence that William Winter has.
And if we, as educators and concerned citizens, will concentrate
on the same priorities such as the compulsory attendance and kin-
dergarten we can start a forward movement that will eventually af-
fect the entire educational complex.
And if that doesn’t work, maybe we can all become “aginners.”
62
They seem to be the ones that get heard. They get more agitated
than reasonable people do. They are more strident, more emo-
tional, more frightening to elected officials.
So maybe we can be against ignorance and against poverty.
Reed’s remarks were welcomed by a better-informed public.

With more information than they had ever been given, private
citizens had a much clearer understanding of what was at stake,
and a measure of support all across Mississippi was growing
stronger each day.
Despite the legislative rejections, Winter and his staff stayed
the course, clinging to the recommendations by the Blue Ribbon
Committee. Slowly but surely they built public support for the
measures through a series of town hall meetings all across Mis-
sissippi, and were backed by the strong endorsement of many of
the state’s leading newspapers.
A precursor to the Education Reform Act of 1982 had been the
approval in the November general election by Mississippi voters
of Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 506—revising the makeup
of the Mississippi Board of Education into a nine-member lay
board whose members would be responsible for hiring the state
superintendent. Historically, the state board had been comprised
of the attorney general, the secretary of state, and the elected
state superintendent of education, and many saw no need for a
change.
It had not been a “sexy” issue, and those working hardest for
its passage were afraid a lack of interest, lack of understanding,
or both would lead to its doom. But it did pass—by a margin
of 219,973 to 203,005—and it set the stage for “the Christmas
miracle of 1982.” Once Winter’s statewide forums had been com-
pleted and the lay board passed into law, most legislators, edu-
cators, supporters, and observers figured the rest of the gover-
nor’s reform package would wait until the 1983 session began in
January.
Winter and many on his staff, however, sensed a need to “seize
the moment,” and the governor called for a special legislative ses-
sion to begin on December 6. Two tumultuous—and sometimes
63
contentious—weeks later the Education Reform Act of 1982 be-

came the law. It was bold, sweeping legislation, and overnight Mis-
sissippi’s vision for public education became a national model.
Though the Blue Ribbon Committee’s work was finished, Reed’s
was not. In January 1984, Winter was succeeded in the gover-
nor’s office by Bill Allain, who would appoint Reed to the newly
formed state board of education. He would serve with Joe Blount,
Carolyn Gwin, Arthur Peyton, Talmadge Portis, James Price, Jr.,
Lucimarian Roberts, Joe Ross, Jr., and Tommy Webb.
“I think it was a really good first-time board plowing new
ground, and was helped greatly by Allain’s temporary appoint-
ment of Andy Mullins to the staff of the board until it became of-
ficial,” Reed says. Mullins had also been on the staff of Winter’s
Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Reed, and the two worked
well together. (Six months later, Mullins would be hired as spe-
cial assistant to the state superintendent of education.)
“We came from all sorts of backgrounds, but we all got along
really well. I think the main thing is that all of us were concerned
about the children. We made them our first priority in every de-
cision we made.”
64
c h a pt er sev en
1985–2006:
Making Measurable Progress
“We have too much at stake.”
On June 22, 1985, a little more than a year after being named to
the Mississippi Board of Education and being elected its chair,
Reed addressed the Mississippi Press Association at its annual
luncheon meeting in Biloxi. His purpose was twofold: to thank
the newspapers from around the state for their very vital part
in securing passage of the Education Reform Act of 1982 and
to give them a glimpse of things to come for Mississippi school-
children.
Although I have been introduced often this past year as “an impor-
tant person—chairman of the Mississippi Board of Education”—
consider, if you will, that we are last in dollars of pupil support,
last in teacher pay, last in most test scores, and last in statewide lit-
eracy. That is hardly a record that would make the chairman arro-
gant, is it? Sometimes, I’m surprised anyone would take the job.
And, philosophically speaking, I would hope that education and ar-
rogance would never go together. . . . So I am not arrogant about
public education in Mississippi—but neither am I apologetic.
Nor am I discouraged or pessimistic—though I’m not quite as
optimistic as the couple who went to city hall to see if their mar-
riage license had expired.
But I am a pragmatist. They say the difference in an optimist and
a pragmatist is that the pragmatist is better informed. And I have
65
1985–2006: Making Measurable Progress
become much better informed about education in the last eighteen

months—and I’m still optimistic.
However, there was one thing that I already knew before taking
office, and that was that a great many members of the Mississippi
Press Association were in support of Governor Winter’s Education
Reform Act and can claim the primary responsibility for the enact-
ment of that bill into law. And as a citizen of this state who cares
about it, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that
support. It is clear to me that “education” and “Mississippi press”
are words that do go together, and it is to the benefit of us all that
they do.
So one very important reason I accepted the invitation is to
come and thank you, to ask for your continued support—and to
promise you that our board of education will make every effort to
merit your support.
Reed reminded the MPA audience of the poll United Press

International had taken back in 1963 in which forty-one of fifty
legislators polled had said they would consider closing public
schools if they were integrated. He also recalled the legislature’s
refusal, nearly twenty years later, to consider even one of the sev-
enteen measures recommended by the Blue Ribbon Committee
on Education. Then, however, he spoke of the progress that had
been made in the few short years since education reform laws had
been enacted.
There was no priority commitment to public education in the

Mississippi legislature as late as 1981, and, of course, the legisla-
ture merely reflected its constituents as is generally the case.
Then Governor Winter and his aides and school supporters or-
chestrated a massive statewide effort in 1982. A constitutional
amendment authorizing the lay board of education passed, and
a special session of the legislature resulted in the Education Re-
form Act.
To my mind, that was the most significant piece of legislation to
come out in my lifetime, and beginning last year, the legislature has
charged the state board of education with implementing it. . . .
66
We are making measurable progress, and we are working to-

gether as a team. We are nine independent thinkers who are all
political appointees but who are, in fact, the least politically moti-
vated or dominated board with which I have ever worked. We all
have a shared commitment to improving public education in Mis-
sissippi and in making the Education Reform Act work. We will
undoubtedly make some mistakes, but we will accept the blame
when we do—and we won’t cop out on our responsibility.
Reed then summarized the highs and lows of the state board
of education’s first year, highlighting the hiring of Dr. Richard
Boyd as the state’s first appointed superintendent of education.
“We could not have hired a better man to serve in that role for
the first time,” Reed recalls. “The whole way of doing business
was new to all of us, and Dick was the perfect person to guide us
through those early days. They weren’t always easy and the board
didn’t agree on everything, but Dick Boyd made sure we kept our
focus on the children of Mississippi.”
As he continued his speech to the MPA, Reed said he and
many of his fellow board members were concerned about the im-
petus of Winter’s education reform losing steam. Earlier in 1985,
many Mississippi teachers, led by a group from Stone County in
south Mississippi, had voted to go on strike in the middle of the
legislative session. After several days of negotiations among the
teachers, the state board of education, and members of the leg-
islature, however, the strike had been averted.
Reed, though, was still worried about support for education
reform slowing, and implored the members of the press to con-
tinue focusing their editorial spotlights on public education.
But we cannot let the negativists, the doomsayers and the

“aginners” get us down. We have too many good things going for
us and we have too much at stake.
Just a few days ago I read a fine column [in the Washington
Post] by one of my favorites, William Raspberry of Okolona, in
which he was commenting on the way out of poverty. “You can-
not learn to produce success by studying failure . . . you need a
67
success-focused course of action.” That’s what we have in the Edu-

cation Reform Act. It is no quick fix, but it will pay great dividends
if we stay with it. And we must. It will benefit us all.
Every candidate for statewide office in my lifetime, from Bilbo
to the present, has declared on the stump that “our people are
our greatest asset.” That’s a great half-truth, and it was Benjamin
Franklin who said that half a truth “is often a great lie.” If edu-
cated, our people are our greatest asset. If not educated, they are
our greatest liability.
Last fall I was speaking at the faculty convocation at Mississippi
State University where the principal speaker was a member of the
National Committee on Excellence in Education who had brought
out the paper “A Nation at Risk” with its widely quoted statement
that “a rising tide of mediocrity was sweeping over public edu-
cation.”
While driving down to Starkville that morning I was thinking
of that and I thought that there is another tide. In Julius Caesar
Shakespeare wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which
taken at the flood leads on to fortune; / Omitted, all the voyage of
their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
It was the first week of school, and, while driving, I passed sev-
eral groups of rural schoolchildren on the roadside, waiting for
their school buses. They were nice-looking children, both black and
white, and I thought, These children are a fortune waiting to be
developed—but if we miss this great opportunity, if we fail in edu-
cation reform, they will indeed be destined to spend the voyage
of their lives “in shallows and in miseries” just as their parents and
grandparents have done because of the twin plagues of poverty
and ignorance.
We cannot afford to fail, and I promise you that our board of
education and our superintendent are committed to real and sub-
stantial improvement in public education in Mississippi.
But our commitment is not enough. I’m reminded of the politi-
cian who was told, “Every right thinking person in the state will
vote for you.” “That’s not enough,” he replied. “I need a majority.”
That’s what we need in support of public schools in Mississippi if
we are to realize the potential of the Education Reform Act.
68
And no group can do more to generate that support than the

Mississippi Press Association. In fact, no one has done more than you.
But the fight is not over. In fact, it has just begun. But with your
help and the help of others we can win it. We must win it. I believe
we will win it.
For the next nine years, Reed would serve on the board of edu-
cation, calling it “some of the most meaningful work I’ve ever
been involved in.” During those nine years, Mississippi did in-
deed climb off the very bottom of many education measuring
standards, as promised during the push for passage of the Edu-
cation Reform Act.
That Education Reform Act of 1982, Reed says, provided ed-
ucators in Mississippi—in the individual schools and in the state
department headquarters—“an awful lot of opportunities.” He is
adamant in his belief that most school people took advantage of
those opportunities, “or otherwise [Mississippi] would not have
shown the improvement it has for the past twenty years.
“I wouldn’t take anything for those years,” Reed says. “Gov-
ernor Allain was true to his word; it was a very rewarding job. I
am very grateful for having had the opportunity to serve in that
capacity. The budget problems and the teacher strike certainly
weren’t enjoyable, but overall it was a truly wonderful experi-
ence.”
He says the most pleasant surprise of his tenure was becoming
familiar with the staff of the Mississippi Department of Educa-
tion. “There were so many critics of the department that I didn’t
know what to expect. But it didn’t take me long to realize the
quality of the folks in the department and how dedicated they
were to improving education in Mississippi.”
Reed says he is most proud of the board’s work with establishing
kindergartens in the public school systems and with the teaching
assistants in elementary classrooms. Both programs, he hastens
to add, were passions of his mentor, George McLean, the vener-
able publisher of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. His big-
gest regret, he says, was that the board was never able to persuade
the legislature to abolish elected local school super intendents or
69
to do away with the 60 percent requirement for passage of local

school bond issues.
“I think every serious educator I talked with by the time I
went off the board—both in our state and around the country—
agreed that we had improved education in Mississippi, and that
we had improved it greatly,” he says. “We’ve still got a lot of work
to do, but I am confident that our public schools are stronger
than they’ve ever been.”
In 1990, Reed’s focus turned to the national stage when Presi-

dent George H. W. Bush appointed him to a three-year term on
the National Advisory Council on Educational Research and Im-
provement. His relationship with Lamar Alexander, the secre-
tary of education and a former governor of Tennessee, helped
make the connection from the White House to Reed’s office on
Spring Street in downtown Tupelo. At the very first meeting of
the fifteen-member council, Reed was named chair.
“There was no election or anything,” Reed says with a chuckle.
“We all just showed up, and the White House representative at
the meeting just announced that ‘Mr. Reed will set the agenda.’ I
was as surprised as everyone else.”
In an op-ed piece for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal,
Reed wrote that the council “was created for the purpose of advis-
ing the President, the Secretary of Education, and the Congress
on policies and activities carried out by the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of
Education.
“We are to review and publicly comment on the activities of
OERI and to insure implementation of educational reform based
on the findings of educational research,” he wrote. “In addition
we generate our own research in areas that we feel there is an un-
met need.”
Reed wrote that the fifteen members of the council represented
all levels of education and various geographic areas and were ap-
pointed by the president with “the hope . . . that we will bring
‘grass roots’ thinking and experience to the department’s re-
search activities.”
70
“That was a very interesting appointment,” Reed says. “We

were perceived as having power, but I don’t think we really did. I
didn’t have much direct contact with President Bush; most of my
dealings were with Lamar Alexander. But like the name of the
council says, we were just an advisory committee.”
Reed says at the first meeting, Dr. Harold Hodgkinson, a noted
authority on educational demographics, told him Mississippi was
doing more with less than any other state in the way of educa-
tional reform. “That really made me feel good, especially since
he said it in front of the whole council.”
He freely admits that while he was grateful for the appoint-
ment and the exposure to what was going on in other areas of
the United States, he’s not sure what, if anything, the council ac-
complished. “I know we produced an annual report which, I pre-
sume, was not paid any attention. Other than that, I think my best
work was keeping the council from emphasizing school choice.
The transportation problems alone would have been disastrous
for Mississippi and so many other rural states. I also opposed tax
money going to private schools which were so prevalent in Missis-
sippi just to escape integration.”
Reed’s term on the council ended in 1993 when Bill Clinton
succeeded Bush in the White House, and in June 1994 his term
on the state board of education came to an end. At age seventy,
he might have been expected to retire to his grandchildren and
the golf course, but that was not in his genes. Instead, he be-
came more involved in the affairs of downtown Tupelo, con-
tinued his work with CREATE and the Community Development
Foundation, and served as chairman of the first Commission on
the Future of Northeast Mississippi, where—to no one’s great
surprise—he emphasized the importance of public schools for
the economic health of the region, even promoting free tuition
for qualified students to area community colleges, an effort he
continues to support on a statewide basis.
In the fall of 2004, Reed, now eighty years old, was called on once
again to speak out on behalf of public education in Mississippi—
this time for the Coalition for Children and Public Education,
71
together with his longtime ally, William Winter. As expected, both

men responded.
The state’s two most prominent proponents of education hit
the roads, speaking at rallies around the state urging the legisla-
ture to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program
(MAEP), which would assure that all school districts had enough
money to provide students an adequate education. MAEP had
been passed into law in 1997 but had been fully funded only
once, in 2003. Reed and Winter not only called on the legisla-
ture to address this issue when it convened in January 2005, but
to make it the first priority.
On September 7, 2004, Reed addressed a large group of sup-
porters, including educators and noneducators alike, gathered at
the Advanced Education Center in Tupelo:
It’s nice to be among friends and it’s a pleasure to be on the

program with Governor Winter. He and I are here representing
Octogenarians Against Ignorance.
We are facing a critical time for education in Mississippi and
the children of our state need our help NOW. Twenty years ago it
was public support under the leadership of William Winter that re-
sulted in our nation’s first education reform act, which brought vast
improvement to Mississippi public schools, and if we are going to
keep the momentum going as it has been in recent years it will be
public support—strong and dedicated—that will be responsible,
just as it was then.
Unlike twenty years ago, I honestly believe that most members
of our legislature agree with the importance of public education,
but as Governor Winter said so well the other day, “Trying to fund
education with the legislative budget adopted last session was like
trying to squeeze a size twelve foot into a size ten shoe.”
The result was underfunding the Adequate Education Program
by $79 million—even with the use of one-time revenue, which ob-
viously will not be available this next year.
Our coalition believes, indeed we know, that the adequate edu-
cation formula, when fully funded as it was in 2003, provides the
72
minimum amount needed in each district to adequately educate

its children. As you will learn today, experience and national test
scores prove that it is doing the job.
Remember, too, that underfunding was before we had to
comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, which will require lo-
cal matching dollars as well as putting additional pressure on our
teachers and administrators.
Only two states today provide fewer dollars per student than
Mississippi. The national average is $8,400 per pupil; the Missis-
sippi average is $6,400 per pupil.
Another state that was comparable to Mississippi was Arkansas.
I say “was” because just last month the announcement was made
that Arkansas, which has been under court order because they
were not providing equity funding for students as Mississippi has
wisely done, that Arkansas has now generated $370,000,000 in
new revenues specifically for public education from prekindergar-
ten through the twelfth grade. And, furthermore, the Arkansas leg-
islature is required to first fund public education, which is exactly
what our coalition is urging our legislature to do.
Reed then reflected on his time on President Bush’s National

Advisory Council on Educational Research and Improvement,
and on Dr. Hodgkinson’s remark about Mississippi schools ac-
complishing more with less than any other state. And after an
off-the-cuff remark explaining how education finance was like
a Russian novel—“it’s long, boring, and in the end everybody
dies”—he called on his old friend from American history to make
his point.
Actually, the Mississippi formula is achieving the very goal that

Thomas Jefferson, the founder of our nation’s public education, set
over two hundred years ago, “for America to have an aristocracy
of achievement based on equality of opportunity.” Simply said, that
is all that we are trying to do.
What we are here about today is very serious business. It is
about our state’s future. It is about our children’s future. Our goal is
73
simple: to convince the legislature to fully fund the Adequate Edu-

cation Program as the law requires, and to do it first—because we
believe it is the most important responsibility of our state!
But while the goal is simple, achieving it is not. We must secure
strong legislative support—probably even two-thirds support—
and we must get our legislators’ commitments before the session
begins.
I strongly approve of the governor’s economic development pro-
grams and I know he will give it strong leadership . . . but I can as-
sure you from my own experience in Tupelo and in Mississippi that
the quality of our public schools is the key to economic success—in
securing industry, in expanding industry, and in work force develop-
ment, as well as being perhaps the primary factor in determining a
community’s quality of life. . . .
This effort—our effort, yours and mine—is not a bipartisan is-
sue, and don’t let anyone tell you that it is.
It is a nonpartisan issue!
It is a Mississippi issue!
It is an economic issue!
And above all else, it is a children’s issue!
Sad, but true, it is also a political issue. It is also true that all poli-
tics is local, so when we talk about petitions and contacts we are
talking about your contacts in your school districts with your repre-
sentatives and your senators.
Surely, we can make our voices heard on this issue, this fall.
Please listen to what is said here today. It is a good plan; please go
home and work the plan.
We may never have this opportunity again—at least, not in
Governor Winter’s and my lifetime.
On January 11, 2005, more than a thousand supporters and

members of the Coalition for Children and Public Education
rallied on the south steps of the state capitol to make their goals
clear to the state legislature. Reed and Winter were there, of
course, and made brief but encouraging remarks before hand-
ing to legislative leaders a petition signed by more than 140,000
registered Mississippi voters supporting the full funding. So, too,
74
were many legislators gathered, all saying the right thing: that
they fully intended to fully fund the MAEP and that they would
do it first. But the state’s budget woes were worse than antici-
pated, and the legislative champions were not successful. Full
funding did not pass.
Reed and Winter remained resolute, and both vowed to con-
tinue the good fight. “If you can’t stand up for your state’s chil-
dren,” Reed asks, “what can you stand up for?”
75
c h a pt er ei g ht
1970–Present:
The Need for Leadership
“Only good people create good change.”
Throughout his more than fifty years of speaking out on issues,

whether it be race relations, church work, education, or economic
development, one theme was the common thread woven into the
fabric of Jack Reed’s speeches: leadership.
Mississippi’s race relations would never improve if leadership
from all sides of the complicated equation did not step forward;
church leaders had a responsibility to do more than hold Sunday
services and Wednesday night prayer meetings; school leaders
had to be for more than just learning a trade or how to read and
write; business and industry leaders needed to look farther than
the bottom line and consider the greater good of their commu-
nity. In Reed’s eyes it was all a matter of leadership—and he said
so in his speeches.
It was a rare occurrence when he did not in some way call on
the shared beliefs of his mentor, George McLean. “George used
to say that, as important as they are, governments do not change
communities and that ideas alone don’t change communities.
He believed, and I do, too, that only people create change; only
people create specific change; and only good people create good
change—God’s people doing God’s will.”
While he spoke most often to groups of contemporaries, Reed
relished the opportunity to speak with young people about the
76
1970–Present: The Need for Leadership
responsibilities of leadership. He was often invited to do so, par-

ticularly at commencement exercises.
On May 7, 1970, Reed addressed the ninth-grade “graduating
class” at what was then Milam Junior High, the venerable old
schoolhouse that had been Tupelo’s white high school when he
was a student. As one deeply involved in the planning for the
soon-to-come total desegregation of the Tupelo public schools,
Reed knew the all-white student body gathered in the auditorium
on that day would be the construction crew that carried out the
architects’ plans.
His opening remarks included appropriate sophomoric jokes,
but his message was the same: cooperation and leadership were
the keys to true success.
I was talking with one of your fathers the other day (I won’t say
who) and asked him what you were going to be when you finished
college. “At the rate he’s going now,” he said, “he’ll be an old man.”
And just this morning I asked one of your teachers if she had
any unusual students in her class. “Yes,” she responded, “I have
three who do their homework.”. . .
It is a challenge to speak to young people today. Movies, televi-
sion, cars, and greater personal freedom have made you the most
sophisticated fifteen-year-olds in history. Ann Landers says that if
Booth Tarkington were to write his famous book Seventeen today
he would have to call it Twelve! And I suspect she’s right.
Yes, you are sophisticated and well educated. On the average
you are bigger and stronger than your parents. You have more
money than they had. You have fewer rules and restrictions than
they had. And I daresay a few of you are even smarter and perhaps
better than we were.
But to be perfectly fair and honest, you will have to give your
parents and grandparents credit for this because what has gone on
before in times past is your heritage. . . . You are a unique class.
You are different, and in more ways than one. . . .
In spite of all that I have said about the past, no ninth-grade
class has ever graduated in Tupelo, Mississippi, that has the
77
opportunity to do as much for this community as you in this room

have today. I am not kidding. I am serious.
This world—our world—is changing and how it changes is pretty
much up to you. Mama Cass has said it in a great way in her song
“New World Coming”:
There’s a New World Coming

