Tripped Up By History

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What, if anything, has changed between 1962, when Lott described himself as a segregationist, and the day last week when he repudiated segregation and all forms of racism? Lott told TIME that "it wasn't any one moment or epiphany" but rather many experiences, especially as he has got to know better the poorest parts of his home state. "We've lived in this cocoon in Pascagoula," he said. "Everybody had a job. The schools were good. But it's different in the Delta." There, he says, "I've seen that a lot of people don't have the opportunity we had." Lott adds that he has long assumed that his efforts to bring federal dollars and private investment to Mississippi would benefit blacks more than anyone else, and that that should be sufficient to prove his goodwill. But one black constituent, a man who has worked at the shipyard and on the shrimp boats along the coast, set him straight. Says Lott: "He told me, 'I think you're good for the area, but black people aren't going to support you until you get to know us better.' So he introduced me to some folks, and I've tried to hear their views."

If Lott wants to reach out to blacks and is not a racist, why has he addressed segregationist groups and mused about his Confederate heroes? "Part of it's just habit," says a Lott confidante. Lott has seen the "segs" as part of his constituency. But he knows now that the cost of winking at them is very high, not so much among blacks as among white moderate voters and among national G.O.P. leaders.

Even as Lott tried to put the controversy behind him, he ensured that it would persist. He announced that he would discuss it for an hour this week on the Black Entertainment Television channel, owned by Robert Johnson, a Mississippi native who is black. Meanwhile, Democrats are debating whether to seek a resolution that would formally censure Lott, which they could introduce as soon as Congress returns to Washington on Jan. 7.

Lott would dearly love to avoid that sort of escalation. He said he was encouraged over the weekend by expressions of support from Senate colleagues and Mississippi constituents. It's hard to know what may have changed in Trent Lott's heart. But what's certain is that he knows how to count votes. And if he calculates that it's safe for a Southern, white Republican to forgo the old racial code words, that's a measure of progress. --With reporting by James Carney, John F. Dickerson and Douglas Waller/Washington and Jackson Baker/Oxford