Mississippi's Senate voted against confirming veteran educator Robert P. Taylor as state superintendent of education, angering some people who said the rejection was at least partly because Taylor's Black and wrote about the state's racist history.
Mississippi state Sen. Juan Barnett, D-Heidelberg, left, speaks at a news conference Wednesday, March 29, 2023, at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., while surrounded by other members of the Legislative Black Caucus. Several caucus members denounced a vote by the Republican-led Senate to reject the nomination of Robert P. Taylor as Mississippi superintendent of education. Taylor would have been the second Black person to hold the job.
“The fact that they didn't, that is what I have to live with,” Taylor said. “I will always respect the process.” Taylor grew up in Laurel, Mississippi, and earned his bachelor's degree in 1990 at the University of Southern Mississippi. As an undergraduate, he wrote for a newsletter called “The Unheard Word,” which he said gave Black students a voice that the campus newspaper often ignored.website focused on the short-lived newsletter.
The Senate vote on Taylor's nomination Wednesday was mostly along party lines, 31 Republicans voting against. Of the 21 who voted for confirmation, five were Republicans and the others were Democrats. “He answered that by saying, ‘At that time, that’s how I felt," Johnson told reporters Wednesday after the nomination failed.
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