And it’s just around the bend
There’s a new world coming
This one’s coming to an end
There’s a new voice calling

You can hear it if you try
And it’s growing stronger
With each day that passes by
There’s a brand new morning

Rising clear and sweet and free
There’s a new day dawning
That belongs to you and me
There’s a new world coming

The one we’ve had visions of
Coming in peace, coming in joy, coming in love
But believe me, it won’t come in peace and joy and love unless
you help make it that way, and unless my generation helps make it
that way.
When “a new world comes,” it will come because the young
and old have worked together to make it so. You can never have
separate worlds for the young, for the old fogies of forty-five, and
another for the seventy-fives.
When Johnny Cash sings, “And . . . youth cries: What is truth?,”
the truth is that the world of tomorrow is going to be made by the
young and old working together. It has always been that way and
it always will be that way. And you and I had both better be doing
our part to bridge the generation gap.
78
We joke about it and cry about it and talk about it, but the
generation gap between you and me is only as wide as you and I
make it. . . .
Then Reed got to the heart of the matter. There were no more
oblique references, no more song lyrics. His words were words
the students had, no doubt, heard spoken in their living rooms
and dens and around their dinner tables—and, of course, among
themselves in the hallways, classrooms, locker rooms, and cafe-
teria at school, and at teen hangouts around town. But this time
they were hearing them from one of Tupelo’s leading citizens, a
man they knew to be actively involved in shaping the world they
were about to enter.
Let me tell you why you here in this class can really make a
greater contribution to this town than any class ever has before:
starting next fall, and certainly over the next two or three years
during which you will be finishing high school, the city of Tupelo
is going to have to effectively integrate our entire school system. I
don’t know how, but certainly to a much greater degree than is the
case today.
This will not be an easy job for anybody, but I am sure that the
school board and school officials will do the fairest job that they
can do. Yet I am sure that many students, both white and black,
will not like the new system as well as the old system that you have
grown up in and have become accustomed to. But you and I know
that this is the law of the land and that it must be done.
It is not a matter of choice for anybody. It is a question of neces-
sity for everybody.
And how well this school integration is carried out will deter-
mine how well this community gets along socially, economically,
and in every other way. This is something that only you can work
out, and you have done a fine job so far. But city hall can’t do it,
your teachers can’t do it, and your parents can’t do it. You must
do it. . . .
Do you realize that many of the student leaders of the Tupelo
school system for the next three years are sitting right in front of
79
me this morning? It’s true . . . and you have a great opportunity

and a tremendous responsibility, but you can do it.
When I was in the ninth grade my brother got a motto for his
room at home that said, “Aim high and consider yourself worthy of
great things.” That is what you’ve got to do if you are to set goals
in your life of which you can be proud.
If Tupelo continues to prosper, to be a happy place to live and
go to school, you all here today will have to be part of the answer,
not part of the problem. And you must never forget that it is a lot
easier to tear something down than it is to build it up, whether it’s
a house, or a school, or a town, or your life. . . .
You are going to have to be open-minded. You’re going to have
to be tolerant. You are going to have to see things from two points
of view if this thing is to work. . . .
Four years ago, my wife and I went to East Berlin and the iron
curtain border countries with a group from Radio Free Europe.
We saw the “Wall of Shame” in Berlin, built by communists not
to keep people out of East Germany but to keep people in who
wanted to get out.
From Berlin, we went to Czechoslovakia and visited the eighth
cavalry unit there, made up of southern boys from both races
who were protecting our freedom thousands of miles from home.
In case of attack, these men were expendable, but under the
American flag and over their mess hall flew their motto: “We Can
and We Will.”
I think that we here can preserve the fine things in our heritage
and add much to that heritage for the classes that come behind
and look to you and to us for leadership in the years just ahead.
Yes, I think we can—if we will. And I believe you will. Good luck!
As important as they are, governments do not change com-
munities; ideas alone do not change communities; neither hope
nor even prayers alone change communities. Only people create
change; only specific people create specific change; and only good
people create good change—God’s people doing God’s will.
Nearly twenty years and numerous speeches later, Reed was still
preaching the leadership gospel. In addressing a group of young
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business professionals in the 1988 Leadership Mississippi pro-

gram, sponsored by the Mississippi Economic Council, Reed re-
called the words of President John Kennedy during his 1963 com-
mencement speech at Vanderbilt University: “I speak to you today
not of your rights as Americans but of your responsibilities. They
are many in number and different in nature. They do not rest
with equal weight upon the shoulders of all. Equality of opportu-
nity does not mean equality of responsibility. All Americans must
be responsible citizens, but some must be more responsible than
others by virtue of their public or private positions, their role in
the family or community, their prospects for the future, or their
legacy from the past. Increased responsibility goes with increased
ability, for ‘to whom much is given much is required.’”
Reed then added his own thoughts, formed over many years
of working with fellow civic and government leaders, with sales
clerks in the family retail store, and with production workers at
the family’s manufacturing plant.
I believe that to be true. It is important that you—that we—

become involved and continue our involvement if our communities
and if our state are to move ahead, and if we are to improve our
quality of life.
Quality of life might mean symphonies and art galleries to some,
air pollution and water quality to others. But to many Mississippians
it means care for senior citizens and after-school children. And to
far too many it means food, clothing, and shelter.
It was not unexpected, of course, when he tied in his belief

in education being the most important issue facing the state’s
workforce. He told his audience that there were four hundred
thousand Mississippians who were illiterate and seven hundred
thousand without high school diplomas, and that the journey to
economic stability would be difficult.
We must stay the course because it is a long one. The need will
not soon go away. There are no quick fixes in education. There are
81
no quick fixes in economic development. There are no easy ways to

be “champions of change.” And there never have been. . . .
But community service is not without its reward. Albert Schweitzer,
the great musician, theologian, and doctor who spent his life minis-
tering to the needs of the African poor, said this, after a lifetime of
service: “One thing I know—the only ones among you who will be
really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
I hope and believe that this applies to you.
In May 1994 Reed again addressed a young audience—an op-

portunity he truly enjoys—by speaking to a large group of honor
students from the Tupelo and Lee County schools. He claimed no
personal familiarity with computers (a claim he still makes), but
he clearly understood the growing role of technology (as he does
now), and right away he grabbed the students’ attention with ref-
erences to a world in which they were more comfortable.
Frankly, as we move so rapidly into a technological society the

contributions of young people are becoming more valuable than
ever before. We old folks can’t even program VCRs, much less
download, upload, and program computers.
When the secretary of the army was speaking at a war college I
attended as a guest of Smitty Harris and was asked a question he
couldn’t hear, he quickly responded: “Technology is the answer.
Now, what is the question.”
A few years ago I heard Alvin Toffler talk about his book The
Third Wave. The first wave of the economic revolution, he said,
was the agricultural revolution—the “gatherers” of cavemen—and
it lasted ten thousand years. The second wave was the industrial
revolution, and it lasted three hundred years. The third wave is the
technology revolution, but it will last only a few decades.
Toffler said this: “The basic industry of the future will not be tex-
tiles and automobiles, but education and training. If people cannot
handle the new jobs they will remain unemployed in the future.”
Some things are changing and changing rapidly, but one thing
that will not change is the need for good leaders, leaders who will
take us where we need to go. . . .
82
You are important. Like it or not, you do represent the future of

Tupelo and Lee County. Like it or not, you will be faced with chal-
lenges as great or greater than any generation up until now—and
that includes my generation.
We had three wars, integration, emerging new world powers,
while you have increasing crime and violence, drugs, AIDS, and
now even casino gambling and Beavis and Butt-head.
Like it or not, your character, your judgment, and your ability
will be tested time and again. And like it or not, you and your gen-
eration are going to have to provide the leadership if our area con-
tinues to successfully move ahead into the twenty-first century. . . .
I heard Gale Sayers, the great all-pro and hall of fame running
back for the Chicago Bears in the 1970s, speak, and he was talk-
ing about what’s important in life and about heroes. Sayers was
lamenting the fact that sports figures are the major role models for
young people today.
He said that it’s ridiculous how many people think they are go-
ing to play professional athletics, because they aren’t and that it’s
not a career even for the few who do play. “Pro sports is just a
stopping off place,” he said.
He also said that what is important is what you can do with your
life day by day, after youth and athletics. Sayers said he excelled as
a football player because he worked hard and is excelling today as
a stockbroker because he trained and disciplined himself for a ca-
reer while he was playing ball.
He is, of course, right. Leadership requires self-discipline and
commitment, and to be effective it requires more. Leaders need to
be someone you can trust. Leaders need to have a vision of a goal
to reach and the ability to inspire you into believing they can take
you there.
As Aristotle said about the first quality of leadership, “A man
must have the moral character to persuade others.”
A well-known speaker once told his audience, “Leadership re-
quires integrity and wisdom.” To which a young man asked, “What
do you mean?”
“Integrity,” the speaker said, “is if you promise you’ll do some-
thing, then do it, even if it costs money.”
83
“What’s wisdom?” the student asked.

“Not making any fool promises.”
And finally, I would remind you that people respond to positive
leadership. They respond to people who look ahead with anticipa-
tion and lift up hope.
At my son’s graduation, I well remember these words from
Chancellor Alexander Heard of Vanderbilt University: “We are vain
creatures indeed if we think our generation has been singled out
for a special fate. . . .There was a time in the fourteenth century
when at least one-third of the population of Europe was actually
wiped out, and it wasn’t accomplished by the efficiency of nuclear
warfare, but by the inefficiency of medical care.
“The Black Death was a horrible death with frightful sores, de-
lirium and insanity. In the words of Winston Churchill, ‘It seemed
like the death rattle of the race.’. . .
“The world is always in peril and yet the perspective of history
makes hope not only possible, but indeed very probable.”
I believe that. Despite the news reports, you will be leaving
school and going into a world of opportunityfor those of you who
are prepared for it, who are willing to work for it.
Tupelo, Lee County, and all of Mississippi will need your leader-
ship, just as they have needed leadership from my generation.
Some of you will answer that call and become the leaders of to-
morrow. Why not let that someone be you?
Reed’s first tenet of leadership was, and still is, involvement.

“To be a good leader you first have to be a good follower,” he says
today, while considering his lifetime of association with leaders of
all sorts. “To do that, you’ve just got to be involved. If you attach
yourself to issues you believe in, you become a good follower and
that leads to leadership.
“And you can’t fail to do your homework. It takes a lot of time,
but there’s more to it than exuberance or a gregarious person-
ality. There has to be substance. I believe a leader has to be com-
mitted and has to be willing to stay with it. I think that, more than
anything, is why Tupelo and Lee County have succeeded where
84
others have not. We’ve tried to take a long-range approach in

most everything we do and we’ve been willing to stick with it.”
Any discussion of youth leadership with Reed will inevitably re-
sult in his bringing up the Boy Scouts of America—with a twinkle
in his eye and a smile on his face. Scouting, he says without hesi-
tation or reservation, is what jump-started his civic and commu-
nity involvement.
His father, R. W. “Bob” Reed, helped establish the Yocona Area
Council in 1926 and made sure that his three sons were involved
in Scouting during their youth. “I wasn’t an Eagle Scout,” Reed
laments, “but I did make it to Life. It was during the Depression
and our troop went without a leader for more than a year and we
were lucky just to keep our troop going.”
Bob Reed spent a great deal of time promoting the Boy Scouts
throughout northeast Mississippi. He was the second president of
the Yocona Area Council, following Dr. D. L. Pursor, and served
from 1928 until 1936.
In 1948, Jack returned to Tupelo from New York Univer-
sity’s graduate school of retailing to enter the family business.
One of the first things his father did was get him involved in
Scouting, and it’s been a relationship that endured for seven de-
cades.
“Dad got me on the Yocona council board of directors when
I was a young man,” Reed recalls, “and I was surrounded by all
the really strong leaders in this area. For a young man like me to
be among those men was really a wonderful opportunity. It had
a profound influence on me.”
In the early years of Reed’s involvement with the Boy Scouts, he
worked with Erst Long and Oscar Shannon of Ripley; Dr. Richard
Warriner, Paul and Jameson Jones, and Chad Archie of Corinth;
Hugh Clayton and Roger Norman of New Albany; John Stanley
of Booneville; Dr. Charles Murry and Scott Black of Oxford; Roy
Black of Nettleton; Dick McRee and Roy Allen of Tishomingo;
Russell and Joe Bailey of Coffeeville; Howard Stafford of Pon-
totoc; Dr. Elton McIntosh, Glenn Fant, and Ed Rather of Holly
Springs; Philip Sheffield of Fulton; and a host of Tupelo leaders:
85
Allison Bell, Felix Black, Medford Leake, J. C. Whitehead, Henry

Brevard, Chauncey Godwin, and Paul Eason.
“Our boards were comprised of the best men in northeast Mis-
sissippi and it still is true today,” Reed says. “It’s hard not to be
impressed with the leadership of this organization. I got to know
so many of the area’s leaders through Scouting first, and I’m
pretty sure that’s where I first came to understand the regional
approach to addressing issues.”
As his involvement in civic affairs grew, so too did Reed’s de-
votion to Scouting. Time and again, throughout northeast Missis-
sippi and beyond, he was the keynote speaker at Boy Scout ban-
quets, as well as serving on the Yocona Area Council, and his
message never varied: Scouting is good for America.
During a 1995 speech at an annual meeting of the council,
Reed assured those gathered that the Boy Scouts of America was
as relevant as it had ever been:
Scouting is still the number-one program in the world for pro-

moting citizenship and character development for young men and
women, and it still attracts the best adult involvement. . . . Scout-
ing is still fundamentally the same, and the reasons for supporting
it are, too.
Back in the 1950s I was fond of quoting Benjamin Franklin,
Luther Burbank, Winston Churchill, Roger Babson, and many oth-
ers. Their words are as true today as they’ve ever been.
Franklin said, “There is nothing more important for the public
good than to form and train up a youth in wisdom and virtue.
Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strongest part of a
state, far more than riches and arms.”
Burbank, perhaps the most famous botanist who ever lived,
said, “If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have
to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weeds.”
Churchill hit the nail on the head when he said, “You make a
living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.”
Roger Babson was an enormously successful investment banker
and a great philanthropist. He said, “The best investment a parent
86
or a community can make is in character building. The world got

on many thousands of years without stocks, bonds, or life insur-
ance, and the time may come when we will have to get on without
them again. The only permanent assets are young people trained in
character, health, and intelligence plus natural resources.”
That’s Scouting to a “T,” and, thanks to you and all the other
hundreds and thousands who have supported Scouting in the
Yocona Area Council since 1948, Scouting is still alive and well.
It is still the best character-building program that I know of and
it still has this great appeal and pull on us as adults, and as boys
and girls.
No volunteer program, no matter how worthwhile, can continue
to succeed and prosper without the backing of good and inter-
ested people. So it is with Scouting. Yet Scouting doesn’t demand
that its supporters be expert campers or skilled outdoorsmen. Actu-
ally, it only requires:
• a real respect for boyhood,
• respect for the importance of our country,
• respect for the care and attention they deserve as our
children—as God’s children,
• a man willing to do his part.
God demands it of us. If we don’t do it, the job won’t get
done. . . .
Is Scouting important today? Do we need Christian citizens,
dedicated Americans?
I believe we all think that Americanism is important. But we do
not always act like we believe it; we don’t act at all. We prefer to
be inactive, to sit back and let a strong central government run
our lives. We prefer to let lobbyists represent our interests in Wash-
ington while we handle our personal affairs.
Yet, I believe that tonight we are more aware than we have been
in recent years of the results of our inactivity in government. . . .
The world today needs men who have been taught the basic
values [of Scouting]—who have been taught at an early age re-
spect for others, who have been taught to accept responsibility,
who have been taught to earn their way and to do their part. The
87
world today needs men who have been instilled with a love of
country and a love of God, men who have been shown that “he
profits most who serves best.”
That’s the purpose of Scouting. It deserves our support, and I, as
do many others, consider it a great privilege to be a part of such an
organization.
It takes very little encouragement for Reed to brag on his family,

and one of the first things he points out is that both his sons and
his two sons-in-law were Eagle Scouts, as were his four grandsons.
And he would much rather talk about them than about his own
awards: the Silver Beaver and Silver Antelope, two of the most
prestigious honors given by the Boy Scouts. Reed and his father
received the awards for their work: R. W. Reed received the Silver
Beaver in 1930 and the Silver Antelope in 1952, while Jack earned
the Silver Beaver in 1954 and the Silver Antelope in 1964. They
were the first father and son in the southeast region to receive
the Silver Antelope—the highest regional honor for volunteer-
ism given by the Boy Scouts.
Reed’s sons, Jack, Jr. (also a Silver Beaver Award recipient)
and Scott, have followed in their father’s Scouting footsteps and
now serve on the Yocona Area Council executive committee,
and Reed’s Department Store still has a department devoted to
Scouting.
“Of all the things I’ve been involved in over the years, I don’t
know of anything that’s given me more pleasure, personally, than
Scouting,” he says. “I think the reason Scouting is as popular to-
day as it ever has been, even with all the conflicts and other op-
tions kids have, is because of the values it teaches. I know it was a
tremendous opportunity for me as a boy and later on as a young
man. I learned so much.”
88
c h a pt er n i n e
1987: The Plunge into Politics

