Mississippi remembers political ‘giant’
“We’ve lost a giant,” said longtime civil rights leader Charles Evers, a friend of the Kennedy family.
Those who are poor, downtrodden or down on their luck have “lost a great spokesman, and President Obama has lost a great supporter.”
Kennedy died after a long battle with brain cancer. Many colleagues, Republican and Democrat, praised Kennedy on Wednesday.
“He was a very beautiful, hard-working and conscientious senator,” U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss, said.
In 1992, Cochran co-sponsored legislation with Kennedy, creating the PBS Ready to Learn Service, aimed at bolstering early-childhood reading.
“We did share an interest in education. He headed the committee over education programs, and he was a big help in making grants available to states, including providing support for the training of teachers. Mississippi benefited from some of those initiatives,” Cochran said.
“He really was one of the giants in his career in the Senate there.”
Read more to see what Hiram Eastland, Bill Minor, Bennie Thompson and others said about the late Mass. senator
Clarion-Ledger
8/27/9
Magnolia Tribune
