Mississippi goes global

This wasn't supposed to happen here

[Reprinted from Issues & Views September 24, 2001]

So, we learn that Mississippi too must "take its place in the global economy." Or so a cluster of black families are being told, as they resist their removal from land they have owned in Canton, Mississippi, for 60 years.

Having outbid every other competing state for a Nissan truck factory, the government of Mississippi means business. The stubborn Archie and Bouldin families will have to yield as the bulldozers close in on their land. Their homes are now located on property where Nissan plans to build a parking lot and an access road.

Although the state has offered the two families more than a half-million dollars for their land, they have chosen to go to court to challenge the condemnation procedure. The Washington Post quotes Lonzo Archie, a welder, as saying, "

"My grandfather bought this land in 1941. There's 15 of our families right around here, and none of them want to live anywhere else. But then the state comes in and pushes us around and tells us they're going to turn our land over to a private company. It's not right."

Officials of the state's economic development bureau candidly claim that a higher principle is involved in the need to seize this property--that is, according to the Post, the state's need to demonstrate to businesses around the country that it is "utterly serious about attracting big corporate investments." And, furthermore, says a state official, "What's important is the message it would send to other companies if we are unable to do what we said we would do. If you make a promise to a company like Nissan, you have to be able to follow through."

The state committed itself last November when the Legislature unanimously passed a bill granting a variety of privileges to Nissan and specifically granting the state power to seize whatever properties the company deemed desirable. Mississippi came up with the largest package of tax-financed incentives ever offered an automaker in the United States.

As the lawsuit moves its way up to the Mississippi Supreme Court, there is little doubt in the minds of most observers that the state and Nissan will win.

-- EW

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