“I am a candidate for governor of Mississippi.”
For more than twenty years, there had been rumblings around
Mississippi that Jack Reed would run for governor. His promi-
nent leadership role in the Mississippi Economic Council and his
work with the board of education to reform Mississippi’s public
schools had placed Reed squarely in the state spotlight, and by
1986 murmurs of his candidacy for the governor’s office had
grown louder.
For years friends had tried to persuade Reed he should run for
governor, but he considered it mere flattery, enjoyed it and dis-
missed it. For the most part. Though he cared little for the life of
a politician, he was convinced a strong governor could make a dif-
ference in Mississippi.
It took a tennis injury, however, to slow him down long enough
that he could give serious consideration to a political campaign.
In the summer of 1986, Reed ruptured an Achilles tendon while
playing in a tennis tournament and wound up homebound and
in a cast for nearly a month. In the chronicle of his life that he
compiled for his family, Reed wrote: “For years I had intended to
read Dumas Malone’s six-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson
( Jefferson and His Time), but had put off getting started in it. Since
this seemed a good time for serious reading, I began. I was im-
pressed that Jefferson really did not want to go to Washington and
serve as president, preferring to stay at Monticello, but answered
89
the call to duty and did a wonderful job. His patriotism and desire
to be of service to his country appealed strongly to me, so much
so that upon my recovery I began to seriously consider a possible
candidacy.”
After serving on Winter’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Educa-
tion and on the Mississippi Board of Education, Reed says he was
often encouraged to run for governor—especially after Governor
Bill Allain’s surprising announcement that he would not run for
reelection.
“But that was not even in my mind at that time,” he says. “As a
matter of fact, I hadn’t even wanted to serve on the board of edu-
cation because I didn’t want to spend all that time in Jackson. But
I was so terribly concerned about the state of education in Missis-
sippi that I agreed to serve on the board, and that ultimately led
to my decision to run for governor.
“Ebbie Spivey, head of the Republican Party in Mississippi, was
particularly encouraging and persuasive about my chances of get-
ting elected with Republican support. I was not at all interested
in running for name recognition, or to launch a political career.
Moreover, if I had not thought I could win I would not have run.
That is probably a reflection on the size of my ego, but I suppose
that is a given for almost any candidate.”
His old friend Owen Cooper, the Yazoo City business leader,
was among the many urging Reed to run for the state’s highest
office. “Owen called me and told me that he thought next to him
I would be the best governor Mississippi ever had,” Reed recalls
with a chuckle.
“My family and I had a long discussion. I wasn’t going to do
anything this significant unless they were all behind me. It turned
out that they were all behind me; the children were all excited
and I knew Frances would support me. She was without a doubt
my greatest asset.”
So, on the night of January 29, 1987, with more than five hun-
dred friends and supporters gathered for a rally at the Ramada
Inn Convention Center in Tupelo to encourage him, Reed sent
a strong signal around the state that he would indeed be a can-
didate in the 1987 race for governor of Mississippi. People from
90
all around northeast Mississippi had come to what they only knew
was a fund-raiser for Reed’s candidacy. Before that night, he was
still not sure he would run. By the end of the night, however,
there was little doubt.
Even after the turnout in Tupelo, though, he only indicated he
was considering a run for the governorship. “I’m not going to an-
nounce my candidacy yet,” he told the Northeast Mississippi Daily
Journal, “but we are going to begin laying the groundwork.”
Lewis Whitfield and Billy Crews were cochairs of that first
event, and they had planned for a crowd of a hundred or so. To
everyone’s surprise, there were so many people on hand that an
adjacent room had to be opened to handle the overflow.
The financial impact was stunning. “We didn’t have any set
goal for that night,” Reed says, “but I think we were hoping that
we could raise a hundred thousand dollars. We wound up rais-
ing three hundred thousand, which we were told was the largest
amount ever raised at a single political fund-raiser in Mississippi
at that time.”
Not only had Reed not made his candidacy official, neither
had he announced which political party he would represent. Be-
cause of his work in public education and racial issues over the
years, many assumed he would run as a Democrat. However, he
surprised a great many when he finally said he would run as a cen-
trist Republican.
Reed, who had always considered himself an independent
thinker who disdained partisan politics, says his decision was a
pragmatic one: “I decided to run as a Republican mainly because
my biggest supporters and I thought we could more easily win the
Republican primary and make it into the general election.”
Research commissioned by Reed and his closest group of sup-
porters showed that statewide his name recognition was very low,
but that same poll indicated there was a good possibility that he
could overcome that and win the election.
While many of the business and industry leaders in the Tupelo
area were generous with their financial contributions and public
support, Reed relied heavily on a group of younger friends for
the energy necessary to run a statewide campaign; these included
91
Billy and David Crews, John Lovorn, Sonja Jenkins, Jamie Barnett,
Tom Wicker, Tom Pittman, Len Pegues, Joe Rutherford, Helen
Collins, Lex Jackson, Lori Culp, Glen McCullough, and many
others, and, of course, his family: son Jack and his wife, Lisa;
daughter Camille and her husband, Claude Clayton; daughter
Catherine and her husband, Paul “Buzzy” Mize, Jr.; son Scott and
his wife, Annette; and grandchildren Frances and Claude, Kirk
and Jack Reed III, Paul and Bennett Mize, as well as the families
of brothers Bob and Bill.
Reed also learned that in a nine-month, statewide race a can-
didate’s driver is his only constant companion, confidant, and
critic. In that capacity, Rory Reardon of Clarksdale proved to be
invaluable.
A couple of weeks after Reed’s Tupelo rally, Charles Pickering,
a former state senator from Laurel and one of Mississippi’s more
prominent Republicans, surprised many political observers by an-
nouncing that he would not be a candidate for governor. In his
announcement Pickering said he was “unable to generate the fi-
nancial support or burning desire” for such a race.
Pickering’s decision not to run seemingly cleared the way for
Reed, and on March 16, while speaking to the Lee County Repub-
lican Women, he said he would announce that he would indeed
be a candidate on March 31.
Buoyed by the support from his family and friends and by the
tremendous local turnout at the January rally, Reed and a group
of supporters chartered a bus and headed to Jackson, where he
stood on the steps of the capitol on a blustery Wednesday and an-
nounced to the state:
My name is Jack Reed.

I am a candidate for governor of Mississippi.
I have never run for public office before.
I am not a career politician.
I am not running to establish a base for future office.
I am a concerned citizen.
I am a businessman with over thirty-five years of experience in
92
economic development . . . and a lifelong commitment to edu-

cation.
I am a private citizen who believes that, as governor, I can help
move Mississippi ahead, beginning in January of 1988.
Today, I am asking every Mississippian—man and woman, rich
and poor, black and white, Democrat, Republican, or independent—
who cares about the future of our state, who shares my concern,
who is ready for a change, to support me in this effort.
My roots in Mississippi are deep. My family on both sides came
to Mississippi over one hundred and fifty years ago. My father
was raised on an Itawamba County family farm . . . he received
an eighth-grade education (all that was available at that time) . . .
started a country store . . . sold it for five hundred dollars and
opened a small grocery store in Tupelo in 1905.
My six grandchildren are seventh-generation Mississippians. I
care about our state and her people.
Actually, this is not the first time a Reed has come to the state
capitol steps. Fifty years ago, my father led a group of small-town
merchants in a march on the capitol. They were protesting a new
idea: the state [sales] tax. Like you, we Reeds have never cared much
for new taxes, although I’ll say this: Mississippi would be hard
pressed without the sales tax.
But today we come from north Mississippi, not in protest, but in
peace and in hope and with the firm belief that there can be and
will be a brighter tomorrow for our state.
Much has changed in Mississippi in these last fifty years, and de-
spite our critics, much has changed for the better. Race relations
are better; job opportunities, in general, are better. We have, in
fact, achieved Governor Hugh White’s vision of balancing agricul-
ture with industry, and I am glad to say that I have had a part in
some of these changes—and have done so as a private citizen who
has been involved and who cares.
But in too many ways Mississippi’s boat—our boat—is dead in
the water. We are maintaining the status quo but the status quo is
not good enough.
Times change—needs change and opportunities change—and
93
we must change with them. Winston Churchill said it well: “To im-
prove is to change. To become perfect is to change often.” I surely
will not promise you perfection—but I can promise you that with
the right leadership we do have the opportunity to improve.
Today, I am beginning my campaign to take my efforts from the
private sector to the public sector.
Why? Because I agree with Plato: “The punishment of the wise
who refuse to participate in government is to serve under a gov-
ernment of worse men.” (Now, remember, that quote is over a
thousand years old, so please don’t take that as a personal refer-
ence to any of my opponents.)
Although I have never served a day as an elected official and
never spent a day on the public payroll, I am running on my
record—my record in my community and region, in church, in
Scouting, in the United Way, in our community action agency, in
city planning, and in retailing and manufacturing and industrial de-
velopment.
And I’m running on my record at the state level—since 1963, as
the youngest chairman of the M.E.C., and as president of the Mis-
sissippi Retail Merchants Association, and as chairman of the Mis-
sissippi American Enterprise Center, and other statewide leadership
roles, and on my record today, as a member of the state board of
education and of the state board of economic development.
Home . . . family . . . church . . . community . . . state . . . and
country are the words that have guided—in fact, dominated—
my life.
Mississippi is my home. I know, firsthand, what our basic values
are and I am convinced that once we effectively let others know
what we have to offer in quality of life that we will join those sister
states that are prospering and ready to move confidently into the
twenty-first century.
The two cornerstones on which I will build my administration
are jobs and education—and to me, the two are indivisible.
Jobs—new jobs created by a coordinated, aggressive statewide
economic development plan (both short-range and long-range),
heavily involving the private sector, our junior colleges, and all of
our institutions of higher learning, and focused on the expansion
94
of existing industries and the creation of new Mississippi indus-

tries with an aggressive sales approach both inside and outside our
state.
I am a salesman and always have been—six days a week and
proud of it. I am one of the thousands of Mississippians who move
the merchandise from the manufacturer to the customer.
And I’ll be a salesman for Mississippi. Not of snake oil, or of pie
in the sky, or of false promises of great gain without any pain, but
a salesman of honest values, of Mississippi’s abundant natural re-
sources, of decent people willing and anxious to work for an hon-
est day’s pay in an environment that supports good industry.
And I submit to you today that there is no other candidate in
this race (or considering this race) who can match my record of
consistent and dedicated service to my priorities of jobs and edu-
cation.
My Tupelo friends, “Jack’s Backers,” and Frances and the family
and I are launching this statewide campaign together here in Jack-
son, and in the Piney Woods, on the Gulf Coast, and in the Missis-
sippi Delta to make it crystal clear from day one that there is only
one Mississippi—that every section and every citizen of this state is
equally important, and that we all make it together or we do not
make it at all.
Like it or not (and I like it!) we are all in the same boat—and
you just can’t sink half the ship!
We drove down the old Natchez Trace this morning, but thanks
to the cooperation and commitment of citizens and legislators from
the four corners of our state, before my administration ends—
notice, I’ve only been running for ten minutes and I’m already be-
ginning to sound like a politician! I’ll try to watch that, I promise!
But I’m rolling now, so I’ll continue—before my administration
ends, we will be traveling on safe, modern highways into our capi-
tal city.
We would have gone on our state highways today but since my
entire family is on the bus, I didn’t want to risk their lives. Besides,
it would have been a lot longer trip. On the Trace we can average
fifty miles an hour; but on Highway 45 we can only average about
thirty-five or forty!
95
I can assure you that strong support of the highway program

and of all transportation will be a top priority of mine.
The highway program alone is dramatic proof that working co-
operatively we can progress, and I promise you that I will not con-
front our legislature as an adversary who is fighting me and my
plans for Mississippi. I will approach them as a full partner work-
ing together to move Mississippi forward with programs that are
sound enough and progressive enough to merit the support of our
people.
Incidentally, I am not running against anybody. In fact, I do not
believe that there is a place for partisan politics in state government—
there is plenty of room for that in Washington! I am interested only
in solving Mississippi’s problems.
Together we can do it! Divided, we will flounder in fiftieth place
for yet another one hundred years.
In closing, let me say once again that I cannot promise you in-
stant gratification or a quick fix for all the problems of our state
(and I advise you to be very suspicious of anyone who does).
I do believe that I can immediately change the image of our
state from that of the “good ole boy . . . you scratch my back, I’ll
scratch yours . . . one-party politics of the past” to that of a pro-
gressive, efficient, positive and responsible member of the fifty
United States of America.
And on a personal note, I want you to know I have paid my dues.
A wise man once said, “The years teach much which the days
never know.” I must admit that I have found that to be true, some-
times to my sorrow.
I am mature enough to have learned from experience, and:
• to remember the Saturday afternoon while I was in high
school when I sold twenty-one pairs of overalls to Mr. Little of
Sherman . . .
• to remember the destruction of the Tupelo tornado . . .
• to have volunteered and served in the Pacific in World War II . . .
• to have experienced the violence and turmoil of the sixties and
the frustrations of the seventies here in Mississippi.
Yet, I am optimistic enough to have the ideals and hopes and
dreams of what we can accomplish if we work together in a com-
96
mon cause for the common good—as friends, not as sworn

enemies.
Optimistic enough to still believe in the basic goodness of our
people and the enormous potential of our children.
Optimistic enough to be looking ahead at what can be done
and what must be done—not looking back at what we cannot
change.
I am self-employed. I have no political obligations to any group
or individual, and I do not intend to have any come November.
Nor do I intend to make a lot of promises in this campaign. I
have seen too many made and broken in the past. But I will promise
you this:
First, I will run hard, I will be cheerful, and I will run a positive
campaign. I am not running against anyone—and I wish my oppo-
nents well.
And, second, I will promise you that, as governor, my decisions
will be based on what I honestly believe will bring a better life, a
better day, a better future for all the people of our state.
It is fitting that Jack’s Backers and I kick off our campaign on a
cold day in March. Because we intend to make it a long, hot sum-
mer for politics and politicians this year.
I deeply appreciate your attendance here today, and I truly be-
lieve that, together, we will make political history in our state.
Despite his promise not to make too many promises, Reed

couldn’t help himself and added one more for good measure:
“the best first lady Mississippi has ever had.” Indeed, his wife,
Frances, would play a significant role during the campaign, mak-
ing a speech in one part of the state while her husband was in an-
other region.
As soon as Reed finished his speech on the steps of the capitol,
he walked across the street to the secretary of state’s office and of-
ficially filed as a candidate for governor. His busload of support-
ers, most of whom had paid seventy-five dollars for the trip, then
headed for stops in Forest and Meridian, and then to the Missis-
sippi Gulf Coast. By the time the group returned to Tupelo for a
huge Saturday night rally, it had traveled more than nine hundred
97
miles, with stops in such towns as Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Laurel,

Greenville, Clarksdale, Yazoo City, and Southaven.
Interestingly, there had been little coverage of Reed’s inten-
tions in his hometown newspaper, probably by design since he
was on the board of directors. Daily Journal reporters Buster Wolfe
and Norma Fields had written a few stories, but no more than a
half dozen in the months between his first Tupelo rally and his
official announcement in Jackson.
On April 4, however, the day before Reed’s bus caravan made
its way back to the storied Tupelo Fairgrounds for a local event
that would draw more than a thousand supporters, the Daily Jour-
nal made clear its support for the native son with a lengthy edi-
torial that began: “Jack Reed should be the next governor of Mis-
sissippi.”
After listing what it perceived as Reed’s qualifications for gov-
ernor and stating what strengths he would add to that office and
the entire political process, the editorial made one other thing
clear: “This newspaper’s support of Reed’s candidacy for gov-
ernor of Mississippi comes not because of his director’s position.
Just the opposite. He is a Journal Publishing Company director
because of his long-standing support for this area’s economy, edu-
cation and quality of life.”
Prior to the official announcement, Reed had discussed the
possibility of seeking the state’s highest office with Mississippi’s
U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, a longtime friend and supporter.
Cochran urged him to go ahead and offered much-needed and
welcomed advice concerning consultants and staff members. In
the latter days of the campaign, Cochran would even send his
own staff members to help the Reed campaign, and always gave
him a strong personal endorsement.
Reed’s campaign received a major boost from an old Vander-
bilt fraternity brother: Bill Walker, owner of the regional chain
of Bill’s Dollar Stores, pledged one hundred thousand dollars.
“Bill shocked me with his offer of support when I talked with him
about my candidacy,” Reed recalls. “Not only did he make a large
donation, but he allowed us the use of his company airplane to
travel around the state. Bill Gresham of Indianola and Tupelo
98
supporters Jake Mills, Dick Hill, Bob Bennett, and Bo Gibens also
loaned me their airplanes from time to time.”
Walker’s contribution and unwavering support touched Reed
deeply. “Bill continued his support throughout the campaign,
and I took him with me when I visited the White House to get
President Reagan’s support,” Reed says.
The race didn’t start out too smoothly, though. Early in the
campaign Frances Reed was diagnosed with colon cancer and
had to have surgery. All campaigning came to a halt, and Reed
says he thought of dropping the whole matter. His wife, however,
would not hear of it, and after two weeks the race for the Gover-
nor’s Mansion resumed. In time, Frances would recover and not
only rejoin the campaign but charm audiences across the state
with her very simple but honest remarks similar to her speech at
the first fund-raiser in Tupelo:
I believe I know Jack better than anyone here knows him. Bill
and Bob have known him well—and longer than I—but I know
him best. I want to tell you one or two things I know about him:
He is smart—I mean very intelligent. He is a hard-working, ener-
getic optimist. He has a real gift of knowing how to communicate
with people, and he has a fine sense of humor.
To illustrate: Jack and I first met on a blind date. I didn’t want to
go and I’m sure he didn’t either. We went as a favor to a mutual
friend. We were with other friends and I thought it went pretty
well. Jack did not—he thought I did not pay enough attention to
him. Well, let me tell you folks, this was a real challenge to Jack!
He used his previously mentioned character traits—and in just over
a year we were married.
Now, Jack has received several fine honors and held some im-
portant positions in the last few years. But let me tell you, he paid
his dues. For twenty-five or thirty years he taught Sunday school,
went to about five thousand meetings of Boy Scouts, LIFT, CDF, and
other humanitarian, education, and economic development meet-
ings all over the state—and he did it with good cheer! After ob-
serving this year after year I realized he really cared about people,
both individually and collectively, and wanted to help.
99
And he still found time to be a devoted father to our four children.

So, I know I have a good man here. Now, if we together can
just get this across to the rest of the state we will have a great gov-
ernor.
Reed says he had never heard his wife speak in public before
that evening, but he wasn’t surprised by her poise in front of such
a large audience. “I knew she would be a great first lady, and I
didn’t mind telling people.”
Reed’s campaign was a family campaign in every sense of the
word. Sons and daughters and their spouses scattered about the
state with the candidate’s grandchildren in tow, speaking to any
and all, handing out bumper stickers and “push cards,” stabbing
campaign signs in every vacant piece of property.
“The entire family worked tirelessly six days a week for nine
months,” Reed recalls, with a good deal of amazement. “We tried
to take Sundays off to be together, but other than that the girls
traveled with Frances, and the boys often went with me or took
off on their own wherever they were needed.”
Before the November election, Reed and his wife would make
similar speeches to audiences large and small in every section of
Mississippi. “I don’t know of many towns of any size where we
didn’t speak before some group—a civic club, a women’s lun-
cheon, or just a speech on the courthouse steps somewhere. We
knew the only way for people to really get to know us was to go
out and meet them, and we tried awfully hard to meet as many as
we could.”
While Reed had received the enthusiastic endorsement of the
Tupelo newspaper, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, K irsey
McLean, who had taken over as publisher after her husband,
George, had died, granted Billy Crews, the paper’s administrative
assistant, six months paid leave to serve as Reed’s campaign di-
rector for north Mississippi. ( Jamie Becker managed the Jackson
office and the south Mississippi campaign, with Will Feltus as cam-
paign consultant.)
“I couldn’t believe the volunteer support we got, particularly
in Tupelo,” Reed says. “Dozens of friends worked the phones ev-
100
ery night and those not at their jobs during the day helped at our
offices then.”
Reed believes his lack of “political connections” might have
been beneficial to his campaign. “Having never run for any office,
I was naïve in many ways,” he says. “However, it may have been
a blessing in that I was never involved in the intraparty disputes
and second-guessing that develops over the years of political in-
volvement.”
There was no lack of variety and experiences in Reed’s trav-
els following the January fund-raiser in Tupelo. They included
a near-death experience at Al Tuck’s camp near Maben, where
his manhood was tested by a challenge to eat chitlins and drink
bourbon on a flatbed truck.
And there was the ill-advised stop at Black Hawk in the Missis-
sippi Delta, where Reed was astonished to see his old nemesis, the
Citizens’ Council, operating a concession stand.
A perfect example of the demands on candidates came on
the Fourth of July when Reed appeared at the annual rally at the
Jacinto Courthouse in north Mississippi and later that afternoon
in the Mississippi Delta. The affair in the Delta was billed as “the
year’s most important political event, with airport facilities avail-
able.” “As well as I remember,” Reed recalls, “the crowd consisted
of Mike Sturdivant and me, and about twenty-five citizens.”
His campaign—as do those of many serious office seekers—
had Reed passing out handbills at 5 a.m. to shift workers at In-
galls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, drinking tea later that after-
noon at receptions in the stately antebellum mansions, showing
up at high school football games on Friday nights, and worship-
ping in rural African American churches on Sunday afternoons.
And it didn’t end until the last night of the campaign at a
Pentecostal convention in Tupelo when he sang an impromptu
gospel duet with the presiding preacher—on a national radio
broadcast.
Paramount among all the campaign stops was the Neshoba
County Fair, the annual ten-day gathering unlike any other. Among
the many lasting traditions at the fair in east-central Mississippi,
just outside Philadelphia, are the two days set aside for political
101
speeches. While they are always lively events, those fairs held in
years of statewide elections are the liveliest. No candidate for any
state office would dare miss the Neshoba County Fair, no matter
that it’s held in the latter part of July when Mississippi tempera-
tures are generally at their highest.
The Reed campaign was there in full force, arriving with a bus-
load of supporters from northeast Mississippi to hear their candi-
date speak at the historic campgrounds. Reed knew of the impor-
tance of the moment and had prepared diligently for the speech.
It would not disappoint:
The other day someone asked me why am I running for gov-

