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Civil Rights Education Summit in Neshoba County
PHILADELPHIA, MS – Public school teachers from around the region will converge in Philadelphia, Miss., June 22-24 for what is expected to be a landmark event aimed at providing teacher training through first-hand perspectives on the 1960's Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, two blocks away in the Neshoba County courthouse, Edgar Ray Killen stands trial for the gruesome murder of three civil rights workers forty one years ago in this small Mississippi town. The conference has been planned by Philadelphia Coalition, which initiated the call for justice in the 1964 case and the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi.
Barbour's Lobbying Firm Now Open to Dems
In a dramatic sign of how the political winds have shifted, lobbying firm BRG (formerly known as Barbour, Griffith & Rogers) today announced that it has acquired a Democratic lobbying firm. This is huge because Haley Barbour and partners revolutionized what had been the bi-partisan nature of lobbying in Washington by opening a firm that would not cater to Democrats, helping create an intensely divided Washington. [...]
Rita Victims Living Like ‘Cavemen' on Texas Coast
AP is reporting:
Nearly four days after Hurricane Rita hit, many of the storm's sweltering victims along the Texas Gulf Coast were still waiting for electricity, gasoline, water and other relief Tuesday, prompting one top emergency official to complain that people are "living like cavemen." In the hard-hit refinery towns of Port Arthur and Beaumont, crews struggled to cross debris-clogged streets to deliver generators and water to people stranded by Rita. They predicted it could be a month before power is restored, and said water and sewer systems could not function until more generators arrived.
Big Freedia Back on in Hattiesburg: Names Mississippi a 'Right to Twerk' State
Big Freedia has rescheduled a "Twerkloose" show at the Dollar Box Showroom in Hattiesburg on March 25 after the state pressured the owner last month to cancel the show due to supposedly illegal twerking.
All Must Take Responsibility for Preventing Crime
Much research shows that hopelessness prolongs problems, including crime, because people don't do what each of them could to alleviate the conditions that lead to misbehavior.
Sen. McDaniel, Meet the Real ‘Liberal Women’
As I was consumed with Best of Jackson week last week, I kept getting emails and texts about a state legislator proving himself to be among the worst of Mississippi.
Women Done Wrong
You get 10 women together, and nine of them will have a story to tell about how a man has done them wrong. Give the tenth one a little time, and she'll have a story, too, says Anita Singleton-Prather over a dinner of bacon cheeseburgers, red beans and rice and crawfish etouffee at Que Sera Sera on N. State Street. Singleton-Prather—a large boisterous black woman who will tell you she loves her food—was in town Jan. 28 in all her glory showcasing her film, "My Man Done Me Wrong," which screened at Millsaps College as part of the Southern Film Circuit. It is a story of Singleton-Prather and six other black women recounting tales of cheating men—and of how those men got their due.
McCain Attacks Open His and Palin's Closets to Scrutiny
The McCain-Palin campaign opened the floodgates when they told the media this weekend that they were about to start launching personal attacks against Barack Obama in order to "change the subject" away from the economy. In response to their (and especially Palin's) "terrorist" jabs (because Obama knows William Ayers, formerly of the Weathermen, when Obama was 8), media from national to local newspapers in Nevada are opening the doors of McCain and Palin's closets, revealing plenty. A sampling since yesterday:
[Ladd] God Bless the Little Man
When Wal-Mart first came to my hometown while I was in high school, I was ecstatic. It opened on a side of town where there wasn't a whole lot, and soon other businesses popped up around it. Back then, of course, it wasn't one of those Supercenter monsters; it was the smaller, more manageable kind.
[In Memory] Florence Mars, 1923-2006
I didn't know Florence Mars growing up in Neshoba County. She was from a different part of town—the side that had old money. I don't have memories of her walking around town in her floppy hat like Sen. Gloria Williamson describes, or driving her little bug around town as former Neshoba Democrat editor Stanley Dearman does. I don't remember seeing her at the Neshoba County Fair. I certainly had no reason to visit the stockyard that she owned, the one that white folks boycotted for awhile.
EDITOR'S NOTE: America, We Must Stop De-humanizing Our Children
As a child in the 1960s and 1970s, I was a bit of a freak of nature in my hometown of Philadelphia, Miss. You could call me sensitive or soft-hearted, or as the odd insult still goes, I had a bleeding heart.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Recovering Out Loud from Loss and Breast Cancer
"We must breathe through it all—the physical pain, anguish, stress, disappointment. We must just be present in our lives and accept and release whatever happens. Honestly, I can't imagine a better Zen practice than recovering from cancer while being a woman newspaper editor in a conservative state."
Saturday, March 28: COVID-19 Cases in 71 Mississippi Counties, Total 663 with 13 Deaths
Today’s coronavirus numbers are in for Mississippi, leaving very few counties on the map in white, denoting which of our 82 counties do not yet have an official confirmed case. Today, MSDH added 84 cases to bring the total to 663 with 13 deaths. Of 82 counties, 71 now are reporting at least one case of COVID-19.
JSU Town Hall Meeting on HIV/AIDS Today
In honor of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Jackson State University is hosting a "Prevention is Power" town hall meeting today (Feb. 7) from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Jackson Medical Mall Community Room. Miss JSU Jasmin Searcy will moderate. Free rapid HIV testing will be provided by Crossroads Clinic, located on the third floor of the Jackson Medical Mall.
Rep. Karl Oliver's Lynching Call Turns Spotlight to Mississippi Statues
When Rep. Karl Oliver decided to take to Facebook Saturday night to vent his anger over the Confederate statues coming off public property in Louisiana, he ignited a firestorm over his call for the kind of terrorism the Old South is still known for: lynching.
A Sweet Little Scene, by James Hughes
It's September 1983, and I'm hanging around the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, regretting that I've shown up six months too late to get into grad school and waiting to catch a bus to wherever. With evening settling in and the campus growing quiet, I drift into town, wander around awhile, and stumble into a little music lounge with handbill-covered windows called The Secret Garden—a bare-bones joint, nowhere near as sumptuous as its name, but one I'll still remember even 20 years later as the place where I first paid attention to the music of R.E.M.
Cedric Willis: Honoree of YMP Crime Forum at Walton Elementary
The late Cedric Willis is the honoree of a youth-crime forum tonight in Jackson where participants will brainstorm both causes and solutions of violence in the capital city.
But, Mr. Cleo
I first saw Robert Little, a very handsome toastmaster-by-trade and Jacksonian, take on a young, somewhat skeptical audience Nov. 19 at the North Midtown Community Development Center. He was the guest speaker, the guest motivator, at the gathering of about 40 parents and kids from Brown Elementary and Rowan Middle schools, schools scoring far below the levels deemed acceptable by No Child Left Behind federal standards.