The campaign for Mississippi Republican Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith on Saturday condemned “the gotcha liberal media” after a local newspaper published a report on how she attended a so-called “segregated” private academy as a teenager.
“In their latest attempt to help Mike Espy, the gotcha liberal media has taken leave of their senses,” Hyde-Smith’s spokeswoman, Melissa Scallan, told multiple outlets. “They have stooped to a new low, attacking her entire family and trying to destroy her personally instead of focusing on the clear differences on the issues between Cindy Hyde-Smith and her far-left opponent.”
The Jackson Free Press on Friday published a yearbook photo of Hyde-Smith during her time as a student at Lawrence County Academy. The image shows her posing with the school’s mascot, a Confederate general with a Confederate flag. The paper also reported that she does not often mention her links to the school, which was established in 1970 after the Supreme Court ruled that public schools had to integrate. According to the Jackson Free Press, Lawrence County Academy and other schools like Brookhaven Academy, which Hyde-Smith’s daughter attended, were a haven for white parents who did not want their children educated alongside their black peers.
The image, given to the Jackson Free Press by another alumna of the academy, comes after Hyde-Smith joked at a campaign event this month about how she would watch “a public hanging” in “the front row.” Her comments have gone viral in a video as she vies against Espy, a black former congressman and Clinton-era agriculture secretary, to retain her Senate seat representing Mississippi, a state in which lynchings were once prevalent. It took more than a week for Hyde-Smith to dismiss complaints about the recording, saying criticism she had received was “ridiculous” because the phrase was an “expression of regard” for a supporter.
The Mississippi runoff election is set to take place on Nov. 27. Hyde-Smith has served in the Senate since April after GOP Sen. Thad Cochran resigned over health concerns.