ernor. I said it’s because I wanted to speak at the Neshoba County
Fair. And I am delighted to be the first gubernatorial candidate to
speak. This way I won’t have to listen to any new campaign prom-
ises from my opponents. (The Lord knows we’ve heard enough.) By
week’s end, I fully expect that we citizens will be looking forward
to four years in which we will be promised:
• A free automobile with the purchase of a new car tag;
• Free college tuition for all senior citizens;
• That we will be paid to send our children to school;
• That all salaries will be doubled and there will be one hundred
percent employed;
• That we will raise Mississippi’s per capita income to the north-
western average;
• And taxes will be cut by sixty-two percent.
And if cannibals are registered to vote, some candidate, I am
sure, will promise them a missionary for Sunday lunch.
I am not a career politician. I am a businessman. I have never
served a day on the government payroll. I’ve been a salesman six
days a week for over thirty-five years and proud of it.
I have now been running for office six months, seven days a
week, and the real question, the most important question I have
been asked is: why do I believe that the people of Mississippi
should elect me, Jack Reed, our next governor?
Briefly, I will give you three reasons:
First, because people are crying out for jobs for themselves and
102
jobs for their children. I submit to you quite frankly that not since
Hugh White have the people of this state had the opportunity of
electing a man with the qualifications, the experiences, and the
successes that I can offer to provide and develop jobs in Mississippi.
It’s true that I have been president of the M.E.C. and a member
of the state board of economic development, but my best and
most valuable experience has come from my thirty-five years as
president and executive committeeman of Tupelo’s Community De-
velopment Foundation, where I have served longer than any other
person.
In the late 1940s, when I returned home from the Pacific in
World War II, northeast Mississippi was one of the poorest sections
in the poorest state in the Union. We had few natural resources
and no urban cities to attract new jobs. What we did have was
community leadership with the desire and the resolve to move our-
selves ahead without waiting for help from the federal government
in Washington or the state government in Jackson. And we knew,
as my friend George McLean so often said, that “in community de-
velopment, there ain’t no Santa Claus.” We worked hard at it and
we still do.
Today, although only eleventh in size, we are fourth in retail
sales, third in wholesale sales, second in bank deposits, and second
in per capita income. This spring, in competition with thousands
of other organizations, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page
story listing our C.D.F. as one of the top ten industrial development
groups in America.
As a merchant and as a manufacturer myself (with four ap-
parel plants in Mississippi) I also understand the value—in fact the
necessity—of keeping and expanding Mississippi’s existing indus-
tries, which are in fact the source of seventy-five percent of our
new jobs. We have, in Lee County alone, with new and expanded
industries, averaged five hundred new jobs a year for the last
twenty-five years and now have seventeen Fortune 500 companies!
That’s not political rhetoric; that’s not a political promise; that is a
fact! There is no other candidate in this race—none—who can of-
fer you that record of leadership, that record of success in job de-
velopment.
103
So I say to you today, if you are crying out for jobs—jobs for
today and jobs for tomorrow—I hear you . . . and I am ready to
tackle the job of governor if you are ready to help me!
The second reason you should support Jack Reed for governor
is because of my record and commitment to education for the last
twenty-five years.
Thomas Jefferson said, “The monumental task of making de-
mocracy work cannot be accomplished in ignorance.” I believe
that—and I also believe that “the monumental task” of economic
development cannot be accomplished in ignorance. Education is
to economic development what fertilizer is to farming . . . and you
have to put that fertilizer in the ground first if you want to reap a
good harvest later.
My record is on the books for anyone to see. From 1963 on, I
have fought to keep our schools open and to improve the educa-
tional opportunities for all the children and adults of this state.
A record including being chairman of the Blue Ribbon Commit-
tee that in 1979 initiated education reform in Mississippi. Chairman
of the state board for our schools and junior colleges beginning in
1984 that for the last three years worked with the legislature to in-
crease teacher salaries twenty-seven percent—the highest increase
in the nation; the board that initiated teaching assistants and public
kindergartens. As chairman I have traveled America from Seattle to
South Carolina and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes learning how
to improve our schools, and leading the effort to do so.
I know the schools of this state, small and large. I know the
teachers and principals. I know what’s working well and I can tell
you we are making progress—measurably in elementary education
under the teaching assistant program, which, incidentally, I person-
ally helped launch in north Mississippi. Test scores have improved
fifty percent in just three years! I have also been a member of the
council on higher education working to improve our universities.
There simply is no other candidate in either party who can of-
fer our people that background, that leadership, that commitment,
that success in improving the quality of public education. That’s not
political rhetoric; that’s not a political promise. That’s a fact!
I have heard every politician since Theodore Bilbo say “our
104
people are our greatest asset” and that’s half true. But as Benjamin
Franklin said, “Half the truth is often a great lie.” If educated, our
people are our greatest asset. If uneducated, they are our great-
est liability. So I say to you today, if you are crying out for better
schools graduating better students, I hear you! And I am ready and
prepared to lead that fight as governor. If you are ready to help me!
Finally, why should you support Jack Reed for governor? You
should support me because of my record of leadership in the areas
of community life and of family life that touch what’s best in the
hearts and minds of our people—that prepare a man or woman to
be the kind of leader our people will respond to and respect.
I didn’t start teaching a young couples Sunday school class in
our church in the 1950s because I thought it would sell well in
the governor’s race in 1987. I did it for the same reasons many of
you have done it—because I felt then, and I feel today, a responsi-
bility to make my family, my church, my town, the kind of place it
should be.
I didn’t help found our county’s United Way in the 1960s because
I thought it would make good political rhetoric twenty-five years
later. I did it because I felt then, as I do now, a compassion for our
fellow men and women and children and elderly who are fight-
ing for the bare necessities of life. I believe in building Habitat for
Humanity shelters for the homeless; I believe in Meals on Wheels
for the hungry; I believe in a safe sanctuary for battered wives and
abused children.
It may not be traditional politics for a conservative businessman
to go on record as being concerned about human needs, but I
haven’t lived all my life for politics—I’ve tried to live it for people—
and I’m not going to change just to win an election!
So, I say to you here this morning, and to the coast, and the hills,
from the Delta to Meridian, if you believe that our state’s people
are calling out for someone with a proven record and leadership
skills to bring us jobs, calling out for someone with the experience
and the understanding to develop one of the best educational sys-
tems in this country, but just as importantly calling out for someone
motivated not by what’s best for his career but by what’s best for
your careers, what’s best for your families and what’s best for your
105
communities, and what’s best for our state’s future, then I say to
you today from Mississippi’s most famous platform: I hear you!—
and that I’m ready to give the job of governor of this great state
my best, and with your help, your support, and your prayers, we
can succeed—and we will succeed together!
The campaign of 1987 was filled with encouragement and ex-

citement, with hope and promise, but from the very beginning it
had been an uphill battle. Particularly frustrating had been the
inability to engage Ray Mabus, the high-profile Democratic can-
didate, in many joint appearances or debates.
Mabus, as the record shows, would indeed go on to win the
election, capturing 53 percent of the votes to Reed’s 47 percent.
While Reed was not pleased with the loss, neither was he terribly
upset—except for his staff and supporters.
“I certainly did not regret for one minute my decision to run,”
he says. “The only regret I have is that the people who supported
me so strongly, both financially and otherwise, I didn’t win for
them.”
Reed says he “gained a lot” through his campaign, making new
and lasting friendships all across Mississippi. Unfortunately, he
also learned that in politics strange things happen, even among
those who claim to be your supporters and those whom you’ve
spent years trying to help.
Throughout his years Reed had always enjoyed a good rela-
tionship with the media, primarily because of his honesty, intelli-
gence, and wit. While he maintained that association throughout
the campaign—with most reporters, anyway—they didn’t seem
to believe that he had a chance of winning the governorship.
“I’ll never forget that on the weekend before election day, a
group of the state’s leading reporters—including Norma Fields,
Wayne Weidie, Lloyd Gray, and Paul Pittman—all predicted the
election would be over by 7 p.m. Only John Johnson of Meridian
disagreed. The winner wasn’t declared until 10:30.”
In his travels around the state during the late fall, Reed and
his staff could sense a change in momentum. Mississippians had
106
come to know—and like—the gentleman from Tupelo. Time,

however, was not on his side.
“It was clear that we were gaining strength . . . and I thought
how difficult it would be to be losing strength at the end of a long
campaign,” he says. “I was very grateful to everyone on my staff
and to so many supporters, and that made me just want to work
that much harder.”
Certainly, a highlight of the campaign had been a visit to Tu-
pelo by Vice President George H. W. Bush. He spoke to an over-
flow crowd at Tupelo High School on October 31, and the many
students dressed in Halloween costumes were a great source of
consternation for the Secret Service detail assigned to the vice
president. There were no incidents, however, and everything went
off as Reed’s campaign staff had planned.
“The vice president’s trip to Tupelo to speak in my behalf was
great for Tupelo and me,” Reed says. “The party had wanted him
to come to Jackson or even to the Gulf Coast where there were
larger numbers of Republican voters, but I thought we owed that
to Tupelo, and to his credit, he agreed.
“There was never any big argument or anything; I just said no.
I guess you could call it selfishness on my part, but I like to think
of it as exercising my own prerogative. But we all had a big time,
and Bush was most obliging. He is as nice a fellow as you’ll find
anywhere.”
Interestingly (but not surprisingly), one of the first people
Reed had sought out for advice was his longtime friend William
Winter, the former governor whose name had become synony-
mous with public education. “I talked with William before I ever
announced,” Reed says. “I wanted to know if he thought I would
make a viable candidate and he said he believed I would. Of
course, he didn’t know I was thinking of running as a Republican,
but he encouraged me to run.”
Mabus had been a member of Winter’s staff, and Reed knew
that Winter’s strong Democratic Party ties would make his sup-
port unlikely, if not impossible, so he intentionally kept his po-
litical distance. Through it all, though, the friendship between
107
Winter and Reed remained steadfast. “I knew he was committed

to Mabus all along,” Reed says. “I didn’t ask for his support nor
did he offer any. When I went to him, I went strictly as a friend. I
knew he was a committed Democrat, but he has always been per-
sonally supportive.”
Years later, Reed and Winter took part in a panel discussion in
Jackson sponsored by Common Cause—Reed representing the
Republicans and Winter the Democrats. Moderator Bill Minor
noted at the end of the discussion, attended by approximately
seventy-five people, that Reed and Winter voiced similar thoughts
on nearly every issue. Reed recalls Minor asking if they ever dis-
agreed on anything.
“I told him there certainly was,” Reed says. “I said I’d voted
for William nearly every time he ran for office, but I was pretty
sure he’d never voted for me. I think everyone there, including
William, got a good laugh out of that.”
Reed says he and Winter have never discussed the 1987 gover-
nor’s race and that it certainly had no impact on their friendship.
Nor was any harm done to his relationship with Mike Sturdivant,
a farmer and hotel owner from the Mississippi Delta hamlet of
Glendora who had lost the 1983 Democratic primary to Bill Al-
lain, the successor to Winter as governor.
“Mike Sturdivant and I had been friends a long time and
worked on several education issues together with William, and I
had supported Mike in his first campaign for governor four years
earlier,” Reed says. “When he heard I was thinking about run-
ning he drove over to Tupelo to encourage me. Then when I an-
nounced as a Republican, Mike decided to run in the Democratic
primary against Mabus. He, too, was a good friend of William’s,
but I can say in all honesty that the election had no impact on the
friendship we shared.”
Another of his most frustrating experiences, however, had
been with incumbent U.S. Senator Trent Lott, who in 1987 was
one of the more powerful Republican members of the House of
Representatives.
“He had come to see me in Tupelo and gave me his support,”
Reed recalls. “He said he would get me more votes on the Gulf
108
Coast [his House district] than I’d get in north Mississippi, and
judging by the number of Republicans down there that was no
idle boast. Not long after their meeting, however, I heard that
Lott told a group of reporters that he was considering running
for governor himself.
“Unfortunately, he made his statement in Washington during
one of our biggest campaign rallies on the coast, and that damp-
ened enthusiasm for my campaign,” Reed says. “I don’t know if
the timing was intentional or not. I certainly wasn’t very wise
politically, but a lot of people in the Republican Party said that
hurt me and I’m sure it did temporarily. I don’t know; he might
have been seriously thinking about running himself, but a lot of
people wondered about that. I wondered about it, too, but I never
took it personally. I just assumed it was political. Trent did call
me later to reassure me that he was not going to run and that he
did support me.” Whatever the reasoning, Reed consistently sup-
ported Lott in each of his subsequent political races, and over the
years they developed a strong personal relationship.
However puzzling Lott’s politics were, the most disappointing
aspects of the campaign came from two factions that Reed had
spent a great portion of his life speaking for and working on be-
half of—African Americans and public school teachers.
“I kind of knew early in the race that I wasn’t going to get a
lot of support among the black voters, and I didn’t,” he says. “I
remember after speaking to an audience at Alcorn State [a his-
torically black university in Lorman in southwest Mississippi] that
one of the professors came up to me and told me, ‘You seem like
a charming man but I don’t think it would be in our best interest
to support you.’ That’s pretty much the way it went all over the
state.”
Even after the Reverend Joseph Lowery, a revered civil rights
pioneer, issued a statement of support for his longtime friend,
Reed found little support in the African American community.
“I thought Joe’s statement would help me, but I don’t think they
paid any attention to it,” Reed says. Polls indicated he received 10
percent of the black vote. If he had received 15 percent the Gov-
ernor’s Mansion most likely would have been his.
109
“That hurt Frances a lot,” he says. “But I didn’t blame them for
being suspicious of a white Republican businessman. I thought it
was unfair to label me with a generality, but I could understand
it.”
What Reed couldn’t fully understand was the aggressive attack
on him by members of the Mississippi Association of Educators.
He had spent his entire adult life fighting for public education in
Mississippi and in 1981 had received the MAE’s Friend of Edu-
cation Award.
One of his duties as chair of the Mississippi Board of Educa-
tion cost him much of the support from teacher organizations,
Reed says. “A few months before I announced for governor, the
board of education, at the insistence of the legislature, had re-
quired a ‘Mississippi Teachers Assessment Instrument.’ We’d done
so, even though we believed it was still too early after the passage
of the Education Reform Act, to get the legislature’s approval
of a teacher pay raise called for by the same law. We had a video
made explaining the MTAI, and since I was the chairman I was
the one who introduced it on the tape. The MAE didn’t like that
at all, and since I was the one on the tape I received most of the
blame for the MTAI, and some of the most militant opposition
came from the very group I’d been working so hard for all those
years.”
Reed says there were many teachers who were very supportive
and who worked on his behalf, “and I’ll always be grateful to
them.”
“I’m pretty sure the MAE had already committed to Mabus be-
fore I even announced, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered a
great deal,” he says. “Still, their opposition was so mean-spirited
that it was probably the most disappointing factor in the cam-
paign.”
Another frustration for Reed was not carrying northeast Missis-
sippi. Of the sixteen counties that comprise the region, Reed out-
polled Mabus in only five: Lee, Lafayette, Pontotoc, Oktibbeha,
and Union. “That was pretty hard to accept,” he says, “but I knew
northeast Mississippi was one of the most Democratic parts of the
110
state. In looking back, we probably spent too much time in other

parts of the state where I wasn’t well known and not enough time
in our own backyard. I should have done better, though.”
On the other hand, “The biggest surprise of the whole race to
me was that I ran so well in some of the ultraconservative east Mis-
sissippi counties—the hard-line old country counties.” Reed won
in Greene, Newton, Perry, Scott, and Wayne counties, and was sur-
prisingly close in Clarke and George. “I did really well in those
poor counties, which was pretty hard for a Republican to do.”
All in all, Reed says the campaign was a positive experience
for him. “Some of the mean-spirited parts weren’t much fun,
but other than that I really enjoyed it. I remember one of my
first campaign stops was at the school for the deaf and blind in
Jackson and I went away absolutely amazed at what they were ac-
complishing. I couldn’t help but think that if state government
hadn’t built that school for those students, who would have?
There are just so many things that the private sector can’t, or
won’t, do. I realized what an impact the governor can have on a
state.”
While Reed had from the very beginning received the strong
endorsement of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, his home-
town newspaper, Mabus had been endorsed by most of the state’s
other newspapers, including the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, the Sun
Herald on the Gulf Coast, and the Commercial Appeal in Memphis.
Reed, however, did find support from several other media out-
lets, including the Natchez Democrat. Publisher Dolph Tillotson
wrote, “Reed’s got the best mind of anyone I’ve met in Mississippi
politics, with the possible exception of William Winter. He thinks
like the best kind of businessman—orderly, precise, to the point.
He speaks that way, too. He is well read and well educated. But
he’s not some dreamy intellectual. His experience in business and
public service is hard-nosed and practical. . . .
“Here’s the most important point. Reed is a rare find in politics—
a man with a sensible mission, real leadership ability and a chance
to win. He’s not running because he’s a professional politician
seeking higher office. Instead, Jack Reed has worked privately for
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the past 30 years to build a better Mississippi. He’s been a leader

in the MEC, in education reform and in economic development.
He’s never earned a nickel out of any of that. Now, he sees a
chance to influence the state’s future—build better schools and
more opportunity for all Mississippians. As a man with six grand-
children and a lifetime commitment to public service, that means
something to him.”
“That,” Reed says, “meant a lot to someone like me, who was
trying so hard to get his name recognized. You don’t forget words
like those.”
True to his nature, though, in the next breath Reed says there is
peril in pursuing political office: “The danger is that after spend-
ing a year going around the state telling people how wonderful
you are that you are apt to start believing it!”
Reed was also moved by his old Vanderbilt friend, Bill Walker,
who, true to his word, stayed with the campaign until the very
end. “When it was all over, Bill and I split the balance due on a
bank loan I had taken out,” he says. “That enabled me to finish
free of debt, which I understand to be most unusual. Bill Walker
was most gracious and I deeply appreciated what he meant to our
effort.”
When he considers the campaign of 1987, he says he some-
times doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I didn’t make a habit
out of it, but I told a few folks that in my heart I was a Democrat
but in my head I was a Republican. I think all I did was make both
sides mad at me.”
So, on the night of November 3, 1987, in the same Ramada
Inn Convention Center in Tupelo where some nine months ear-
lier he had held the campaign’s first fund-raiser, Reed delivered
what would turn out to be his concession speech:
I have written only one speech tonight which applies whichever

way the vote goes:
Over the years I have often recited Kipling’s poem “If” to young
people as some of the best advice they could ever receive. I have
also done it partly because it has been good advice for me to give
myself, particularly the verse that reads:
112
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same . . .
But that doesn’t really apply to us tonight—because there is only

triumph; there is no disaster. In either case there is only gratitude to
those whose support and effort and love have gotten us this far.
There are not words to express Frances’s and my feelings for
you.
If we win we go to Jackson and the leadership of our state
government. If we don’t, we stay here in Tupelo with family and
friends whom we love and who, for whatever reasons, obviously
love us.
In negotiation terms it’s called a “no lose situation” and, believe
me, it doesn’t make us proud; it makes us humble.
And win or lose, we have an immense feeling of obligation to
the people of Mississippi, black and white, who have given us so
much of their time, their money, their love, their support, and their
prayers in the last ten months. We are in your debt and I have al-
ways tried to pay my debts.
So, wherever we happen to be—in Jackson or in Tupelo—our
commitment will remain the same: to do our best for the people
and the state we so dearly love.
Since we think so much of each of you, I only wish you could
experience the real joy of having been your candidate this year. It
is an experience we shall never forget and an honor for which we
shall be eternally grateful.
While no one in the Reed camp had ever been interested in

merely winning a “moral victory,” his gubernatorial campaign did
have a significant impact on the politics of Mississippi in years to
come. He had shown that a Republican could gain the confidence
of voters around the state, and that, given the right set of circum-
stances, a Republican could be elected governor.
Four years later, Vicksburg contractor K irk Fordice, state audi-
tor Pete Johnson, and Jackson businessman Bobby Clanton waged
113
a fierce battle for the Republican nomination. The gruff Fordice,

