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Is This the Face of Mississippi’s First Black, Gay Lawmaker?

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Carlton Smith is running for District 10 in the Mississippi State Senate.

New Now Next in an interview with Smith said:

Growing up as a black boy in Mississippi isn’t for the faint of heart. Carlton Smith was born in 1964, exactly a decade after Brown v. Board of Education ordered the desegregation of public schools. But in defiance of the Supreme Court, Smith says many middle and high schools in Holly Springs—a town of 7,600 just a half hour’s drive from the Tennessee border—remained “100% black.” One school district in the neighboring Mississippi Delta was forced to finally desegregate two years ago.

“Knowing what it’s like to be marginalized from an early age has made me a stronger and a bolder person,” he explains. “It’s given me an additional level of creativity, perseverance, and belief in myself, in spite of what other people think or believe is possible for me and other LGBTQ people.”

Smith will test the limits of what is possible in November when he runs for District 10 in the Mississippi State Senate, which covers Marshall and Tate counties. If elected, he would claim a number of historic firsts: The 55-year-old would be the first LGBTQ person to be seated to the state legislature, as well as the first black representative in his district’s history. The incumbent, Neil Whaley, is a white man, as is every politician who has ever held the seat.

The milestone won’t be easy to clear. Although a majority of voters now support marriage equality in nearly every U.S. state, just 42% of Mississippians believe all couples should be allowed to wed. Only Alabama, which recently made headlines when a public television channel refused to air a “gay rat wedding” in the long-running children’s cartoon Arthur, ranks lower in the tally.

READ THE NEWNOWNEXT FULL INTERVIEW HERE.

Smith was endorsed by The Victory Fund earlier this year who said of Smith:

Carlton E. Smith is running for election to the Mississippi Senate, District 10.

Carlton is a strong advocate for long-standing issues that are important to the people of Marshall and Tate Counties – providing children with a quality education through rural schools, keeping rural hospitals and emergency rooms open, repairing roads and bridges, lowering taxes and utility bills, and retaining young people who are leaving the state for better employment opportunities. Strategies include funding for a comprehensive plan to keep schools viable, increasing pay for under-compensated teachers, passing legislation that allows out-of-state doctors to provide free medical services, auditing local governments where taxes and utility bills are surprisingly high, and piloting incentive programs that keep recent high school and college graduates in the state and encourages those who have left to return.

Carlton is an ordained minister in the Unitarian Universalist Association and a member of its Southern Region staff. His ministry has a strong social justice focus which has included marriage equality advocacy, immigrant advocacy, HIV/AIDS activism, and countering racism. On August 12, 2017, he was on the front line of clergy counter-protesting the racist Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Later that day, activist Heather Heyer lost her life when a man plowed his car into a group of counter-protesters.

Carlton was born and raised in Holly Springs, Mississippi (the seat of Marshall County) where his father, the late Eddie Lee Smith, Jr., became the city’s first Black mayor in 1989. He returned to his hometown in 2013 to care for his mother in the last years of her life. She died in April 2019, and Carlton’s campaign is dedicated to his parents’ long legacy of public service.

In their endorsement of Smith, The Victory Fund said:

LGBTQ Victory Fund, the only national organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ leaders to public office, has given a Spotlight endorsement to Mississippi state Senate District 10 candidate Carlton Smith – making him a priority candidate for Victory Fund this election cycle. If elected, Smith would become the first openly LGBTQ state legislator in Mississippi history and the only openly LGBTQ elected official in the entire state. Mississippi is one of just five states to have never elected an openly LGBTQ state legislator and one of only four states to have no openly LGBTQ elected officials currently serving.

“LGBTQ candidates are making enormous inroads in most of the country, but that electoral progress is entirely missing in Mississippi,” said Mayor Annise Parker, President & CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund. “Carlton Smith represents the best opportunity we’ve had to finally elect an LGBTQ state legislator – and his pastoral work and advocacy for those most marginalized will bring a desperately needed perspective to Jackson. The absence of LGBTQ representation in Mississippi is glaring and foretells the challenges Carlton will face on the campaign trail. But he’s ready to run and win, and when he does, he will have blazed the trail for others to follow in his footsteps.”

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