Mississippi

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• SOURCE: University of Mississippi
  1/18/2022
  

  University of Mississippi Makes Available Oral Histories of Student Protesters Sent to Parchman Prison Farm

  Historian Garrett Felber and his students began a project to document the experiences of Mississippi students arrested in 1970 and sent to the notorious prison farm. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  1/8/2022
  

  A Racist 1890 Law Still Blocks Black Americans from Voting

  Fewer than 200 Mississippians in the last 25 years have successfully petitioned for the restoration of their voting rights after felony convictions.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/5/2021
  

  Ghosts of Mississippi

  by Charles M. Blow

  The Times columnist argues that the oral arguments in the SCOTUS abortion case recall the bitter history of disenfranchisement in Mississippi, and the subsequent decades when rights were stripped away from Mississippians without democratic process.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/6/2021
  

  Justice Department Closes Emmett Till Investigation Without Charges

  Historian Timothy Tyson wrote in a 2017 book that witness Carolyn Bryant Donham disavowed her testimony that Till had grabbed her and made suggestive remarks before he was lynched. The DOJ has said that materials given them by Tyson did not corroborate the claim of a recantation. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/30/2021
  

  Mississippi Judge Refuses to be Gaslit about State's History in Abortion Rights Case

  Judge Carlton Reeves rejected Mississippi's cynical argument, now before the Supreme Court, that its new abortion ban seeks to protect women and African Americans, calling the law a revival of the "old Mississippi" that sought above all to control them. 

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  10/28/2021
  

  Black Women in Noxubee County, Miss. Fight Historical Inequities Exposed by COVID

  COVID-19 has highlighted the historical processes of agricultural labor, land ownership, and economic underdevelopment that have made Black residents of Noxubee County in eastern Mississippi vulnerable to both illness and economic from the pandemic. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/5/2021
  

  The Enduring Influence of Fannie Lou Hamer, Civil Rights Advocate

  by Jill Watts

  New books by Kate Clifford Larson and Keisha N. Blain aim to restore Fannie Lou Hamer to a position of prominence in the history of Black freedom struggles. 

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  9/1/2021
  

  Journalist William Huie Concealed Lynchers In Emmett Till Case And Got Away With It

  The commonly-know story of Emmett Till's lynching has long been distorted because a journalist who reported the accounts of two acquitted killers had written out other conspirators from the story for legal reasons. 

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• SOURCE: Biloxi Sun-Herald
  9/2/2011
  

  Ida Floods Another Historically Black Gulf Community

  The Forest Heights neighborhood of Gulfport, Mississippi was redeveloped in the 1960s as one of the first racially integrated developments promoting home ownership. Like the rest of historically Black north Gulfport, it is threatened by more frequent flooding.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/16/2021
  

  The Complicated History of One Mississippi Restaurant

  Booker Wright, a Black waiter, shocked the community of Greenwood by shedding his genial tableside manner to tell a documentary crew about the burdens of racial subordination. After the film aired, he was assaulted by a police officer and his bar was vandalized.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/10/2021
  

  Greenwood, Mississippi Asks What Comes After Confederate Monuments

  As political pressure brings down Confederate statues, the question of what replaces them becomes more urgent but remains unanswered. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/24/2021
  

  ‘He Had a Life Before Death’: Remembering Emmett Till for the Child He Was

  Emmett Till's cousin Ollie Gordon describes Till's personality at what would be his 80th birthday, reminding us that he was a person, and not just a martyr.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  6/2/2021
  

  Shot 55 Years Ago while Marching Against Racism, James Meredith Reminds Us that Powerful Movements can Include those with Very Different Ideas

  by Aram Goudsouzian

  Meredith’s historical meaning is slippery, but that very inability to pin him down can teach important lessons – not only for how to remember the 1960s, but for how to think about social change.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/17/2021
  

  Officials Apologize for Deadly Police Shooting at a Black College in 1970

  More than 400 students from the Jackson State class of 1970 were awarded diplomas on Saturday, as city and state officials apologized for the deadly police violence that took two lives and resulted in the shutdown of the campus and cancellation of that year's graduation ceremonies. 

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  4/30/2021
  

  Systemic Racism Built Mississippi. Gov. Reeves Says It Doesn’t Exist

  Governor Tate Reeves recently declared systemic racism is a myth. A reporter wonders if he's spent time in his own state. 

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  4/12/2021
  

  ‘Darn’ Tootin’ It Is!’: Gov. Tate Reeves Again Declares Confederate Heritage Month, SCV Says

  While official state web pages have not posted such a proclamation, Governor Tate Reeves has apparently signed a proclamation again declaring April Confederate Heritage Month, as posted on the Facebook page of the Sons of Confederate Veterans of Rankin County, MS. Writer Donna Ladd says Reeves' proclamation equates the Union and Confederate causes in the Civil War.

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• SOURCE: YouTube
  2/17/2021
  

  He Risked His Life Filming A Mississippi Senator's Plantation In 1964

  Senator James Eastland of Mississippi justified his segregationist politics with paternalism. Conditions on his family's plantation showed otherwise. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/11/2021
  

  American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread

  Atlantic Editor Vann Newkirk examines the recent and imperiled history of American democracy since the Voting Rights Act, including by interviewing Charles Hamilton, co-author of the keystone book "Black Power." 

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• SOURCE: Reckon South
  1/11/2021
  

  Capitol Riot: The 48 Hours that Echoed Generations of Southern Conflict

  Hours after Mississippi legislators took the final step of removing a Confederate emblem from their state banner, a violent white mob waved the Stars and Bars as it ransacked the U.S. Capitol. 

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Today
  12/29/2020
  

  University of Mississippi Professors Research Legacy of Slavery at State’s Flagship University

  A multidisciplinary task force of scholars at the University of Mississippi is working to tell the stories of people enslaved at the university and examine the role of slavery in building the institution.