An Incomplete Reconstruction

JACKSON, Miss.—In a museum that memorializes the black victims of the lynching capital of the world, Mike Espy conceded victory to a candidate who made an infamous joke about lynchings. On the day of the Senate runoff, the Democratic candidate’s supporters gathered at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which features detailed exhibits on the horrors of racial terrorism and also highlights the term of Senator Hiram Revels, the last African American elected to statewide office in Mississippi. If Espy had managed to win, not only would it have meant pulling off one of the greatest long-shot victories in politics, but it would also have placed his name in the history exhibits with his most immediate predecessor, whose time in the U.S. Senate ended 147 years ago.

Espy did not pull off that long-shot victory. He lost to the Republican incumbent, Cindy Hyde-Smith, by eight points. As Maze’s “Before I Let Go” faded into Jackie Wilson’s “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher” and Espy