It’s the latest detail that gives context to the lynching “joke” from the US senator from Mississippi.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) sent her daughter to a private school that was created to allow white parents to avoid sending their children to the same schools as Black children, after Hyde-Smith graduated from a similar school in the 1970s, according to a report in the Jackson Free Press.

The new details about Hyde-Smith’s upbringing — and the school environment that she chose to pass down to her daughter — shed additional light on the Senate candidate’s recent comments joking about attending a lynching, remarks that have dogged her campaign and sparked an exodus of corporate funders.

White leaders in southern states sought to bypass school integration through the creation of private institutions. Known as “segregation academies,” these private schools were formed specifically in response to Brown v. Board of Education, when court-ordered integration was limited to public schools.

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