Eddie Carthan said he called up the Holmes County Courthouse last week and learned investigators were there, rifling through his decades-old criminal files.

Carthan, a Holmes County supervisor, might not be legally qualified to hold his seat because of his criminal past, according to the secretary of state's candidate qualifying guide.

But Carthan and his supporters look at the new inquiry into his leadership ability — coming two years into his term — as an extension of the persecution he's faced dating back to the civil rights era.

He said he had attorneys research the issue decades ago, and they found he could vote and run for office. He's been on the ballot for several local races since then without anyone questioning his qualifications.

Elected mayor of Tchula in 1977, a 28-year-old Carthan was the first African-American mayor of a Mississippi Delta town since Reconstruction. He sat three years until he was convicted of assaulting a police officer, widely considered a bogus charge.

Then he was charged with murder. A jury found him not guilty, but by that point in 1982, his political career was through.

That's until 2015, when his community elected him supervisor.

"After 30-some years, it's like full circle to be back in office," Carthan said.

The local celebrity, now 67, lives in a crumbling, white-columned mansion — which once belonged to Sara Virginia Jones, daughter of one of the area's wealthiest plantation owners — in the middle of downtown Tchula.

He owns and leads the church across the street, Good Samaritan Ecumenical Church, formerly the United Methodist Church. The all-white congregation that used to worship there refused to speak to Carthan on a visit he made after becoming mayor, he said.

On Tuesday, the Jackson City Council commended Carthan for his work as a civil rights activist and public servant. Councilman Kenneth Stokes, who presented the resolution, called Carthan "the godfather of all black elected officials" in Mississippi. Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and other council members also praised Carthan and acknowledged his legacy.

But this recognition comes at a time when the controversial politician is again facing scrutiny, nearly four decades after his legal battle began.

"I dealt with that some years ago, but it seems to be resurfacing," Carthan said.

Lately, talk around the Delta community an hour north of Jackson is that folks are looking into Carthan's qualifications to hold office, considering his felony conviction.

Carthan said he learned of the inquiry from Holmes County Circuit Clerk Earline Wright-Hart, who told him the "feds" and the state attorney general's office had been in her office. She would not comment about the visitors but did say Carthan's records had been pulled. Spokespeople for both the FBI and the attorney general's office said they could neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

"I guess they're looking, trying to find records for when I was convicted, falsely," Carthan said. "I guess I am considered an outspoken leader in the county, always speaking on the behalf of the people who are marginalized, people who are disenfranchised, the poorest of the poor."

Mississippi's election code disqualifies candidates who have been convicted of a felony in a state court, as specified in the Mississippi State Constitution of 1890. The disqualification also applies to felony convictions in other states or federal court after 1992.

The lifelong implications of felony convictions have been brought into question lately, with a lawsuit filed last month aimed at removing the voting ban for Mississippians with felonies.

Carthan thinks the renewed scrutiny could have something to do with his public criticism of the Mississippi state flag, which includes the Confederate battle emblem in its top left corner, and of Confederate monuments throughout the state.

But he's hardly alone in this fight: all public universities in the state and many cities, including Jackson, have stopped flying the flag on their properties.

Either way, Carthan says he's familiar with attempts to silence him and curb his influence.

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The tension following his 1977 election mounted when, three years into his term as mayor, white city aldermen ignored his selection for a new police chief, instead appointing one of Carthan's political opponents, Jim Andrews, to the position.

Shortly after, Carthan and six of his supporters approached the police station and told Andrews, who hadn't been legally hired, to leave. Andrews refused, and a scuffle ensued, resulting in a bullet grazing Andrew's head.

Jurors convicted all seven men of assault, not against Andrews, who wasn't technically an officer, but against another police officer who said Carthan struck him. The officer later vaguely alluded in a television interview that the mayor had been set up. The judge suspended all but Carthan's three-year sentence. After several months, then-Gov. William Winter suspended Carthan's remaining time.

A 1982 New York Times article said Carthan had been convicted of a felony and forced to resign but added, "a dispute still rages over whether the jury thought it was finding the men guilty of assault, a misdemeanor, or assault of a police officer, a felony."

Carthan still disputes the legitimacy of his conviction. Wright-Hart, who is tasked with election duties, said she did not have time to pull files on the assault case for The Clarion-Ledger by press time, which she said would require her to "climb dirty stairs and get copies."

Regarding his eligibility to run for office, Wright-Hart said, "People can't answer questions for something that happened 30 years ago. There's no way to answer it. You didn't have computers. How were they supposed to know? They were not even here."

Carthan was also convicted in 1981 on felony bank fraud charges stemming from a federal investigation that was said to have found a bribery scheme and called into question the town's handling of grant funds, according to the New York Times. That federal conviction does not disqualify him from office since it happened prior to 1992.

Even after his conviction, the "white power structure" frame job, as Carthan describes it, wasn't over.

While in prison, Carthan's political rival, who took over the mayor's seat after Carthan was forced to resign, was killed.

The two men charged with the crime said Carthan hired them to kill Roosevelt Granderson and stage a robbery at the Jitney Jr. convenience store where he worked. The men were given a deal to testify against the former mayor.

The jury found Carthan not guilty, after which he promptly returned to prison to serve out his remaining time on the fraud charge.

That prison sentence wasn't his first time in jail, either. He was 13 the first time he got locked up — rounded up by officers as he marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. on the civil rights icon's first trip to Jackson in the 1960s.

Officers hauled the teenager to the state fairgrounds, where they shoved him and other marchers in the cow stalls until their families "bailed them out."

In his speech at Jackson City Hall on Tuesday, Carthan talked of being imprisoned and accepted the city's honor on behalf of his distant cousin Emmett Till, a 14-year-old killed by two white men who were acquitted of murder but later confessed; the Rev. George Lee, a civil rights leader assassinated in Belzoni after registering black voters; his neighbor, Hartman Turnbow, whose house was set on fire by Klansmen; and Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights leader arrested and beaten in jail.

Carthan says it's his ties to the civil rights movement, along with his spirituality, that have helped him come to terms with everything that's happened.

"I guess this is what really drives me. I don't have any hate, any animosity, against anyone," Carthan said. "When I was first arrested on these charges, and I was in prison, and I questioned God, knowing that I hadn't done any of those things, why he allowed me to go to jail, and he spoke to my spirit, saying there were men and women who he supported, who he called to serve, much more popular than I was, who served time in jail, including Jesus Christ. So what seems to be a bad thing, turned out to be a good thing, and somehow I was proud to be there."

He laughed, "I was proud to be in jail."

Contact Anna Wolfe at 601-961-7326 or awolfe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter.