Reporting from Greenwood, Miss. — The year America inaugurated its first black president will also be known as the year this small Delta cotton hub voted its first black mayor out of office.
Mayor Sheriel F. Perkins was up for reelection Tuesday, running on a promise to "move Greenwood forward, together." But half a century after the ugliness that reigned here during the civil rights era -- black voter registration efforts met with beatings and police dogs -- this city of 18,000 has settled into a civil but enduring separateness.
The muddy Yazoo River cuts through the heart of town, serving as the unofficial boundary between black and white Greenwood. The black majority is to the south, in middle-class bungalows and decrepit shotguns. The white minority lives mostly in the north in handsome suburban-style homes.
When Perkins, 53, a longtime City Council member, ran against a white incumbent in 2006, only 67 north-side residents voted for her -- out of 3,135 votes cast there.
On Tuesday, north Greenwood's wide, well-tended lawns were festooned with forest-green signs touting the new challenger, Carolyn McAdams. She is white. White adults waved campaign signs at passing drivers. White children were everywhere in green campaign T-shirts.
McAdams, 61, had cast herself, like Perkins, as a unifying figure.
Many blacks, she said, had come to trust her in her years working at the nearby private prison and, before that, at the housing authority.
"They know that I'm fair," she said. "I don't see color."
But color, as many voters acknowledged, was at the heart of this election. McAdams' supporters had few direct criticisms of the sitting mayor's performance, though some were turned off by her numerous liens for nonpayment of taxes.
What they really didn't like, they said, was the black political clique surrounding her -- especially the clique's gray eminence, state Sen. David Jordan. It was Jordan, 76, who filed a lawsuit that ultimately led to blacks being elected to the City Council, where they have held a majority for a number of years.
These days, white voters said in interviews, it seemed like it was the black clique that was dividing the city by constantly playing the race card.
"They keep something going all the time between the blacks and whites," said Betty Killebrew, 72. "And it doesn't need to be that way."
