Former President Bill Clinton speaks at Jackson’s William Winter Memorial

Virtually every important Southern political figure from the past 40 years made their way into the Two Mississippi Museums in Downtown Jackson on Tuesday to celebrate the lives of former Gov. William Winter and First Lady Elise Winter.

Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, former Governors Phil Bryant and Ronnie Musgrove and national Democratic political consultant James Carville were all on hand to pay tribute to the late couple.

Headlining the event, former President Bill Clinton and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, shared the stage to honor both the Winters as critical figures who helped push Mississippi forward by emphasizing education and building a bridge between races in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Winter, a Democrat, was governor from 1980 to 1984 and was known as a champion of public education. He was 97 when he died in December 2020.

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Elise Winter was 95 when she died in July 2021. She was a founder of the Jackson area chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

“The ultimate lesson of their lives is that how your lives turn out is largely a function of how you decide to keep score,” Clinton said. “If you are keeping score on yourself, you know what the deal is. They kept score truthfully.

“All I know is that from the minute I met Bill Winter, I never had a scintilla of a doubt that whatever happened in our friendship, whatever happened in our lives, I was with one of the most authentic people I had ever known.”

Winter helped persuade state leaders of the need to build the Two Mississippi Museums — the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which are separate entities under the same roof in downtown Jackson. They opened in 2017.

Barbour lauded Winter for his willingness to reach across the aisles to make things happen and create consensuses even after he was no longer in the governor’s mansion. Barbour mentioned Winter’s work after Hurricane Katrina to bring Mississippians together and help get relief to victims across the Gulf Coast and throughout the state.

However, it was Winter and former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson who pushed Barbour forward as to the location of the Two Mississippi Museums.

“They brought me the solution to the problem of where to place the Civil Rights Museum, and I had the sense enough to recognize that they were absolutely right,” Barbour said. “And today, we are sitting in the solution. Here we have the result.”