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Summer of ‘64: A Mississippi Freedom Fighter Remembers the Struggle

with JoAnne Prichard Morris

You never know when something's going to happen that will change your life completely. If I had stayed in Florida canning tomatoes, I wouldn't have been here when the civil rights workers came to Mississippi in the summer of 1964. But here I was in Mayersville, chopping Jimson weeds and Johnson grass out of Mr. Wilkerson's cotton for $3 a day. It was 1964, and I was 31 years old. We were living in our old two-room shotgun shack without indoor plumbing.

Ballad of Charlie Moore and Henry Dee

We found Marla Moore's freshly penned lyrics in honor of Charles Moore and Henry Dee on her "Punk Rasta" myspace page this week and asked to publish them. The JFP spoke with Moore Tuesday about the song she had just written for two fallen Mississippians.

As School Looms, Confusion Reigns

Erica Lowell waits for her students to return, and her anxiety waits with her. She is a public-school teacher in Rankin County, speaking to the Jackson Free Press under a pseudonym.

Coal's Slipping Grip: New England, Virtually Coal-Free, Leads the Way

Last week President Obama launched a major drive to limit carbon pollution from power plants in a bid to stem climate change.

JFP 2014 College Basketball Preview

As the college game becomes more micromanaged, especially at the end of game, a good coach becomes even more important. Our state might be starting to amass a nice collection of coaches who fit these descriptions.

Coming Out

Telling people that I'm gay isn't a big deal for me anymore. I mention it when it's relevant, and if someone's shocked or offended, the most I usually tell him is to get over it and welcome to the human race. But when the news broke last week that two Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics officers were sentenced to mere house arrest for brutally assaulting two gay men, I was reminded that coming out publicly is still a profoundly important act—especially in Mississippi.

DOSSIER: From Bashing 'Boys of Spring' to Unpacking a Mississippi-Brexit Love Affair

"TV networks may live and die on ratings and people screaming opinions at each other from two "sides," but our democracy really can't take much more of this kind of dangerous political gamesmanship."

The Fight for Family Goes On

After the Obergefell decision, Mississippi’s leaders "made sure to let us know we are still beneath the religious elite," Rev. Brandiilyne Mangum-Dear said. "We may have acquired marriage that day (in 2015), but we certainly didn't get equality."

DA Smith Trial: Tales of Affairs, Fighting, Hiding in the Closet

An all-white jury of eight women and six men settled in to listen to the state's case against Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith on Tuesday, Sept. 11, in Rankin County.

Mal Tiempo, Buenas Caras (Bad Times, Good Faces)

Photos by Cheree Franco and Matt Saldaña

José Bacallao stares into a boarded-up restaurant on the edge of a Highway 90 strip mall in Waveland, a tiny town in southwestern Mississippi that was the epicenter of one of the strongest, and deadliest, hurricanes in United States history. Nearly two years ago, Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything inside the building, along with a great stretch of the Mississippi Coast and New Orleans. The only evidence that the bare, gray building was once the site of Las Palmas, the traditional Cuban restaurant Bacallao opened two years before the storm hit, is a poster taped inside the glass door. On it, a dancing Cuban woman in a Tropicana nightclub dress swings her hips and shakes a pair of maracas, a bright flower perched in her hair.

Tale of Two Charter Schools in Mississippi

Charter schools weren't legal in Mississippi until 2013, when the Legislature passed the Mississippi Charter School Law, allowing nonprofit charter schools to enter the state for the first time.

Matador Records News

Matador signs Love Of Diagrams. Matador is happier than Donald Rumsfeld holding the Aspartame patent to announce the signing of a worldwide deal with the Australian trio LOVE

Council Blocks Pay Raises for Bodyguards

On Monday, the Jackson City Council halted Mayor Frank Melton's scheme to use drug-seizure money to fund recent police salary raises. The administration proposed taking $192,101 from the $400,000 drug-forfeiture fund to preserve the Jackson Police Department finance division—which the approved 2008 budget dissolves—and to pay for more than $40,000 in combined salary increases for Melton's bodyguards Michael Recio and Marcus Wright.

Tracks Of Their Tears

Velma Berry lives in a brick house seven miles due west of the Mantee exit off the Natchez Trace in Northeast Mississippi. The well-kept lawn, thriving tomato plants and orange kitty-cat lolling on the carport near a hot-pink lawn chair show signs of vibrant life that belie the pain of the woman who now lives alone inside the house.

Melton's Lies Cost Taxpayers

Jackson Mayor Frank Melton admitted to lying in legal documents for more than two years on Aug. 22, saying he had been confused, as he stood before a judge in Lauderdale County Circuit Court. Three days later, Judge Robert Bailey called his explanation "ludicrous" and declared Melton the loser in the lawsuit due to lies he'd told to the court on numerous occasions - leaving the Mississippi taxpayers to pay his damages.

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