In this photo provided by WLBT-TV a noose hangs on a tree on the state capitol grounds in Jackson, Miss. on Monday, Nov. 26, 2018. A Mississippi official says two nooses and six signs were found on the grounds of the Mississippi state Capitol. Chuck McIntosh, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration, which oversees the Capitol, says the nooses and signs were found Monday morning between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. (WLBT-TV via AP)
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – State and federal investigators are trying to find out who hung seven nooses in trees outside the Mississippi Capitol early Monday, a day before a U.S. Senate runoff that has focused attention on the state’s history of racist violence.
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety says the nooses were accompanied by handwritten signs referring to Tuesday’s election as well as to lynchings – most of them in the state’s turbulent past, but also one recent case that remains under investigation, of a black man whose body was found hanging in central Mississippi. The department posted photos of the signs on social media and sought information about them from the public.
One sign referred to the Tuesday runoff between appointed Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is white, and Democrat Mike Espy, who is black. The sign also read: “We need someone who respects the lives of lynch victims.”
Another sign read: “We’re hanging nooses to remind people that times haven’t changed.”
Hyde-Smith has drawn fire for a photo showing her wearing a replica hat of a Confederate soldier, and a video showing her praising a supporter by saying, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” She said the hanging remark was an “exaggerated expression of regard” for the supporter, but the remarks drew sharp criticism in a state with a 38 percent black population. She apologized “to anyone that was offended.”