Mississippi: If You Try & Don't Succeed . . .

Paul Burney Johnson Jr., the lawyer son of a former Governor of Mississippi, made no bones about wanting to follow in Daddy's hallowed footsteps Three times in ten years he ran for Governor and each time he was defeated. But last week it appeared that Johnson, 47, might soon achieve his lifetime ambition.

Elected lieutenant governor in 1959, Johnson used the succeeding four years to build an image as a hard-nosed segregationist second to none. On a rainy morning last September, when weather kept Governor Ross Barnett from flying to the University of Mississippi to prevent Negro James Meredith from enrolling,...

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