Waller’s term reflected significant racial changes in Miss.

The Clarion-Ledger Editorial, 4/20/7

It was early 1972, not long after Bill Waller, the ex-Hinds County district attorney, took office as governor, having scored an upset over Lt. Gov. Charles Sullivan for the Democratic nomination, then tantamount to election.

Even though Waller did not seek black support, unexpectedly it came for one reason: Blacks remembered that Waller made a valiant effort to convict Byron De La Beckwith for the assassination of Medgar Evers.

Waller, 80, who still goes to his law office daily, has produced with the help of historian David Sansing, Straight Ahead … the Memoirs of a Mississippi Governor. Quail Press is the publisher.