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==Political life==
==Political life==
===Winning the chairmanship by one vote===
A Yerger led a younger and more vigorous group of [[conservative]] entrepreneurs, [[business]]people, and [[attorney]]s, some having previously been part of the Young Republicans organization, and most the product of increasing urbanization of a still predominantly [[rural]]-oriented state. At the age of twenty-six, he was named in his native Jackson as the party's first chairman by the margin of his one vote, his own. Yerger's faction defeated a motion to include [[segregation]] in the first party platform,<ref name=madison/> but many of the early Mississippi Republicans, like their Democratic counterparts, were segregationists. In 1957 and 1958, Yerger was placed on the defensive in Mississippi following the desegregation of Central High School in [[Little Rock]], [[Arkansas]]. Years later, Yerger said that he and his wife were harassed by segregationists, the kind of treatment also received by [[civil rights]] activists, because he was viewed as a threat to "white rule" as the chairman of the party of the president, [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], who intervened in Little Rock. In 1960, the Mississippi GOP declared segregation a "local matter that could best be handled by individual states" and attempted to focus on other matters, such as [[reapportionment]] of legislative bodies and local-option liquor elections to replace statewide [[prohibition]], which ended in Mississippi in 1966.<ref>"Challenging the Status Quo," p. 241.</ref>
A Yerger led a younger and more vigorous group of [[conservative]] entrepreneurs, [[business]]people, and [[attorney]]s, some having previously been part of the Young Republicans organization, and most the product of increasing urbanization of a still predominantly [[rural]]-oriented state. At the age of twenty-six, he was named in his native Jackson as the party's first chairman by the margin of his one vote, his own. Yerger's faction defeated a motion to include [[segregation]] in the first party platform,<ref name=madison/> but many of the early Mississippi Republicans, like their Democratic counterparts, were segregationists. In 1957 and 1958, Yerger was placed on the defensive in Mississippi following the desegregation of Central High School in [[Little Rock]], [[Arkansas]]. Years later, Yerger said that he and his wife were harassed by segregationists, the kind of treatment also received by [[civil rights]] activists, because he was viewed as a threat to "white rule" as the chairman of the party of the president, [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], who intervened in Little Rock. In 1960, the Mississippi GOP declared segregation a "local matter that could best be handled by individual states" and attempted to focus on other matters, such as [[reapportionment]] of legislative bodies and local-option liquor elections to replace statewide [[prohibition]], which ended in Mississippi in 1966.<ref>"Challenging the Status Quo," p. 241.</ref>
===Replacing the Black and Tans===
===Replacing the Black and Tans===
Yerger's conservatives, who stressed [[states' rights]], replaced the former Black and Tan contingent, which had governed the state party from [[Washington, D.C.]], with the [[African-American]] [[attorney]] Perry Wilbon Howard (1877-1961) as the national committeeman and the past dispenser of the limited federal patronage in the state.<ref name=jacksonfp>{{cite web|url=http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2009/may/12/yergers-revisionist-lily-white-history/|author=Ronni Mott|title=Yerger's Revisionist ‘Lily White' History|date=May 12, 2009|publisher=''The Jackson Free Press''|accessdate=May 10, 2014}}</ref> At the [[Republican National Convention]] in [[Chicago]] in 1951, Howard led an all-black delegation pledged not to Eisenhower, but [[U.S. Senator]] [[Robert A. Taft]] of [[Ohio]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mises.org/daily/2755|author=Murray N. Rothbard|title=Swan Song of the Old Right|publisher=mises.org|accessdate=May 10, 2014}}</ref> a favorite of the conservative forces but known for his opposition to segregation, in Taft's words: "No segregationist belongs on a Republican ticket or even in the party".<ref name="ReferenceA">"Challenging the Status Quo," p. 248.</ref>
Yerger's conservatives, who stressed [[states' rights]], replaced the former Black and Tan contingent, which had governed the state party from [[Washington, D.C.]], with the [[African-American]] [[attorney]] Perry Wilbon Howard (1877-1961) as the national committeeman and the past dispenser of the limited federal patronage in the state.<ref name=jacksonfp>{{cite web|url=http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2009/may/12/yergers-revisionist-lily-white-history/|author=Ronni Mott|title=Yerger's Revisionist ‘Lily White' History|date=May 12, 2009|publisher=''The Jackson Free Press''|accessdate=May 10, 2014}}</ref> At the [[Republican National Convention]] in [[Chicago]] in 1951, Howard led an all-black delegation pledged not to Eisenhower, but [[U.S. Senator]] [[Robert A. Taft]] of [[Ohio]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mises.org/daily/2755|author=Murray N. Rothbard|title=Swan Song of the Old Right|publisher=mises.org|accessdate=May 10, 2014}}</ref> a favorite of the conservative forces but known for his opposition to segregation, in Taft's words: "No segregationist belongs on a Republican ticket or even in the party".<ref name="ReferenceA">"Challenging the Status Quo," p. 248.</ref>