Negroes in Miss. Defeated at Polls

LEXINGTON, Miss. Nov. 8--According to an unofficial count yesterday, only seven of the 32 Independent Negro candidates running for office in Mississippi won election Tuesday.

It was a day for Democrats. The few GOP candidates running were trounced, including Meridien's incumbent legislator, the first Republican in the capitol since Reconstruction.

Negroes scored victories in only five of the nine counties in which they were running. They won election to offices such as supervisor, constable and justice of the peace. The most important victory was the election of Holmes County candidate Robert Clark to the State House of Representatives. He will be the first Negro in the legislature since Reconstruction.

Disappointing

The results of this election were considered to be disappointing for Mississippi Negroes. Only two out of ten candidates won office in Holmes County, considered the best organized.

Lawrence Guyot, head of the Freedom Democratic Party, which backed and organized the independent Negroes' campaign, attributed the defeat to irregularities in the voting procedure.

Al Rhodes, unsuccessful candidate for the State House of Representatives in Hinds County, said that many Negro voters did not go to the polls because they believed all black candidates had been taken off the ballots. Sixteen of the original 48 Independent candidates were taken off the ballot for voting in the Democratic Primary last August. In the State of Mississippi Independents are prohibited from voting in party primaries.

The election is seen not only as a defeat for Negroes and the MFDP, but also as a victory for NAACP leader Charles Evers, who has been described as Mississippi's "Tammany boss."