who like Reed four years earlier was making his initial foray into
statewide politics, defeated the smooth lifetime politico Johnson
and the ineffective Clanton, then upset the incumbent Mabus.
Fordice, who promised to serve only one term, changed his mind
four years later and was reelected.
Both Fordice and Johnson had visited Reed and told him they
would not run if he wanted a second shot at the Governor’s Man-
sion. Reed, however, was content to stay in Tupelo with Frances,
their children and grandchildren, and the growing family busi-
ness.
“Many Republicans have told me that they believe our race was
proof that a Republican could be elected,” Reed says. “Because
of our race a lot of people realized that it was okay to vote for a
Republican.”
While he was tempted to run, and even had the blessing of
his wife, there would be no second attempt at the governor’s of-
fice for Reed. He had said all along he would run only once,
and though there were many—including Minor, the state’s se-
nior newspaper columnist—who maintained that the 1991 elec-
tion could be his for the asking, Reed declined.
“Tom Pittman [then editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily
Journal] told me that by my having run a decent race the first time
and by not running again that he thought I was the most popular
person in Mississippi,” Reed says. “I don’t know if that was true
or not, but it seemed like a good reason to stay home.”
114
c h a pt er t en
1996: Humor—
His Oratorical Trademark
“He had taken the Sam Carnegie course three times.”
No one enjoys a good joke more than Jack Reed. No one enjoys
telling a good joke more than Jack Reed. And for that matter, no
one enjoys being the butt of a good joke as much as Jack Reed.
Though he is sought out as a speaker because of his vision, his ex-
perience, and his wisdom, Reed’s humor is his trademark.
In talking about the century-old family business, Reed loves to
quote the theory that every successful enterprise requires three
men: a dreamer, a businessman, and an S.O.B. “If Dad was the
dreamer and [brother] Bob was the businessman, I leave it to you
to complete the analogy,” he tells his audiences.
While he has been called on over the years to address such
weighty issues as race relations, economic development, and poli-
tics, in 1996 he was invited to speak to the Quinqs—a rather
sporty group of fifty-year alumni at Vanderbilt University, many
of whom are longtime friends. While the speech was filled with re-
marks about—and to—personal friends, it was a perfect example
of Reed’s wit. The occasion called for absolutely no seriousness,
and Reed, who not too many years before had served as presi-
dent of Vanderbilt’s national alumni society, was pleased to be at
the lectern, opening with a quote from humorist Robert Bench-
ley: “It’s nice to be among friends, even if they aren’t mine.” And
with that, he took off.
115
1996: Humor—His Oratorical Trademark
It’s an honor to be invited to address this distinguished group

who are not “going gently into the night.” When Jimmy Webb
asked me to address this year’s Quinqs, I tried to decline on the
basis that I not only could not remember what happened fifty years
ago, but did not even have an old annual to remind me. . . . Webb
assured me that did not matter since very few Quinqs could re-
member anything beyond five or six years back. And he also told
me that the only reason he could remember so well was because
he had taken the Sam Carnegie course three times.
In fact, Jimmy has aged somewhat gracefully. Each New Year’s,
Frances and I celebrate with Jimmy and Caroline, Buddy and Sue
Whitson, and Mary Lee and Bill Manier in Florida. We set a modern-
day record in 1992 when we all made it to the ten o’clock news. . . .
However, I not only go to bed earlier these days, I must admit
I also get up earlier now—usually between four-thirty and five
o’clock. Of course, I go to the bathroom and then back to bed. I
have been told that in a perfect world prostates would shrink and
wallets would bulge.
Actually, Frances and I have had so many surgeries in the last
twenty years that I feel personally guilty when people complain
about Medicare going broke.
These days, my favorite quote is not from English literature
classes, but from an unknown but soulful poet who writes, “Seal
my lips to the many aches and pains. They are increasing, and my
love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by.”
And I’ll tell you something else disturbing: only the healthiest
classmates return for reunions.
But it is sweet to remember our tender college days. Like my
freshman algebra class, when Dr. Morrel threatened, “I flunked Red
Grange at Illinois and I’ll flunk you at Vanderbilt.” At least that ex-
plained why he was no longer at Illinois.
And Eddie Mims told us that he was “the only English depart-
ment chair at a major university that condescended to teach fresh-
man English.” How fortunate could we get? I was pleased to read
in a literary journal last year (perhaps from Vanderbilt) that Robert
Penn Warren didn’t like Mims either. . . .
116
I well remember on December 7, 1941, listening to President

Roosevelt in Kissam Hall—I was in Kissam; he was in Washington—
and hoping that if the Japanese actually did bomb the U.S. that it
would be nice if Kissam was the first to go.
Speaking of the war, quite a few of us eighteen-year-olds en-
listed in the army reserve in 1942 to await our call—and to get a
leg up we also joined the Tennessee state militia.
Our captain was Guilford Dudley, who cut a rather dashing fig-
ure in his riding boots, jodhpurs, and campaign hat. Our sergeant
was Nashville attorney and a longtime trustee, Reba Boult, a fel-
low Mississippian. We marched on Curry Field—or rather drilled on
Curry Field. As a result, my training was, if not lax, at least some-
what limited.
However, I was an eager soldier, and upon being called up ap-
plied all that I had learned under these two great leaders. As a re-
sult, I remained a private for the first thirty months of active duty.
So much for a college education.
But I did learn much of value at Vanderbilt. For instance, when I
came to Nashville from Tupelo I had never been in a liquor store. I
also learned that in 1941 Nashville was so dirty that it was neither
necessary, or even helpful, to wash your socks every day. . . .
In preparing these remarks, I remembered other things as well.
But please realize that these are limited to my personal memories,
and as Dr. Currie would say when making a particularly important
observation on Shakespeare (that wise students would immediately
put to memory), “This is according to Mrs. Currie’s little boy, Walter
Clyde.”. . .
However, I was truly stimulated by the intellectual atmosphere at
Vanderbilt and realized that I had indeed come to a sophisticated
school when my brother “Sleepy” told me that my Bible teacher
was believed to be an atheist. And when Dr. Duncan was reading
to us from Morte d’Arthur and quoted Sir Galahad as saying, “My
strength is as the strength of ten because my –damned heart is
pure.” Don’t tell me children don’t remember their teachers.
Of course, there are regrets as well. I regret that I cut class the
day that Dr. Campbell announced in economics that he deducted
117
grades for cutting class. When I got my “D” I really wished some
friend had told me about it—but I suppose that was asking a bit
much. I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed Phi Beta Kappa anyway.
And I remember well Dr. Frank Owsley’s course American Sec-
tions, or “the Civil War.” In fact, having taken his course, I had not
realized that the South had actually lost the war until I watched
Gettysburg on educational television. As I recall, Dr. Owsley said
that Robert E. Lee had never intended to surrender—that when he
entered the room at Appomattox and saw Grant standing there in
uniform he thought he was the butler and courteously handed him
his sword. . . .
After sending three children to Vanderbilt, I realize that per-
haps the main difference in Vanderbilt today and yesterday is that
in 1941 it was much easier to get in than to get out. In fact, forty
percent of my fraternity pledge class failed to make their grades.
That is the main difference, other than in social changes. When
you look at today’s coed dormitories it gives real poignancy to the
phrase “being born thirty years too soon.” I remember well when
Jack, Jr., was a freshman in 1969, that with parental permission
you could entertain girls in your dorm room. Jack beseeched us by
saying that he and a Baptist preacher’s son from Sparta, Tennessee,
were the only two boys on his floor that didn’t have permission.
Frances said, “Bring that boy home with you for Thanksgiving.
He’s our kind!”
Another Quinq told me last night that when his daughter
punished his grandson, “She sent him to bed without his girl-
friend.”. . .
You may have noticed that there is some confusion in the pro-
gram where I am listed variously as class of ‘45, ‘47, and even ‘43.
Since my education was interrupted by the Great War, that has be-
come a rather effective way of avoiding exact detection by the
alumni office when seeking a pledge.
But reunions are fun. I recall that at the 1980 reunion, Gus
Turbeville, class of ‘45, said he got kissed by the girls he couldn’t
get close to when they were dating.
I heard a good story told on Art Stegall, class of ‘46, when he
returned in the seventies. Arthur had gone to Arizona and become
118
a rancher, and not being naturally modest, he named his spread

the Standing A, Rocking S, Triple Dollar Ranch. Someone asked if
he had many cattle. He said, “Hell, no. Very few of them survive
the branding.”. . .
Dean [Madison] Sarratt is certainly the most quoted of ex-
professors, with such memorable remarks as “It is a fine thing to
have an open mind as long as it is not open at both ends.”. . .
As a courtesy, after my tenure as president [of the alumni board],
the board offered my name for election as university trustee. I called
Chancellor [Alexander] Heard and expressed my concern about the
possibility of serving on such an illustrious board, and my fear that I
could not afford its financial demands.
He urged me to go ahead and run, and not to worry about it. I
soon understood what he meant when I learned that my opponent
was a Nobel Prize winner!
Nevertheless, having been inspired by Irby Hudson’s political
science class, and encouraged by the fact that several Mississippi
alumni did vote for me for trustee (or said they did), I decided a
few years later to run for public office after four or five people
urged me to. (It takes ten for it to be officially called a public man-
date.)
And if you are laboring under the delusion that a Vanderbilt de-
gree is a guarantee of success, you should just let it be known and
try running for governor of Mississippi. . . .
On the first day of my campaign—which, coincidentally, was on
April Fool’s Day—I stopped in Forest, Mississippi, halfway between
Jackson and Meridian, to work the coffee crowd there.
I said, “My name is Jack Reed and I’m running for governor as
a Republican.” One old-timer said, “I know, Mr. Reed. We were
laughing about that this morning.”
Then after I had lost the election, so many people told me they
voted for me that I half expected to be inaugurated.
My experience was pretty much like that of humor columnist
Lewis Grizzard’s friend who said running for office was the worst
experience he ever had. “When I lied I got caught and when I told
the truth nobody believed me.”
Grizzard asked him why he would expose himself to such a
119
degrading experience. “Well,” he said, “I was already a lawyer.” I

didn’t even have that for an excuse.
But as I said after nine months of telling the voters how won-
derful I was, “Enough about me.”
This I know: seeing old friends and reliving our college days is a
wonderful nostalgic trip filled with fond memories. One of those,
for me, was in 1973 when at the Vanderbilt centennial they set to
music a poem about Vanderbilt written some years ago by Donald
Davidson (class of ‘17), “Morning Was Golden”:
Morning was golden when from one high tower

The cool bell stirred its bronze and rang the hour.
Trees were all April to our youthful mood,
And sun lit golden Morning in the blood;
For what is Morning but to tread old ways
Where other steps have trod, and measure days
With eager touch as for an ancient door
That willingly swings as it has swung before?
Where youthful feet have passed and yet will pass
Morning abides on trees and tower and grass;
And Morning rules where voices murmuring
From April Windows summon up the Spring.
Old paths may change, new faces light old walls,
Morning will still be golden in these halls.
It was golden for my brothers and me. It was golden for three
of my children. It was golden for a niece, a nephew, and a god-
child. And I believe it was golden for you or you wouldn’t be here
tonight.
I had never heard that poem when I was an English major at
Vanderbilt. But I well remember another poem most all of us had
to memorize in freshman English under Dr. Mims. It was Tennyson’s
“Ulysses.” And it speaks to us here today, not of the past but of
the future—where we are going to spend the rest of our lives. And
if you remember it, I invite you to join with me (and Dr. Mims) in
this recitation.
120
. . . Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
“Being able to give a speech like that was a lot of fun,” Reed
recalls. “It’s not often you get to devote your whole time to mak-
ing jokes, even though I did throw in a few verses of poetry just
to keep everyone on their toes. But I do think humor is the best
tool a speaker can have, even during the most serious of times. It
puts the audience at ease. People like to laugh, and if you can’t
laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at?”
121
c h a pt er el ev en
1948–Present:
Always a Businessman
“I felt that I ought to be getting to work.”
Throughout his life, Jack Reed has never professed to being

anything other than a businessman trying to make a difference.
While he has been an advocate for public education, a crusader
for racial reconciliation, a leader in regional economic develop-
ment, a gubernatorial candidate, and an active citizen in various
civic organizations throughout northeast Mississippi, Reed’s heart
has always been in his family’s businesses: Reed’s Department
Store and Reed Manufacturing.
There was a time when he considered being a college English
teacher, and he did indeed major in English at Vanderbilt Uni-
versity, but then World War II came along and the U.S. Army
had other ideas. He spent three years in the army, crisscrossing
America before being stationed in Australia and Japan, serving
as a code breaker in signal intelligence.
In his family memoir, Reed writes that he returned to Van-
derbilt following World War II and had planned on going to law
school after graduation, then thought about pursuing a PhD in
English, or even an MBA from Harvard, where his brother Bob
had gone for a year.
“But having spent three years in the army, I felt that I ought to
be getting to work,” he writes. “Dad had built a new store and it
was evident that he had hoped that Bob and I would come in with
him—and the sooner the better. . . . I had learned that New York
122
1948–Present: Always a Businessman
University offered a master’s degree in retailing with a one-year

work-study program which was unique in the country.”
Reed enrolled and soon found himself working in the fall of
1947 at Bloomingdale’s and in the spring of 1948 at Brooks
Brothers. In June 1948 he joined Bob at his family’s department
store and has never looked back.
Even as Reed’s Department Store and, later, the manufacturing
plant prospered, Reed, though deeply involved in each of them,
approached business as a means for progressive change in Tupelo
and northeast Mississippi. While he has drawn a great deal of sat-
isfaction from the process of moving goods from the manufac-
turer to the consumer, so, too, has he always maintained that the
department store and manufacturing plant were parts of a much
larger picture.
In March 2004, Reed spoke to the Oxford Chamber of Com-
merce about the family business—about its history and what made
it successful (though he hesitated to use that term), and about its
business philosophies and practices:
Jack Junior and I came to Oxford for the Vanderbilt–Ole Miss

basketball game not long ago and on the drive over I told Jack I
had accepted an invitation that day to speak here on our business
success, but was reluctant to do so.
He said, “Well, you’ve never been very passionate about busi-
ness anyway.”
I told him I sure was twenty years ago—before the malls and
the demise of so many independent retailers and competition. But
I had told the children that our business is really a means to an end
and not the end in itself—that it has given us the independence
and the means to live a good life in a community we love.
Then we came downtown to the Oxford square to eat, and I
loved all the activity and stores that reminded me of downtown
Tupelo twenty-five years ago. I saw Neilson’s, a fine store founded
in 1869, and its handsome show windows. I was reminded that
Reed’s would be one hundred years old next year and decided
maybe I do have a story to tell that might be interesting.
That fact is that we’re survivors, like Neilson’s, and that I do still
123
love the business after fifty-seven years. I honestly did not feel that
we had been much of a success, and that both J. C. Penney and
McRae’s had opened the same year as Reed’s, and look where they
are today.
Then I thought for a minute and realized there were no more
McRaes in McRae’s or Penneys in Penney, but there are still four
Reeds in Reed’s. Furthermore, as we approach one hundred, it
might be appropriate to take a look back at what got us here.
My father was one of seven boys and a girl, the children of a
country doctor in Itawamba County. Dad finished school (about
nine or ten years, all told) and took and passed the state teachers
exam. But he was too young to be a teacher.
He sold histories of the Spanish-American War—while the war
was still on, and he even sold one set to a blind man. Then he
opened a country store in partnership with his father in the late
1890s in Tilden.
At the urging of Mr. J. J. Rogers, his grocery supplier, Dad came
to Tupelo in 1905 and opened a grocery store next to Rogers. He
saw a men’s store across the street selling neckties for more profit
than he got from a fifty-pound barrel of flour and realized it was
a lot easier to lift a necktie than a fifty-pound barrel of flour, so he
opened a dry goods store, where Reed’s remains today.
Dad was a truly great salesman. He was hard working, enthu-
siastic, and fired with an ambition to succeed. He reminded me of
what football coach Vince Lombardi once said: “If you aren’t fired
with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
In the following years he brought four of his brothers into the
store. With his encouragement, three of them went down the street
and opened a wholesale dry goods business which later became
Reed Brothers Garment Plant, which my two brothers and I bought
in 1960 as our uncles reached retirement age.
Dad worked very hard and very long hours, but still became in-
volved in practically all the civic activity in Tupelo. He sold Tupelo’s
first “ready-made” dress and had Tupelo’s first air-conditioned
store. He expanded his business to other towns, including Water
Valley and Oxford, but sold the branches in the Depression.
He had what proved to be in the Southeast the first “day and
124
night sale”—from midnight Sunday to midnight Saturday—to

move his inventory and survived the Depression. My mother told
me, “It wasn’t the money; he just couldn’t stand the thought of
failing.” (There’s certainly a lesson to be learned there.)
He convinced the mayor to string lights over Main Street. He
hired school bus drivers to bring people into town, and hired teach-
ers from country schools as sales people. Dad said that things were
so bad in the Depression “that even the people who didn’t intend
to pay quit buying.”
But business picked up in 1936 and 1937, and he sent us boys
to college to get the education he had been denied. My brother
Bob had planned to go into the store after graduation from Har-
vard Business School. I planned to study law. Of course, we had all
worked part time during high school, but my brother Bill hated to
wait on customers, so he was no prospect for the store, and he
later ran the manufacturing plant. As I recall, by my senior year I
was making thirty-five cents an hour in 1941.
While we three were in the service, Dad, then over sixty-five,
planned to tear down the old store and build a modern depart-
ment store as soon as the war ended—which indeed he did, on his
own. He obviously had lost none of his drive or ambition.
I returned to school after three years away in the service and
was no longer so eager to go to law school, and Dad urged me
to join Bob in the store, which I did. I went to New York University
and worked at Brooks Brothers and Bloomingdale’s. My dad came
to get me, though he said the trip was accidental. (I’m not sure of
what interest or value you can get from that last experience unless,
if you are young, it’s better to be flexible in planning your future.)
I can tell you that working for a sixty-seven-year-old autocrat
who single-handedly had built his business from scratch for over
fifty years did not make for a placid and calm partnership, although
I both loved and admired my father greatly.
Some who knew nothing of my own calm and easy disposition
even ventured to say that I was much like my father, who often
said: “We are never wrong at Reed’s. If I say it’s black, Jack says it’s
white.” I’m sure he exaggerated, but I might have said that it was
gray. . . .
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After Dad’s death in 1956, Bob and I actually considered open-

ing a store in Oxford, but we expanded in Tupelo instead. In the
1970s we opened three branch stores in Tupelo, Columbus, and
New Albany, but subsequently closed the New Albany store.
My daughter Camille joined us after graduation, and in the
1980s Jack, who was practicing law in Tupelo, joined us. It wasn’t
too much longer before my daughter Catherine came on board.
Scott, who was working with Hart Schaffner Marx in Houston,
joined us but found out that working for both his father and
brother in a small business did not bring the opportunity or hap-
piness that he envisioned. He accepted an offer to open a Hilliard
Lyons brokerage office in our same building and became very suc-
cessful. We soon had three cousins, one nephew, and a niece in
what had become a real family business.
We also opened a second branch store in Tupelo and a men’s
store in Huntsville, Alabama, which we later sold. In the 1990s we
opened a store at the Barnes Crossing Mall—where we were and
remain the only locally owned business—and a store in Starkville.
And six years ago, still trying to grow and survive, we bought a strip
center in Columbus and opened our largest branch store there.
Meanwhile, in an effort to keep downtown Tupelo viable for re-
tailing, we bought and sold two competitors and a former drug-
store, and also invested unsuccessfully in three restaurants when
downtown had none. We were like Kenny Rogers in “The Gam-
bler”: “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold
’em.” We were better at folding them.
Frankly, though, in my fifty-seven years in business I have never
seen the challenge to independent business greater than it is to-
day. The purchasing power of Wal-Mart, Penney, Sears, and all the
chains is so great that Neilson’s and Reed’s are about the only two
independent department stores left in Mississippi.
To a large extent the old axiom—“if you cater to the masses
you’ll eat with the classes, and if you cater to the classes you’ll eat
with the masses”—has proved to be largely true! We indepen-
dents today have to constantly search to find our own niche in
both service and merchandise to successfully compete. Fortunately,
at Reed’s our third generation has managed to do so.
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I really believe my father was the best merchant in the family,

but I also believe that my children are the best prepared to sur-
vive in today’s environment, both from a technological and cultural
standpoint. And I am happy to say that although we almost stand
alone in downtown Tupelo our original store is the strongest store
that we have.
And I believe that we are there to stay a while longer. In fact, I
am more optimistic than I was five years ago.
My management style is awfully simple: we hire the best people
we can find and afford, and we give them as much responsibility
as they can and will accept. And I believe what Marshall Field
said: “Good will is the only asset that competitors cannot under-
sell or destroy.” Finally, don’t let management go stale. Jack Junior
is truly the C.E.O. of our company. My experience with Dad taught
me that!
So what do I do? I go to the store and smile at the customers.
(Like W. C. Fields said, “Start the day with a smile and get it over
with.”)
Each year at Christmas, we express our company philosophy
with a quote from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is talking
to Marley’s ghost:
“But you have always been a good man of business, Jacob.”
“Business,” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands. “Mankind was
my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy,
forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.
“The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the com-
prehensive ocean of my business.”
I do think the common welfare is all of our business. And even if
we fall short sometimes, it is well for each of us to remember that.
One of the principal reasons that Reed’s Department Store

