Mike Espy recounts memories of President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Mississippi visit

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) -Funeral plans officially begin Saturday for former President Jimmy Carter.

His motorcade will travel to The Carter Center in Atlanta, where people will start paying their respects. As you hear reflections on his legacy, you may not realize he made a quick trip to Mississippi in 1977.

It’s a visit Mike Espy will never forget.

“I was a second-year law student in a law school in California, and I was home for summer break,” said Espy. “I found out that Jimmy Carter was coming to my hometown, Yazoo City. So, of course, I wanted to be there.”

It would be a limited crowd, but Espy was determined.

“Very hard to get,” he said of the tickets. “So, I bent over backward for trying to get an invitation, and I convinced my mother to intercede for me. And now she got the invitation. I got it from her. And then I went.”

A crowd gathered outside but with that ticket secured, Espy was inside.

“It was held at the brand new Yazoo City Public School, a brand new building,” he said. “It was July in Mississippi. It was extremely hot. I thought that the air conditioning had not yet been installed or it wasn’t on cause it was sweltering in that room.”

A fact not lost on the President as he removed his suit jacket.

“He was just very approachable,” noted Espy. “He just seemed like a common person despite being President of the United States.”

Espy says they surveyed the crowd before Carter arrived to see who wanted to ask a question. He raised his hand but wasn’t asked what that question would be. I asked if he remembered.

“I asked him a question about this new weapon system,” recalled Espy. “And, of course, I was a smart aleck law student. So, I tried to pose a question as a contradiction between a lethal weapon of war and a man of peace, you know, like Jimmy Carter.”

He says Carter answered politely but put him in his place with more information. As Espy has had his own political career both in Congress and President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, he’s never forgotten that experience.

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