Former Toledoan eyes House on GOP ticket

By ROSE RUSSELL

POLITICAL observers might say there's no chance that former Toledoan Yvonne Rayford Brown can beat her opponent in the race to represent Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives in November.

The Rogers High School graduate - in her second term as mayor of Tchula, in the Mississippi Delta - is not on the ballot in the June 6 primary. She is the lone Republican vying for the 2nd U.S. Congressional District seat to represent her adopted home state.

In what promises to be a much-watched race, it could also be an uphill campaign for Ms. Brown. Her opponent will be determined when Mississippi Democrats go to polls for the June 6 primary. On that ballot are Democrats U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the incumbent, and his challengers, Mississippi state Rep. Chuck Espy and Dorothy Benford.

Hey, Ms. Brown knows about what may seem to others to be impossibilities, and they've never stopped her. She won't let any difficulty or slim chance get in her way now.

After all, you don't win a second term as the GOP candidate in an impoverished Democratic town with a population of 2,300 without making some of progress. It is believed that Ms. Brown is the first black female Republican ever elected to run a Mississippi community.

In fact, maybe Toledo officials could learn from Ms. Brown. According to the Mississippi Link, since she became mayor five years ago, Tchula has created a walking track, softball field, and public pavillion, built a boat ramp and fishing pier, and put in health and fitness and playground equipment.

Tchula also has constructed a $1 million municipal building, secured $3 million in federal appropriations for water, sewer, and street construction, and proposes an affordable housing project, according to the Vicksburg Post in Mississippi

Toledoans should remember the Rayford family. Retired educators Bennie and Hilda Rayford are the parents of four children they raised here before they returned to their Mississippi home in the late 1980s. I had the privilege of going to school with Yvonne and LaVonne, the Rayfords' second daughter and whom we knew as "Pye." Yvonne's late brother Bennie and sister Gail were much younger, of course.

If Ms. Brown wins in November, she will make history - again. She will be the first black Mississippi Republican since the post-Civil War era to take a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The last time a black Republican represented the state of Mississippi at the federal level was during the Reconstruction era. John R. Lynch was a Mississippi congressman from 1873-1877, and again from 1882 to 1883.

Mississippi also gave the nation its first African-American senators during the Reconstruction era, and they were also both Republican. Hiram R. Revels was in the Senate from 1870-1871, and Blanche K. Bruce was a U.S. senator from 1875-1881.

Lord knows if Yvonne Rayford Brown will win in November. In fact, as a Christian, she's trusting God, and makes no bones about being a woman of faith.

If she doesn't win, it won't discourage her. She's not that type. Trust me on that.

She just might surprise her congressional opponent, who would be well advised not to dismiss her and try to cruise through to Nov. 7.

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