has “survived” is because of its history of treating its customers
fairly. Following the infamous 1936 tornado that practically de-
stroyed Tupelo (killing more than two hundred citizens), Reed’s
father opened the doors of the store and told his customers to
take what they needed and pay when they could. Very few, if any,
abused R. W. Reed’s generosity or violated his trust.
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The sense of fairness and honesty has been passed down

through the generations and Jack Reed can’t fathom doing busi-
ness any other way. In 1989 he spoke about business ethics at Mis-
sissippi University for Women:
Ethics in business is both a serious and an important subject,

and I am honored to be asked to speak on this topic. I well remem-
ber advice given to a class of students at Vanderbilt in the 1940s by
Dean [Madison] Sarratt, where the honor system was used: “Today,
you will be taking two tests: one in math, the other on your char-
acter. If you have to fail one, let it be on math.”
And I say to you today, if you have to be unethical to succeed in
your career, I urge you to change careers. . . .
On balance it does seem that ethical standards of behavior have
tended to fall since World War II, and I believe that has caused:
• a lessening of idealism. We have few heroes today;
• an increasingly materialistic society where success is measured
in terms of expensive automobiles, bigger boats and houses, life-
styles of the rich and famous—where success is measured more in
terms of the quantity of life than in the quality of life.
Reed reminded his mostly young audience what the eighteenth-

century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville had said: “When
America ceases to be good America will cease to be great.” He
also warned about the pressures of placing profit over people, of
succumbing to the power of the bottom line:
This spring I heard a speech by a great sportsman who combines

ethics and success. Kyle Rote, Jr., America’s greatest native soccer
player, spoke at the mayor’s prayer breakfast in Tupelo and most of
his talk was on ethics. . . . He said business is a wonderful tool but
a horrible god.
“In sports today we have more ‘parole models’ than ‘role mod-
els,’ ” he said, and he gave many examples. He also said, “In the
last Olympics over half the athletes polled said they would take a
pill to win the gold medal even if they died within a year.”
That’s tragic for young men and women to put that much em-
128
phasis on winning—and on success as measured by our society to-

day. But we are all challenged every day, whether to be strictly hon-
est or not, and it’s true in school; it’s true in athletics; it’s true in our
social lives; and it’s true in business.
And it’s true in politics. In my [gubernatorial] campaign I didn’t
have trouble turning down illegal contributions. For one thing, as
the underdog I didn’t have too many offered me—but the greatest
ethical challenge was to just tell people what they wanted to hear
whether I really felt that way or not.
Because you feel that if you do you’ll get their vote and get
elected. You feel that the end (getting elected) justifies the means
(shading the truth, fudging a little) and it won’t really matter.
Well, believe me, it will matter—and if you have any moral char-
acter, and I know you do, you will find it very hard to live with
yourself for the rest of your lives.
Many of you— if not all—want to be leaders, both in life and
business. Aristotle said the very first quality necessary for leader-
ship is that a leader must have “the moral character to persuade
others”—the moral character to be trusted, to be depended upon.
Since many think Aristotle is the wisest man who ever lived, I would
take his advice seriously.
I recently heard another speech, by Notre Dame head coach
Lou Holtz, on what it takes to be successful in sports and in busi-
ness. First, he said, you’ve got to be goal oriented. Then, he said,
do right, do the best you can, and treat everybody just the same as
you would like to be treated. That is a great code of ethics; it is the
Golden Rule. . . .
I am a member of the Kiwanis Club, but I think the motto of the
International Rotary Club is one of the very best statements to the
business and professional men and women who make up its mem-
bership that I have ever run across: “Service above self. He profits
most who serves best.”
The Rotary Four-Way Test “of things we think, say or do” is also
a model for us all:
• Is it the truth?
• Is it fair to all concerned?
• Will it build good will and better friendship?
129
• Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

And I recommend those tenets to you. I am sure they have
helped many Rotarian businessmen keep their priorities straight
over the years and they have, in fact, been very helpful to me.
I think by now you realize that I believe that business ethics are
no different than any other ethics—and that they should not be.
President Teddy Roosevelt said, “Character, in the long run,
is the decisive factor in the life of an individual, and of nations
alike.”. . . And Will Rogers told us to live our lives “so we wouldn’t
mind selling the family parrot to the town gossip.”
I mentioned earlier that this generation seems to be more con-
cerned with quantity of life than quality of life. George McLean of
Tupelo made a fine statement about quality of life: “Quality of life
is caught from others. It cannot be taught by talking. Quality of life
is not a different area of life, it is a way of life, a spirit that perme-
ates everything we do or say or think. It is based on using things,
serving people, and worshipping God. It is the abundant life that
comes through service. It is a by-product of forgetting self and
seeking to serve God and neighbor.”
And he also said, “If we and other business, professional, and
working people throughout our state would embody ‘quality of
life’ in everything we do, wherever we are, we shall inevitably reach
a richer, better life.”
“That’s the way we’ve tried to approach our business,” Reed

says, “and it’s worked out well for us. For more than a hundred
years we’ve tried to treat our customers with a great deal of re-
spect, and they’ve always supported us. We aren’t the biggest or
the richest business around, but we are still around.”
130
c h a p t er t w elv e
1998–Present: Still Speaking Out

“I just think a fellow ought to do his part.”
For the most part, Reed has indeed stayed home since his ten-
ure on the Mississippi Board of Education and his run for gov-
ernor. He still spends his days in his office at the department
store, breaking each morning to meet with his compatriots in
the Downtown Tupelo Coffee Club that he, his brother Bob,
and Son Puckett began in 1947. The group has included nearly
every prominent Tupelo businessman and civic leader during its
sixty years—“and,” Reed says, “I’m sure we’ve solved most of the
world’s problems by now.”
These days, Reed’s biggest source of pride is his family, particu-
larly his grandchildren: Kirk Reed Forrester and Jack Reed III;
Frances Clayton and Claude Clayton III; Paul Mize III and Bennett
Mize; Dakin Reed and Lilla Reed; and Rollin Sloan, Shipman
Sloan, Spencer Sloan, and Crofton Sloan III.
“One thing you can always count on during holidays,” Reed
says, “is that there is never a dull moment. Any time we have a
family get-together it’s quite an event. As one old farmer said, ‘I
know four children and eight grandchildren ain’t no record, but
it ain’t no hobby either.’”
Besides his ongoing and very public support for full funding
of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, Reed’s only re-
cent statewide adventure came in early 2001 when he served on
131
the seventeen-member Mississippi Flag Commission—a body es-

tablished by Governor Ronnie Musgrove to try and change the
state flag with its prominent Confederate battle flag. Musgrove
had asked former governor William Winter to serve as chair of
the commission and Reed to serve with him. Reed calls it the “low
point” in his lifetime of civic involvement.
“It was the low point because of such truly outrageous behavior
of the opponents of changing the flag, and because of the sheer
unpleasantness that occurred at each occasion,” he says. “And it
also hurt because it revealed how little progress had been made
toward racial reconciliation in some quarters. I enjoy a good ar-
gument and spirited contest as much as anyone, but I do not en-
joy listening to people whose minds are completely closed.”
In his family memoir, he writes: “K nowing what a thankless
job it was to be, I declined to serve, but at William’s request and
Musgrove’s continued urging, I reluctantly accepted. At the first
meeting I said that I felt I was being punished for unknown sins.
Whatever the reason, it was punishment. It was one of the most
unpleasant efforts at public service that I had ever had.
“When [state representative] Ed Blackmon moved at one of
our earlier meetings that we hold open meetings in each congres-
sional district, inviting the public to offer comments, I knew we
were in trouble. It turned out to be serious trouble.
“We had an excellent committee, most of whom were open-
minded on the subject. We interviewed all interested organiza-
tions from the NA ACP to the Sons of the Confederacy before go-
ing statewide.
“It just happened that our first meeting was in Tupelo, and
Winter had asked me to chair it since he had a conflict. The crowd
of several hundred literally overflowed the auditorium. At least
75 percent of the audience was violently against any change. For
three hours, forty or more spoke in opposition [to changing the
flag] and only two or three spoke in favor of change. Many of the
comments were militant. Some threatened us with bodily harm.
“Anticipating trouble, our chief of police [Ron Smith] pro-
vided excellent security, including uniformed and plainclothed
officers, for which I was most grateful. Subsequently, I did receive
132
threatening letters and we [Reed’s Department Store] lost a few

customers. One group picketed our store, but had no permit and
Chief Smith told them to leave.
“The pattern of behavior followed at each of our meetings, be-
coming even more strident, if possible, and the referendum state-
wide was two to one against any change in the flag. This doubt-
less cost Musgrove in his race for reelection [in 2003]; however,
I admired him for making the effort. Unfortunately, it brought
out publicly the worst prejudices still evident in Mississippi, even
though some opponents of change I know were not racists.
“In retrospect, I am sure that it would have been better to
leave the matter alone. Mississippi got terrible publicity. Possibly
the only positive aspect was that reasonable people on both sides
were turned off by the vindictiveness and even fanaticism ex-
pressed, and perhaps would now have a clearer perspective of
Mississippi’s present situation regarding history and race.”
Of much greater pleasure to Reed over the years has been the
opportunity to tell “the Tupelo story” and to spread the gospel of
“the Tupelo spirit.” Rare have been the times he refused an op-
portunity to travel around the state, region, or country to offer
his explanation of just how his lifelong home has become a model
for economic development while maintaining a high quality of
life. It is a story he never tires of telling, and on February 25,
2004, Reed was delighted to share it with a group of economic
development officials from throughout the Southeast at the Tu-
pelo Story Conference, sponsored by the CDF:
I appreciate the invitation to speak to you today, and really, it’s

nice to be remembered. I am now at the age where the “venera-
bility factor” has kicked in—when I am accused of things I never
did and given credit for virtues I never had.
After having heard all the talk about Tupelo, I hope that you
will not feel like the New Yorker who was showing a Texas visitor
his city a few years ago. He showed him the New York harbor and
the Texan remarked that they had bigger stock ponds in Texas. He
showed him the Statue of Liberty and the Texan said they had big-
ger tombstones in Texas. Then he showed him the Empire State
133
Building and the Texan boasted they had bigger outhouses in Texas.
To which the New Yorker replied, “By God, sir, you need them!”
But I would also caution you not to underestimate a community
just because it overestimates itself, as we sometimes tend to do in
Tupelo. Besides, I can only speak with authority from my own expe-
rience and involvement over the last fifty years.
The facts are that since 1947, Tupelo and Lee County have ac-
complished the following: have three times been voted an All-
American City; ranked second in Site Selection magazine’s Top 100
List of Small Towns for New and Expanded Corporate Facilities; for
the last twenty-two years Lee County has averaged over one thou-
sand industrial jobs each year—75 percent of which have come
from expansions. . . .
Lee County has become the most industrialized county in Mis-
sissippi with populations greater than seventy-five thousand. (Like
many of you, we have lost over two thousand jobs in recent years,
many in my plant, yet we still have seventeen thousand manufac-
turing jobs and a total of fifty-two thousand jobs.)
During that period we have also secured or developed:
• a community college
• a branch of the University of Mississippi
• a world-class advanced education center
• the nation’s largest nonmetropolitan hospital
• a nine-thousand-seat coliseum
• a symphony, art museum, community theatre
• an outstanding school system
• a revitalized downtown
• a successful regional mall
• two or three high-priced restaurants
I am not trying to impress you. I am just validating the point I
am trying to make today—that sustained economic success does
not happen in a vacuum, nor does it happen when a major industry
comes to town. It is, rather, the result of a longtime commitment
to total community development which, I am convinced, must pre-
cede and accompany economic development.
It takes more than a good physical plant site and infrastructure—
as important as they are—to attract, keep, and grow industry. It
134
takes a community that offers a quality of life that people want

and, in many cases today, demand.
My assignment was titled “From the Beginning.” Perhaps today,
it should be called “The Rest of the Story,” or even “Same Song,
Second Verse.” From the standpoint of personal involvement, in
that sense I suppose I am, at least, qualified to speak. So this is the
Tupelo Story of how we got where we are since World War II and
where we came from.
As for me, I was born in Tupelo in 1924—I’m a fifth-generation
Mississippian who:
• lived elsewhere only during college and World War II;
• heard President Roosevelt speak in 1933 recognizing Tupelo as
the first TVA city in America;
• survived the tornado of 1936 in which more than two hundred
people were killed;
• successfully survived, with my family, the Depression years
when per capita income in Mississippi was just $250 to $350;
• entered our business in 1947, the year when the Community
Development Foundation was founded, and I have been active ever
since;
• even knew Elvis Presley—although we didn’t run in the same
circles, so to speak.
In the early twentieth century we were literally in the poorest
section of the poorest state in the nation. We had few natural ad-
vantages; we had no rich Delta farmland, no river traffic, no univer-
sity, no government offices, no decent highways, no major indus-
try, very few people.
But we did have five thousand small farm families, and we did
have progressive civic leadership who wanted to do better. They
had started a cotton mill, which failed during the Depression. They
began garment manufacturing in 1916. They raised fifty thou-
sand dollars in the thirties to match a Commonwealth grant for a
hospital—and today it’s our largest employer, with over four thou-
sand jobs and more than three hundred doctors. They built the
South’s first concrete road with local effort. They became the first
city to get TVA power.
An editorial in the Tupelo Journal in 1881 perhaps suggests the
135
origin of the Tupelo Spirit: “Every man owes a duty to the town
in which he resides, to advance its prosperity and to make it the
abode of kindly sentiments and brotherly and neighborly feel-
ings. . . . It is a shame for a man to use his community as a shep-
herd uses his sheep, merely to shear the wool. That man is a dis-
grace to the 19th century whose every act is regulated by the
thought, ‘Can I better myself at the expense of the community to
which I belong?’ ”
The early days were not easy in Mississippi or in Tupelo. When
I graduated high school in 1941, only one in four white Missis-
sippians graduated, and only one in forty black Mississippians
graduated. . . .
It was in the Depression that George McLean bought the Tupelo
Journal—“a bankrupt newspaper from a bankrupt bank.” A social
science teacher and former ministerial student, George had a clear
vision, boundless energy, and great commitment. . . .
(I read once that it takes three people to make a successful en-
terprise: a visionary, a businessman, and an S.O.B. For various people
George filled all three roles in the C.D.F.) He was certainly our vi-
sionary and our sparkplug that ignited the C.D.F., our economic en-
gine. He was dissatisfied with the big business domination of the
chamber of commerce, and it was George’s idea that the chamber
be replaced with a Community Development Foundation with a
much broader mission than the chamber of commerce—with the
emphasis on job creation and public education. That is still our phi-
losophy today. . . .
George had the rare virtue of not only speaking out often, but
also of putting his money where his mouth was, even in the early
days when he had very little money. He used his newspaper to con-
stantly push his progressive ideas. In the process he also became
my mentor.
When I was president of the Mississippi Economic Council in the
sixties and people asked me what I did, I said I raised money and
defended George McLean, which was a full-time job!
Actually, without many natural advantages our early leader-
ship consciously decided that if anyone was going to move Tupelo
ahead, we had to do it ourselves. . . .
136
So with limited resources and natural advantages, we looked

first to ourselves, then to Jackson, then to Washington.
As George once challenged us, “What this community will be
tomorrow depends on you. There is no great leader here to do
what you and I need to do, and are privileged to do. And take my
word for it, there is no great, good, wise, warm, wonderful person
in Jackson or Washington to wrap up the good community in cel-
lophane and hand it to us.” And we did look first to ourselves, but
unlike most of Mississippi we also welcomed state and federal help:
LIFT (a community action agency that includes Head Start); public
housing; TVA; ARC, which came in the Lyndon Johnson years. We
thought we could use federal money as well as anyone else, or bet-
ter. And, not incidentally, the tornado of 1936, rather than setting
Tupelo back, actually served to pull our town together and ener-
gized us to move ahead.
Other than George McLean and his progressive newspaper,
critical elements to our early success were: the C.D.F., three locally
owned banks who were willing to lend money for entrepreneurial
investment (and we still have two, which is a great asset), business
leadership rather than political leadership, but honest government,
good public schools (that are now excellent), and perhaps of great-
est importance was an inclusive rather than exclusive attitude and
the welcoming of outside business leadership arriving with new in-
dustrial development. Many of our C.D.F. chairmen have been in-
dustrialists who have come into our community; there is no old
money in Tupelo trying to maintain the status quo—although I’m
hoping some day there will be.
Our first efforts at economic growth were to encourage agricul-
ture production—five thousand two hundred farm families before
World War II had been reduced to five hundred, and there were no
big landowners. We called it R.C.D.C. (Rural Community Develop-
ment Council), and we started an artificial insemination program
to breed good dairy cattle. (I was glad when it was terminated; I
thought it was unfair to the cows and the bulls.)
One reason for change from the chamber of commerce was that
it opposed TVA and really was the agent of big business. We called
ourselves the “city without limits.” (Speaking of the chamber,
137
during the cold war, the Department of Defense wired the mayor
of a small Mississippi town and asked what was their plan for nu-
clear defense. “We have no fear of nuclear attack,” the mayor
wired back. “Our chamber of commerce has successfully driven
off everything that has come our way for the last twenty years!”)
We realized from the start that in a city of ten thousand to fifteen
thousand there is not enough good leadership to fragment our ef-
forts. So we focused our strongest leadership on C.D.F.: we did
not allow proxies. We met on call, day after day, night after night.
(Membership on the C.D.F. executive committee was not then, and
is not now, an honorary position. You are expected to work and
you will.) We have no prima donnas in the C.D.F. We are in it to-
gether. We hired a professional staff and have kept it professional.
We served as an umbrella for other organizations and spun them
off when there was sufficient support.
We started with 151 charter members and we now have more
than 1,000. In 1947, our budget was $28,000; in 1958 it was
$44,000 . . . In the 1960s we asked the county for one-half mill,
which brought us $12,500, and we later asked for a full mill, which
brought us $25,000. By 1981, that one mill brought us $162,000
and today it brings us more than $500,000. Our C.D.F. budget to-
day is more than $2,000,000.
And we established a close relationship with our supervisors,
and made heroes of them by having three industrial park locations
in Lee County that serve all five districts so each supervisor had in-
dustrial development in his district. We constantly worked for good
city-county relationships.
In the late ‘40s and ‘50s, when most communities offered “two
hundred breathing bodies and a bond issue,” Tupelo offered plant
sites with medium-size plants hiring men, detailed building costs
information, immediate warehousing space for early start-ups, and,
frankly, did whatever it took. . . . We did not talk “cheap labor.”
We did stress “our work ethic and productivity.”
We are trying to meet the current challenge of global compe-
tition aggressively. Eight years ago we formed the Northeast Mis-
sissippi Regional Commission to improve the quality of life in our
138
sixteen-county region by working cooperatively. We believe this has

great potential.
Our local community foundation named CREATE (another
George McLean venture to which he left the ownership of his
newspaper) supplies both staff and operating funds for the re-
gional commission. Our major effort this year is in the critical
area of workforce development, where in May we received a spe-
cial award in Halifax, Canada, for our cooperative effort between
C.D.F., our community college, and local industry in which two
thousand five hundred employees have participated.
But back to community development as essential to economic
development. Successful community development today must in-
clude good race relations, and good race relations have been criti-
cal to whatever success Tupelo has had. And we tried to be pro-
active in dealing with it. Our hospital was the first in Mississippi to
voluntarily integrate in 1965. Our public schools were the first to
integrate (along with Greenville). Our city parks were never closed.
We had no private schools and did not establish a council school,
so there was no “white flight” from public schools, as was com-
mon elsewhere. We had north Mississippi’s first biracial commit-
tee. Fortunately, we survived both KKK demonstrations and United
League boycotts over police brutality because we have a reservoir
of good will between the races that we could draw on.
Believe me, our economic growth would not have happened if
we did not offer industry a good quality of life, and industry would
not have expanded if they had not found it. It is becoming even
more important with technology, the Internet, and instant commu-
nications. Times have indeed changed.
Today, talented young men and women often decide where they
want to live—and then look for a job. Look at how our university
towns like Oxford are growing.
Why, right now, with the support of a strong Main Street Pro-
gram, we are developing the Fairpark District in downtown Tupelo
adjacent to our coliseum, anchored by our new city hall and a new
business incubator with offices, entertainment, and residences
along the lines of Harbor Town in Memphis to attract young people
139
and others who are seeking that lifestyle. As a lifelong native, I

