In political news, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour is coming under criticism for praising the role of the White Citizens’ Councils which opposed racial integration in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, Barbour recalled the civil rights struggle in his hometown, Yazoo City, Mississippi, saying, “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.” Barbour has been widely viewed as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Barbour described the White Citizens’ Councils as an “organization of town leaders,” but historians in Mississippi said the White Citizens’ Councils played an active role in trying to keep public schools segregated. Following the 1955 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. The Board of Education, a group of 53 black parents in Yazoo City signed a petition to desegregate public schools. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger newspaper reports the White Citizens’ Councils responded by taking out an advertisement in the local newspaper listing the names of the 53 black parents. The parents’ names also appeared on placards around town and in cotton fields. Most of those who had signed the petition were forced to leave the city because they lost their jobs and couldn’t find other work.