PERRY/Pastor makes race an issue
On Election Day, I listened to WJMG 92.1FM in Hattiesburg as Reverend Charles Bartley instructed listeners to vote for Dupree because “Dave Ware is not the answer to the prayers of our ancestors.”
When I first listened, Bartley was more guarded, saying “turnout is massive on the other side of town.”
But he became more acute as he described a decision he made in 2008. He said he decided to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Presidential Primary; he believed she would do a better job than Barack Obama. But when he got into the voting booth and had to register a choice “between a white woman and young black man” he chose Obama.
Bartley told listeners that some people were telling them to ignore their head and heart and instead to vote their economic interests. He said doing so would deprive all the “little Johnny Duprees out there” of a role model that Ware could not be for them.
Bartley said listeners should vote for “our best interests” and said he meant by that, the best interests of blacks. “[Ware] does not have the best interest of our people at heart,” Bartley said.
Bartley told listeners to ignore those who say that “voting race is for dinosaurs” and provided phone numbers to rides to the poll from the Dupree Campaign for anyone “if you’re going to vote for Johnny Dupree.”
Madison County Journal
9/26/13
Magnolia Tribune