agree with financial advisor Charles Schwab, who said, “The best
place to succeed is where you are with what you have.”
Let me conclude with a very personal comment: these things
have not happened overnight. They have taken at least fifty-seven
years of many citizens working cooperatively together under
strong leadership. Thoreau said, “Let a man march to the music he
hears.” That’s a great philosophy, but it’s no way to build a com-
munity.
However, progress does not come without its costs. My family
happens to have the oldest remaining apparel plant in Lee County,
founded in 1916, and the oldest remaining retail business, founded
in 1905.
Every new plant that came in increased our costs of operation.
We have gone from one thousand employees to fewer than two
hundred. Every new store that opened competed for our customers
and took many of them. (Frankly, I would rather have the only store
in a city of one hundred thousand people.)
When I graduated in 1941, I went to the army and finished col-
lege under the GI bill. The smartest and most ambitious classmates
left Tupelo for greater opportunities. (I worked in New York, but
came back to the family business.)
When my four children finished college, they came back to a
thriving, growing community. Today, all four children and eight
grandchildren live in Tupelo.
I consider that a great return on my investment in the Commu-
nity Development Foundation.
Though it was founded in Tupelo and has focused most of its

energies on the development of the city and Lee County, CDF
has always been concerned with regional cooperation. During its
nearly sixty years of growth, CDF, under the leadership of Harry
Martin and David Rumbarger, has worked tirelessly with its neigh-
boring counties. In 1995 it joined with the CREATE Foundation
to establish the Commission on the Future of Northeast Missis-
sippi, pulling together fifteen counties (the number would soon
grow to sixteen) to address common issues.
140
Corinth businessman Sandy Williams served for three years as

the first chair of the commission; then Reed once again found
himself at the helm of an organization. In May 1998, he offered
these words to the audience of more than a thousand at the an-
nual meeting:
It is only through honest self-examination that we learn how to

improve ourselves, and while flattery is good for our self-esteem it
does very little to make us better. Besides, it can be subject to mis-
interpretation.
I remember coming home from a big evening some time ago
when Frances asked me: “Did anyone ever tell you that you are
a good dancer, a charming conversationalist, and a devil with the
women?”
“No, dear, I don’t think so.”
“Then whatever gave you that idea at the party tonight?”. . .
What we are about today—in considering the improvement of
our region—started long before three years ago and will take con-
siderably more than three years to reach the goals that each of our
counties has set for themselves.
In fact, our commission’s work is a process, not a cure-all—and
it is not for the faint of heart. It’s not so much a job for the sprinter
as for the long-distance runner. . . .
So we are clearly on our way. Perhaps most importantly of all,
we have learned (or we are learning) that we are dependent upon
each other—that none of our communities or counties exists in a
vacuum. . . .
If we have learned anything from the past, it is that while
honest competition is good, jealousy and selfishness are self-
destructive—and I’m sure that the most important achievement
of this organization is the breaking down of artificial barriers that
have tended to keep us apart, which was in fact our first goal
adopted when we first met.
I’m talking about the natural suspicion—even jealousy—of each
other’s motives and actions, whether between town and country,
agriculture and industry, city and county, or even between county
seats on rare occasions.
141
I know full well that Tupelo’s growth and favorable publicity can
be a little hard to take when Lee County announces five hundred
new jobs and your county just announced a plant closing. . . .
But that isn’t anything new. When I was in school and Tupelo
High played Corinth, I can remember well having the air let out of
our tires during the game. Those were simpler times when shoot-
ing each other seemed extreme. But then I fell in love with a Cor-
inth cheerleader, married her, and realized to my surprise, Sandy,
that there were wonderful people in Alcorn County.
Of course, when I ran for office and failed to carry northeast
Mississippi, I realized I still had a little personal work to do!
But we do indeed have much to learn from each other. Each of
our counties has its own assets and successes which can benefit us
all, and our good progress should be shared. On tough issues like
roads and infrastructure, environmental measures, legislators from
both Jackson and Washington respond most quickly to a united
front. . . .
In fact, we have so much in common that it strikes me as ridicu-
lous to dwell on what separates us. What we have going in this or-
ganization is that we are united in a common cause, and there is
joy and satisfaction. . . .
I am proud to be associated with people who have a vision that
is defined and realistic, and who are working to make that vision a
reality. And I am grateful that in years gone by we have had people
in each of our communities who have cared enough to make a
difference—many of whom are here today.
There is a verse in the Talmud that says, “It is not up to you to
finish the work, but neither are you free not to take it up.” Your
presence here today indicates your willingness to do just that.
When I think of our legacy in our region I inevitably think of
George McLean, from whom we all continue to benefit years after
his death. . . . Fifteen or twenty years ago, George spoke to the
Mississippi Economic Council on quality of life, which is really our
main concern in this commission. I think you will be interested in
what he had to say:
“We need to stress as never before the necessity for honesty
and efficiency both in government and in business and professional
142
life. What you and I do, or fail to do, will determine the fate of the
state in the years ahead. The true principle for quality of living or
for enlightened private enterprise is the statement found in Luke,
chapter six: ‘Give and it shall be given to you. For the measure you
give will be the measure you will get.’
“We must freely give of our time, our abilities, and our money
to the development of our state. Otherwise, we shall certainly con-
tinue to remain at the bottom among the American states.
“No one can lift Mississippi except Mississippians.”
And many years before George, John Ruskin gave a challenge
that speaks to us here in this room (and after watching two senior
grandchildren graduate last night it speaks to me): “When we build,
let us not build for present use and present delight alone, but let
it be such works that our descendants will thank us and say, ‘See,
this is what our fathers did for us.’ ”
Four years later, when Reed turned over the chairmanship

of the commission to New Albany contractor Denotee Martin,
he reminded his audience once again of its mission of regional
co -operation and of each member’s responsibility—and again
quoted McLean.
“From the very beginning of CREATE, our parent and finan-
cial supporter, George McLean envisioned a regional organiza-
tion,” Reed told the gathering. “He said then, ‘We should use pri-
vate dollars to develop model programs to meet local needs to solve
regional problems.’ (And to give George his due, most of the pri-
vate dollars so far have been his.)” Unaware that he was engaging
in a bit of foreshadowing, Reed then offered these thoughts about
the state of the region:
After seven years we are well on the way. We have, to a marked

degree, broken down many barriers of county lines, of political is-
sues, of simple jealousies and competition that divide us. We have
shown that we can accomplish far more by working together than
by going it alone—that in many areas we either move ahead to-
gether or we do not move ahead at all. . . .
Our commission has taken up the work. We are making
143
substantial and measurable progress and we are committed to

moving ahead for the benefit of all.
In 2004, the area’s historical concept of regional cooperation

took on new dimensions when three contiguous counties—Pon-
totoc, Union, and Lee—among the commission’s sixteen joined
forces and combined resources to form the PUL Alliance. The
new alliance’s sole purpose was to attract a major industry, one
that would serve not just their three counties but all of northeast
Mississippi, and beyond.
Three years later, the efforts of the PUL Alliance were re-
warded when Toyota announced that it would build its next North
America manufacturing plant in Blue Springs—in the conjunc-
ture of Pontotoc, Union, and Lee counties.
“I was among a group of several leaders in our area who met
privately with Japanese officials,” Reed says. “At some point, al-
most all community leaders were involved in the project led by
CDF and Three Rivers Planning and Development District. It was
regional cooperation at its finest.”
More than two thousand jobs will be created to build the mas-
sive plant, and when it begins production in 2010, two thousand
more jobs will be created and countless “spin-off companies” will
locate in the region, offering even more employment opportunities.
While regional cooperation was of significant importance in
Toyota’s decision to locate in northeast Mississippi, equally im-
portant was the support for and success of the region’s public
schools. The foundation of all that is northeast Mississippi is and
has been for the past six decades its strong and unwavering sup-
port of public education.
Statewide, citizens who valued the importance of public educa-
tion and clearly understood its role in community and economic
development knew they had a champion in Jack Reed.
On March 26, 2007, at the Hilton Hotel in Jackson, the Mis-
sissippi Association of Partners in Education (MAPE) paid trib-
ute to Reed and Winter, the longtime friends and cohorts in the
battles for public education, as “two of Mississippi’s most out-
spoken and effective proponents of public education.” The orga-
14 4
nization also introduced the Winter-Reed Partnership Award, to

be presented annually to Mississippians “who carry on their legacy
of educational involvement and support.” At age eighty-two, Reed
traveled to Jackson—not just to accept his portion of the award
and share the lectern with Winter, his ally in so many of the good
fights, but to speak out for the students of Mississippi.
I want to thank all of you for coming—including my family,

who, along with Frances, have provided the greatest support group
that anyone has ever had, as well as the greatest motivation to go
to work every day. I learned during my campaign that it’s safer to
bring your own cheering section with you.
To be honored along with my friend William Winter for our in-
volvement in what I truly believe is the most important responsi-
bility of state government is recognition that I do not accept lightly.
Not only because I regard William as Mississippi’s most dedi-
cated leader of my generation, but also because William can al-
ways draw a crowd. (Although I don’t see as many lobbyists here
as when he was governor.)
It is inevitable that if you remain publicly active during a long
life, a certain amount of recognition comes your way. I refer to
these as my Seniority and Senility Awards.
(Of course, I am not speaking for William—he is older than I,
and may be sensitive about senility. However, I am afraid that we
are both like the elderly lady who said, “I can’t see, I can’t hear, but
thank God I can still drive!”)
Tonight really is different. MAPE represents all of the efforts over
the years by so many who actively support public education that to
be included in this number is distinction enough, and to be hon-
ored by you in this way reassures me that I am still on the right
track with the right people and moving in the right direction—even
though my engine might be slowing down. And I am deeply grate-
ful, worthy or not.
Over the last fifty years, whenever (and if ever) I am introduced,
I automatically leap to the podium and start making a speech
about public education—or rather, I formerly leapt to the podium.
Tonight will be no exception, but I promise to be brief.
145
In Lessons of History, Will Durant wrote, “Education is the trans-

mission of civilization, and if this transmission should be interrupted
for just one century civilization would die, and we should all be
savages again.” So, he says, “Our finest achievement is the un-
precedented expenditure of wealth and toil in the provision of edu-
cation for all.”
I believe that—and I believe that if educated, the children of our
state are our greatest asset. If not, they are our greatest liability.
And if they are to have a better opportunity to succeed—to
achieve a better quality of life than their parents—to compete for
more and better job opportunities that are available to educated
people wherever they live (not only in America but throughout the
world), then we here in Mississippi must do more than just keep
up, and we must do more than we are now doing.
Even in this landmark year, when we have strong and most wel-
come support from both the legislature and our governor, we must
more effectively commit an increasingly greater effort with greater
resources both financially and otherwise to preschool, to kinder-
garten, grade school, high school, community colleges, and univer-
sities, and we must make a greater effort to end school drop-outs
and truancy and to increase learning.
And don’t faint, but we even need to make two-year community
colleges tuition free statewide, as is now being done in Meridian.
While it is tempting on occasions like tonight to reflect on wor-
thy past accomplishments, this is not the time to stop and look
back with pride or self-satisfaction, even though Nancy Loomis,
Brad Pigott, Dick Molpus, Beverly Brahan, Frank Yates, Sam
Bounds, and others who have worked so hard for full funding have
every right to do so.
As older labor-intensive industries move to China and Vietnam;
as modern technology requires even more college graduates; as
physical strength becomes less important than mental strength,
now is the time to rededicate ourselves to the future—the future
of our state and our families.
Thomas Paine, whose writings inspired the American Revolution,
wrote: “Those of us who expect to reap the benefits of freedom
must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
146
Substitute education for freedom—though they are indeed

inseparable—and you have tonight’s message to our fellow Missis-
sippians: “Those of us who expect to reap the benefits of an edu-
cated electorate must, like men and women, undergo the financial
burden of supporting it.”
So, we “octogenarians against ignorance” are still at it, although
I am quite sure that some, both in and out of government, wish
we would shut up, retire, and leave well enough alone.
One reason we will not is because of our personal experience
over the years (the many years). William and I, by accident of birth,
have been fortunate enough to be members of America’s so-called
“Greatest Generation.” As such, we have enjoyed the many oppor-
tunities that came with America’s optimism and confidence follow-
ing our victory in World War II—when a young nation overnight
became the world’s greatest superpower.
It may well be that the most significant and rewarding of these
opportunities was being provided by the GI bill of rights that
made education, and even higher education, available to all or any
servicemen and -women ambitious enough to take advantage of it,
as both William and I did along with two million others.
If we here tonight will pass on to our children and grandchildren
the same educational opportunities—and more—that were avail-
able to us sixty years ago, Mississippi’s Greatest Generation may
well be yet to come.
I pray God that that will come to pass.
Reed says he has no regrets about his life of public service

even though he has, except for his run for governor, remained
a private, but vigorous, citizen balancing the responsibilities of
church, family, and business.
“It has been a most rewarding life,” he says. “It has allowed me
to get to know people all over Mississippi and, for that matter, the
country. The governor’s race exposed me to all sorts of people
around the state and only made my love for Mississippi stronger.
“When I think back over all my years, I don’t know of very
many things I’d do differently. I just think a fellow ought to do
his part.”
147
A F TERWOR D
A Son’s Perspective
I suppose that many of us have our fathers as our heroes. I hope

so. When I read the annual Father’s Day essays in the Northeast
Mississippi Daily Journal, I am reminded of the many different, poi-
gnant ways our fathers influence not only our lives but also the
lives of others.
Frequently, as we listen to children of all ages reminisce about
their fathers, we hear comments like: “he loved his vegetable gar-
den, and he grew the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted”; “he could
tell the scariest ghost stories”; “he was the most fun coach I ever
had.” There are as many fond recollections as there are good fa-
thers.
For my siblings, Camille, Catherine Dale, Scott, and me, the
most frequent accolade we heard again and again as children was
“your daddy is the best public speaker I’ve ever heard.” After we
became adults, we, as well as our spouses, Lisa, Crofton, Buzzy,
and Annette, continued to hear it, and our children still do.
I agree. He has a unique ability to bring important, thoughtful
messages on meaningful issues—peppering them with a conta-
gious sense of humor—and leave his audiences both entertained
and inspired.
People will say, “He’s a natural-born public speaker.” But I can
tell you from a lifetime of personal observation that he spends
hours preparing for a thirty-minute speech. He continues to
149
Afterword
learn. He reads voraciously—about a book every two nights. He

listens incessantly to “Great Courses” on tapes which are con-
stantly playing in his car. (This can be a bit annoying if you hop
in at midlecture and he remarks, “I think you’ll like this,” and
then keeps it on—at a fairly high volume!)
He saves quotations and has a file of jokes and humorous say-
ings. He keeps a date book in his coat pocket so that he can jot
down any remark which might bear repeating.
He revises and revises his talks, and then he practices deliver-
ing them to a critical reviewer. For most of the past fifty years that
person was our mother, who, according to him, was a pretty tough
audience—lots of “B-plusses.”
He prepares seriously because he always wants to do his best—
and he sets high standards for himself. His father, my grandfather,
Bob Reed, had a personal motto: “Aim high.” I know Dad has
done that.
As a result, he has traveled all over our state making speeches
to hundreds of civic clubs, charitable and school organizations,
and churches.
Amidst all this traveling he did make our mother and us one
pledge—“I’ll be there for breakfast.” And he was. He drove home
every night, and every morning we would all sit around the break-
fast table just off our kitchen and have that meal together; then
he would drive us to school and he would go to work at our family
store.
Occasionally he would take one of us along with him to an
out-of-town speech. I remember once as a teenager riding down
a country road to the Itta Bena United Methodist Church and sit-
ting by the pastor and his wife on the front pew listening to Dad’s
message on race relations and the Golden Rule. These were spe-
cial opportunities: to be treated to one-on-one time with him was
unusual in a home with four children. (When we were all at sum-
mer camps, he would write one letter and send the original and
three copies, each declaring: “this is the original!”)
Ultimately, his greatest contributions to our family were not
these speeches, of course, but his unwavering love and generosity
to us children and the role model he gave us as a husband.
150
Afterword
These speeches represent a lifetime of one man’s efforts to do

his part to bring a better quality of life to all of our citizens.
In the 1960s his leadership gave strength to many other Mis-
sissippians who felt similarly about race relations, but needed to
hear a voice proclaim it.
Later, as Mississippi’s first chair of our first appointed state
board of education, he steadfastly beat the drum for increased
support for our public schools. Now into his eighties, he has not
relented. (Witness the photograph on the cover.)
Throughout his life he has continued to speak out on the
critical importance of community development and the roles pri-
vate citizens must play in the public arenas.
I believe these speeches are convincing evidence that leader-
ship through public speaking can still inspire, encourage, inform,
and influence public opinion and behavior. Surely we are all bet-
ter off because Dad has felt there was “a time to speak.”
Jack Reed, Jr.
151
ACK NOW LEDGM EN TS
This book could have never been completed without the constant
support of Jack Reed, Jr. This was his brainchild to begin with,
and it was his passion for our project that kept me going through
a rough period in my life. I am indebted to him for sticking with
me. Indeed, the entire Reed family—its numbers are legion—
has my eternal gratitude, and I am a lucky man indeed to have
them as friends.
As always, my own family—wife, Lee, son and daughter-in-law,
Drew and Kim, and daughter, Katie—has been there for me, bless
their hearts. Our tribe even grew during the final stages of writ-
ing with the arrival of Hannah Grace McKenzie. She is a beau-
tiful and perfect first grandchild.
There are those—Joe Rutherford, Joe White, Dale Thorn, Andy
Mullins, Jere Nash, and Mac Gordon—whose professional ad-
vice was invaluable. I always appreciated it and sometimes took
it. Without Lucia Randle, there might not have been any photos.
I owe her.
And a special thanks goes to K irk Reed Forrester, who com-
bined her incomparable skills as an editor with her love for her
grandfather and turned a manuscript into a book. After spend-
ing thirty years in the newspaper business, I know about editing.
Kirk’s efforts were remarkable.
153
Acknowledgments
One night at a party a few years back, Frances Reed and I sat
on the sofa, oblivious to the considerable merriment all around
us, and had a long talk about life in general. Before rejoining the
festivities, she gave me a kiss on the cheek, and for a brief mo-
ment that will last a lifetime I understood how lucky her family
was. She was a special person.
154
INDEX
African Americans: and the church, Bell, Allison, 86

35–43, 46, 49; and the economy, 33; Benchley, Robert, 115
as equals, 26, 32, 36; and the gover- Bennett, Bob, 99
nor’s race, 109–10; leaders in Tupelo, Berlin (East), 80
54; and prejudice, 11, 17, 28, 32, 34; Biloxi, Miss., 65
in World War II, 11 Birmingham, Ala., 50
Alcorn State University, 108 Black, Felix, 18, 53, 86
Alexander, Lamar, 70 Black, Roy, 85
Alexander, Owens, 13 Black, Scott, 85
Alexander, William B., 8 Black Hawk, Miss., 101
Allain, Bill, 64, 69, 90, 108 Blackmon, Ed, 132
Allen, Roy, 85 blacks. See African Americans
American Crisis, The (Paine), 52 Bloomingdales, 123
anti-war demonstrations, 51 Blount, Joe, 64
Archie, Chad, 85 Blue Ribbon Committee on Education,
Aristotle, 83, 129 15, 57–64, 104
Army, U.S., 17, 57, 122 Blue Springs, Miss., 144
Associated Press, 12 Bosley, Harold, 25
Atlanta, Ga., 50 Boult, Reba, 117
Augenblick, John, 58 Bounds, Sam, 146
Boy Scouts, 7, 85–88
Babson, Roger, 86 Boyd, Richard, 67
Bagby, Grover, 26 Brahan, Beverly, 146
Bailey, Joe, 85 Brevard, Henry, 53, 86
Bailey, Russell, 85 Brooks Brothers, 123
Baker, W. D., 45 Burbank, Luther, 86
Barnett, Jamie, 92 Bush, George H. W., 70, 107
Barnett, Ross, 4 business, 122–30
Beasley, Bill, 53
Beasley, Joyce, 54 Caldwell, Mary Elizabeth, 54
Becker, Jamie, 100 Carley, C. T., 45
155
Index
Cash, Johnny, 78 Cooper, Owen, 23, 26, 46, 90

Cass, Mama (Cass Elliot), “New World Council of Federated Organizations
Coming,” 78 (COFO), 31
CDF. See Community Development CREATE (Christian Research Edu-
Foundation cation Action and Technical Enter-
Chicago, Ill., 50 prises), 71, 139, 140, 143–44
Chinese Americans, 48 Crews, Billy, 91, 92, 100
Christ. See Jesus Christ Crews, David, 92
Christians: call of responsibility for, 19, Culp, Lori, 92
22, 27, 28, 29, 31; female, 21–22, 52; Curry, George M., 42
leadership of, 20–22, 46; role of, 19, Czechoslovakia, 80
23, 31, 36; and witnessing, 18–19,
23–26 Dacus, N. E., 9
Christmas Carol, A (Dickens), 127 Daily Journal. See Northeast Mississippi
church: commitment to, 48; relevance Daily Journal
in society, 47; as tool for racial recon- Dallas, Tex., 44
ciliation, 24, 51–52 Davidson, Donald, “Morning Was
Churchill, Winston, 84, 86, 94 Golden,” 120
Citizen’s Council, 9, 10, 26, 29, 36, 101 Davis, Jefferson, 8
civic involvement: in Boy Scouts, 7, 87; Delta, Miss., 29, 30, 46, 101
business as a means of, 127, 129–30; Delta Ministry, 38–39
in community, 20, 81, 86; disappoint- democracy, 6
ments in, 132; in Methodist church, Democratic Party, 91
7; statewide foray into, 3; in Tupelo, Dickens, Charles, A Christmas Carol, 127
134–40 Downtown Tupelo Coffee Club, 131
Civil Rights Act, 18, 22–23, 38 Dudley, Guilford, 117
Civil Rights Commission, 23 Duke, Vera, 54
civil rights movement, 30–31 Durant, Ariel and Will, The Lessons of
Clanton, Bobby, 113, 114 History, 50, 146
Clarion-Ledger, 8, 9, 111 Dye, Brad, 58
Clark, Robert, 58
Clarke County, Miss., 111 early childhood education, 62, 69
Clarksdale, Miss., 98 Eason, Paul, 86
Clayton, Claude, Jr., 92 economic development, 92–95, 102–4,
Clayton, Claude, III, 92 134–44
Clayton, Frances, 92 education. See public education
Clayton, Hugh, 85 Education Reform Act of 1982, 59, 63–
Clinton, Bill, 71 64, 65–69
Coalition for Children and Public Edu- Emmerich, Oliver, 13
cation, 71, 74 Emory University, 13
Cochran, Thad, 98 Esther, 19
Coleman, Willie Frances, 26 Eubank, Jack, 46
Collins, Helen, 92
Commercial Appeal, 111 Fairpark District, 139
Commission on the Future of Northeast Fant, Glenn, 85
Mississippi, 71, 140–44 Feltus, Will, 100
Community Development Foundation Fields, Cora, 54
(CDF), 54–55, 57, 71, 103, 133, Fields, Norma, 98, 106
136–40 First Methodist Church, Tupelo, 18,
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 31 24, 46
156
Index
Fordice, Kirk, 113, 114 opposition to, 4, 7–10, 61; of public

Forest, Miss., 97 schools, 4, 5, 53, 60, 77, 79; as so-
Forrester, K irk Reed, 92, 131 cial litmus test, 31; support of, 5–6,
Foster, Palmer, 54 23–24, 46–47; of University of Missis-
Franklin, Benjamin, 68, 86, 105 sippi, 4, 6–7
Itawamba County, Miss., 124
Galloway Memorial Methodist Church, 35
Gellhorn, Walter, 13 Jackson, Lex, 92
George County, Miss., 111 Jackson, Miss., 3, 14, 29, 35, 92
Germany (East), 80 Jamison, Robert, 54
Gibens, Bo, 99 Japanese Americans, 48
God, 19, 20, 21, 25, 39, 46 Jefferson, Thomas, 73, 89–90, 104
Godwin, Chauncey, 86 Jefferson and His Time (Malone), 89
Godwin, Louise, 54 Jenkins, Sonja, 92
Gonzalez, José, 50 Jesus Christ: as example, 24, 28, 33, 46;
Gordon, Jack, 58 faith in, 25, 39; on minority groups,
Gray, Lloyd, 106 33; and race relations, 19, 20; as ser-
Grayson, Harry, 54 vant and ranson, 32
Greene County, Miss., 111 Jiminez, José, 50
Greenville, Miss., 98 Johnson, Claude, 26
Greenwood, Miss., 28 Johnson, John, 106
Grenada, Miss., 57 Johnson, Paul, 4, 14
Greshem, Bill, 98 Johnson, Pete, 113, 114
Grizzard, Lewis, 119–20 Jones, Jameson, 85
gubernatorial campaign, 89–114, 129 Jones, Paul, 85
Gulf Coast, Miss., 97 Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 68
Gulfport, Miss., 98
Gwin, Carolyn, 64 Kennedy, John, 81
K ipling, Rudyard, “If,” 112
Harris, Smitty, 82 K iwanis Club, 129
Hattiesburg, Miss., 98 Ku K lux K lan, 29
Heard, Alexander, 84, 119
Heidelberg Hotel, 3, 14 Lafayette County, Miss., 110
Hereford, Robert, 54 Lake Junaluska, 45
High, Jim, 53 Landers, Ann, 77
highways, 95–96 Laurel, Miss., 98
Hill, Dick, 99 Lay Membership Assembly, 46
Hispanic Americans, 48 leadership: in business, 129, 137; call
Hodgkinson, Harold, 71 to, 16, 46, 52, 76–88; of Christians,
Hollomon, Bo, 37 20–22, 76; civic, 29, 76, 105, 135;
Holly Springs, Miss., 30, 31 in education, 54, 76; in Methodist
Holtz, Lou, 129 Church, 36; as vital to social progress,
Hudson, Irby, 119 3, 6, 76
Huntley, Jack, 45 Leadership Mississippi, 81
Leake, Medford, 86
“If” (K ipling), 112 Lee County, Miss., 54, 56, 57, 110, 134,
Indian Americans, 48 138–44
Ingram, Jim, 53 Lee County Republican Women, 92
integration: as Christian problem, 20, Lessons of History, The (Durant, Ariel,
33; of Methodist Church, 36, 38–40; and Will), 50, 146
157
Index
liberty, 6, 26 48–52; Upper Mississippi Conference,

Locke, John, 47 18, 43, 46
Lombardi, Vince, 124 Mexican Americans, 48, 50
Long, Erst, 85 Milam Junior High School, 77
Long, Sam, 9 Mills, Jake, 99
Loomis, Nancy, 146 Millsaps College, 13
Lott, Trent, 108–9 Mims, Eddie, 116, 120–21
Lovorn, John, 92 Minor, Bill, 108, 114
Lowery, Joseph, 108 Mississippi, 4–8, 17, 33–34, 52, 53–56,
60, 65, 93–98, 113, 133, 147
Mabus, Ray, 106, 108, 111, 114 Mississippi Adequate Education Pro-
Main Street Program, 139 gram (MAEP), 72–75, 131
Making Haste Slowly (Sansing), 12 Mississippi Association of Educators,
Malone, Dumas, Jefferson and His 60, 110
Time, 89 Mississippi Association of Partners in
Manier, Bill, 116 Education (MAPE), 144–45
Manier, Mary Lee, 116 Mississippi Board of Education, 15, 63,
Martin, Denotee, 143 64, 66–69
Martin, Harry, 53, 140 Mississippi College Board, 13
Martin Luther K ing Day committee, 15 Mississippi Delta. See Delta
McComb Enterprise Journal, 13 Mississippi Department of Educa-
McCoy, Lee Marcus, 34 tion, 69
McIntosh, Elton, 85 Mississippi Economic Council. See MEC
McLean, George, 10–11, 53, 57, 69, 76, Mississippi Flag Commission, 132–33
103, 130, 136–37, 142–43 Mississippi Industrial College, 31
McLean, K irsey, 100 Mississippi legislature: on desegregation
McRee, Dick, 85 of public schools, 4, 7, 53; and edu-
MEC (Mississippi Economics Council): cation reform legislation, 58–64, 66,
citizens action clinic, 3; influence of, 72, 74–75
7, 12, 14–15, 20, 57; on integration, Mississippi Methodist Advocate, 21, 25, 41
5–6, 8, 12–13, 20, 22; Leadership Mis- Mississippi Press Association, 65, 66, 69
sissippi, 81 Mississippi State University, 13, 68
Meredith, James, 6–7 Mississippi Teachers Assessment Instru-
Meridian, Miss., 97 ment (MTAI), 110
Methodist Advocate. See Mississippi Method- Mississippi University for Women, 128
ist Advocate Mississippi Women for Public Educa-
Methodist Church: Action Crusade, 35– tion, 11, 22, 54
43; activism in, 7; Association of In- Mississippians for Public Education. See
dependent Methodists, 38, 39, 40, 41, Mississippi Women for Public Edu-
42; commitment to, 18, 23–24, 39; cation
and conference merger, 18, 23–24, Mize, Bennett, 92, 131
36–43, 45–52; General Conference, Mize, Catherine Reed, 56, 92, 126
38, 44; influence of, 24–25; on in- Mize, Paul, III, 92, 131
tegration, 21, 36; lay Sundays, 45; Mize, Paul “Buzzy,” Jr., 92
Mississippi Conference, 43; North Molpus, Dick, 146
Mississippi Conference, 18, 43, 45; Moore (UMC Bishop), 25
Southeastern Jurisdictional Con- morality, 14, 22–23, 25, 37, 50
ference, 45, 48; United Methodist “Morning Was Golden” (Davidson), 120
Church, 44; United Methodist Com- Morrison, Harvey Lee, 13
mission on Religion and Race, 15, 45, Mounger, W. H. “Billy,” 13
158
Index
Mullins, Andy, 64 Plato, 94

Murry, Charles, 45, 85 politics, 89–91, 96, 97, 101, 113
Musgrove, Ronnie, 131–33 Pontotoc County, Miss., 110, 144
Portis, Talmadge, 64
Napier, Denson, 41 prejudice: in communities, 31; in
Natchez Democrat, 111 churches, 42; witness to, 17, 133
Natchez Trace, 95 Price, James, Jr., 64
National Advisory Council on Educa- Primos, Alec, 8
tion Research and Improvement, 15, public education: as democratic right,
70–71 60; as greatest challenge, 16; in Mis-
National Association for the Advance- sissippi, 53–64, 71; as moral respon-
ment of Colored People (NA ACP), 31 sibility, 61, 146; origin of support,
National Committee on Excellence in 11; as political platform, 94; and the
Education, 68 press, 66–67; as related to economic
National Council of Churches, 38 welfare, 5, 71, 74, 144–47; school
Negroes. See African Americans choice, 71; support of, 4, 6, 56, 57,
Neilson’s, 123 60, 71–74, 104; and taxes, 55–56, 71.
Neshoba County Fair, 101–6 See also public schools
“New World Coming” (Cass), 78 public schools: and academic freedom,
New York University, 85, 122–23 6; attempted closing of, 4; and com-
Newman, Buddie, 58 munity, 55; and economic develop-
Newton County, Miss., 111 ment, 144; in Mississippi, 53–55, 57,
No Child Left Behind, 73 68, 104; in Tupelo, Miss., 53, 54, 56,
Norman, Roger, 85 79, 137, 139. See also public education
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 9, 62, Puckett, Betsy, 54
70, 91, 98, 100, 111, 135–36 Puckett, Son, 53, 131
Northeast Mississippi Regional Commis- PUL Alliance, 144
sion, 138 Pursor, D. L., 85
Nussbaum, Perry, 52 Purvis, Perrin, 53
Office of Educational Research and Quinqs, 115

Improvement (OERI), 70
Oktibbeha County, Miss., 110 race relations: and Christian duty, 28; in
Ole Miss. See University of Mississippi the church, 21, 48–52; contributions
Owsley, Frank, 118 to, 15, 79–80; and Flag Commission,
Oxford, Miss., 7, 123 132; as “human relations,” 19; pas-
Oxford Chamber of Commerce, 123 sion for improving, 17; and segrega-
tion, 31; in Tupelo, 139; views about,
Paine, Thomas, The American Crisis, 52, 44, 57
146 Ramada Inn, 90, 112
Patterson, Frances, 54 Ramsey, Claude, 58
Peden, Homer, 41 Raspberry, William, 67
Pegues, Len, 53, 92 Rather, Ed, 85
Pendergrass, Edward, 18, 40 Reagan, Ronald, 99
Perry County, Miss., 111 Reardon, Rory, 92
Peyton, Arthur, 64 reason: MEC as voice of, 12; and Meth-
Pickering, Charles, 92 odist merger, 36; and morality, 14,
Pigott, Brad, 146 22–23, 25, 37, 50
Pittman, Paul, 106 Redd, J. C., 59
Pittman, Tom, 92, 114 Reed, Annette, 92
159
Index
Reed, Bill, 5, 11, 53, 92, 115, 125 Schwab, Charles, 140
Reed, Bob, 5, 11, 53, 92, 122–23, 125– Schweitzer, Albert, 82
26, 131 Scott County, Miss., 111
Reed, Camille. See Sloan, Camille Reed segregation: as Christian problem, 33;
Reed, Catherine. See Mize, Catherine “moderate” position toward, 36; as
Reed vital issue, 31
Reed, Dakin, 131 Selah, W. B., 25, 41
Reed, Frances, 5, 11, 22, 54, 90, 97, 99– Senate Concurrent Resolution No.
100 506, 63
Reed, Jack, Jr., 56, 88, 92, 118, 123, 126 Seventeen (Tarkington), 77
Reed, Jack, III, 92, 131 Shakespeare, William, Julius Caesar, 68
Reed, K irk. See Forrester, K irk Reed Shannon, Oscar, 85
Reed, Lilla, 131 Sheffield, Phillip, 85
Reed, Lisa, 92 Sillers, Walter, 4
Reed, R. W. “Bob,” 85, 88, 115, 122, Sloan, Camille Reed, 56, 92, 126
124–27 Sloan, Crofton, III, 131
Reed, Scott, 56, 88, 92, 126 Sloan, Rollin, 131
Reed Manufacturing, 122–23 Sloan, Shipman, 131
Reed’s Department Store, 10, 88, 122– Sloan, Spencer, 131
30, 133 Smith, Frank, 26
Republican Party, 90–91, 113–14 Smith, Fred, 12, 26
Riley, Frank, 45 Smith, Ron, 132–33
Robbins, Jerry, 45 Smith, Roy, 25
Roberts, Lucimarian, 64 Southaven, Miss., 98
Robertson, James, 45 Special Committee on Public School
Robertson, Jan, 45 Finance and Administration. See Blue
Rogers, J. J., 124 Ribbon Committee on Education
Rogers, Katie B., 26 Spivey, Ebbie, 90
Rogers, Landis, 41 Stafford, Howard, 85
Rogers, Nat, 35, 39 Stafford, J. P., 25
Rogers, Will, 130 Stanley, John, 85
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 117 state legislature. See Mississippi legis-
Roosevelt, Teddy, 130 lature
Ross, Joe, Jr., 64 states rights, 6
Rotary Club, International, 129–30 Stegall, Art, 118
Rote, Kyle, Jr., 128 Stennis, John, Jr., 8
Rumbarger, David, 140 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com-
Rural Community Development Council mittee (SNCC), 31
(R.C.D.C.), 137 Sturdivant, Mike, 101, 108
Ruskin, John, 143 Sun Herald, 111
Rust College, 30–31 Swayze, M. B., 21
Rutherford, Harry, 9, 10, 53 Syrus, Publilius, 55
Rutherford, Joe, 92
Talmud, 142
Sadler, Catherine, 54 Tampa, Fla., 50
San Antonio, Tex., 50 Tarkington, Booth, Seventeen, 77
Sansing, David, Making Haste Slowly, 12 teachers, 109–10
Sarratt, Madison, 119, 128 technology, 82, 146
Sayers, Gale, 83 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, “Ulysses,”
schools. See public schools 120–21
160
Index
Third Wave, The (Toffler), 82 Warriner, Richard, 85

Thomas, Edith, 54 Washington, Joseph, 54
Thoreau, Henry David, 140 Washington, Lucinda, 54
Three Rivers Planning and Develop- Watkins, Vaughn, 8
ment District, 144 Watson, E. J., 45
Tilden, Miss., 124 Watson, Mrs. E. J., 45
Till, Emmett, 28, 30 Wayne County, Miss., 111
Tillotson, Dolph, 111 Weaver, Robert, 8
Toffler, Alvin, The Third Wave, 82 Webb, Caroline, 116
Toqueville, Alexis de, 128 Webb, Jimmy, 116
Toyota, 144 Webb, Tommy, 64
transportation. See highways Weidie, Wayne, 106
Tuck, Al, 101 Wesienberg, Karl, 11
Tupelo, Miss., 4–5, 11, 53–57, 79–80, White, Edwin, 8
107, 124, 126, 133–43 White, Hugh, 93, 103
Tupelo Daily Journal. See Northeast Missis- Whitehead, J. C., 53, 86
sippi Daily Journal Whitfield, Lewis, 91
Tupelo Journal, 135–36 Whitson, Buddy, 116
Turbeville, Gus, 118 Whitson, Sue, 116
TVA, 135 Wicker, Tom, 92
Williams, J. D., 26
“Ulysses” (Tennyson), 120–21 Williams, Sandy, 141
United Methodist Church. See Methodist Wilson, Woodrow, 6
Church Winter, William, 15, 57, 59, 62, 63, 72,
Union County, Miss., 110, 144 107–8, 132, 144–47
University of Mississippi: faculty defec- Winter-Reed Partnership Award, 145–47
tion, 5; integration of, 4, 6–7, 13; Wolfe, Buster, 98
Medical Center, 13 World War II, 11, 17, 96, 103, 122
U.S. Department of Education, 70 Wroten, Joe, 11–12, 45
Vanderbilt University, 57, 81, 115–21, Yates, Frank, 146

128 Yazoo City, Miss., 98
Yocona Area Council, 85
Waits, Jim, 41 Young, J. T. “Bud,” 45
Walker, Bill, 98–99, 112
Wall Street Journal, 46, 103 Zehnder, Louis, Jr., 45
161

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A Time to Speak

William Winter and Jack Reed, photograph by Steve Colston

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the

Copyright © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi

Lyrics for “New World Coming,” Words and Music by Barry

First printing 2009

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

While I have been flattered by my son Jack’s and Danny McKen-

to hear that same complaint again, because this book doesn’t do

Had Jack Reed been of the nineteenth century, he undoubtedly

States. I have no idea if Senator Barack Obama will take residence

1963: A Rare Voice of Reason

Then, in a little more than two minutes, Reed helped save

stranger in a foreign land to some extent—that was true a good

In last week’s papers, one editor was quoted as saying that

our neighbors, and our schoolchildren from kindergarten to college

There were more general remarks to follow, but not everyone

to practically everyone in the South), and a small but bloody

to give this speech, honestly, were issues I thought were harmful

destruction of our public schools.” The Citizens’ Council, in a

him and considered him a mentor. McLean and Rutherford had

“I had known Jack through our work in the Methodist Church,”

“Billy” Mounger in Jackson spoke out on my behalf and so did

Reed’s words were more than “marching orders” to his friends

1965: Witnessing on Race Relations

Jack Reed’s passion for improving race relations in Mississippi

at the annual conference of the North Mississippi Methodist

When I was a boy in this church, the primary social concerns of

main, it is my belief that the conscientious Christian is being chal-

who, in our country, are demanding equal treatment in our courts,

I realized then, as I do now, that the right-thinking people of

Early in 1963, a group of women from over the state formed

Reed knew exactly what he was doing. Certainly, the mores of

In February of this year, the Mississippi Economic Council again

As to what the Methodist Church means to me, I am sure I am

• The Christian fellowship of this church whose members have

The response from those in attendance at the North Mississippi

fore the Conference. . . . The standing ovation which came when

nephew, Robert, had been the prosecuting attorney in the 1955

a boycott by the Citizens’ Council in their towns, or worse, a visit

1956: Beginning to Build Bridges

While Jack Reed’s address to the annual conference of the North

Today, of all times, we must learn to respect our fellow man. If

The next question, obviously, is “What do I believe?”

Reed then quoted several of Jesus’s teachings—with a special

Yes, Jesus said these things, which, as Christians, we believe. Of

forced to sit in movie house balconies and attend separate (but

1965: Strong Words for

refused to sidestep what he referred to as “the knotty problems

As Methodists and as Christians, we cannot escape the knotty

By today’s standards, Rogers’s words are mild. In 1965, however,

avoid it if I think there’s a problem that needs to be addressed.

if we do not put these problems into a proper perspective they

With that, Reed listed a group of “concerns” and offered his

As for the General Conference’s position on segregation, to

It must be noted that Reed was hardly a flaming liberal, even by

Our disassociation with the [National Council] would not

through the strength of our membership. So let us not sacrifice our

Reed’s words regarding the Delta Ministry were nothing if not

And finally, let’s consider the Association of Independent Meth-

support to Christ’s church.” We were each asked this when we

The Reverend Homer Peden of Court Street Methodist Church