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Southern Poverty Law Center President Ryan Haygood told Mississippi Today on Monday that his organization is prepared to fight the Trump Justice Department’s indictments in a trial set for April.

Haygood was in Jackson for the start of the organization’s “Truth, Poverty and Democracy Tour” across Mississippi, which will combine community listening sessions to spotlight socioeconomic problems faced by residents. While the Center continues a shift toward anti-poverty advocacy as a central pillar of its work, fighting the lawsuit is of existential importance for civil rights advocacy more broadly, as the lawsuit against SLPC could be a “test case” used against other organizations, Haygood said.

“It’s a vicious irony that the DOJ has been weaponized against the organization that toppled the Klu Klux Klan, even as hateful organizations remain free to operate across the country,” Haygood said. “So it’s a case we intend to win.”

Without detailing the organization’s legal strategy, Haygood said the trial will shed light on why the SPLC was created and all the ways it serves communities across the South.

The Justice Department’s probe against against the Alabama-based group has thus far ensnared one of its former political extremism experts, who left the center about six year ago. That former employee, Heidi Beirich, has been charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

Her legal team has said she is innocent of the charges and described the case as politically motivated.

The SPLC is a frequent target of conservative critics who claim the nonprofit is politically biased. Critics argue the organization has used its “Hate Map” to lump ordinary conservative political groups in with militant extremist groups.

In the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, anger from Trump and his supporters toward groups such as SPLC intensified.

In the fall of 2025, Trump directed federal law enforcement agencies to investigate what he claimed were wealthy donors and organizations funding left-wing political violence. A week later, Mississippi Today spoke to former SPLC President Bryan Fair, who warned the memo could be used as a pretext to target civil rights organizations perceived to be enemies of the administration and Republican causes in states such as Mississippi.

In April of 2026, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced an 11-count federal indictment against the SPLC in the Middle District of Alabama on charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to launder money.

Haygood took over as SPLC’s president in August, at a moment when “civil society organizations face mounting attacks” the Center said.

As the SPLC prepares for a trial this April, Haygood said his organization remains undeterred

“It stands to reason that the kind of work SPLC does, the kind of work to connect people to prosperity and to create a fair criminal legal system, to create a multiracial democracy, and also to identify hateful actors and to topple their organizations,” Haygood said. “It stands the reason that an organization like ours given the work we are doing would be challenged in this moment by this kind of government.”

Haygood, who met earlier on Monday with Democratic state lawmakers, said the center plans to play an active role in pushing for Mississippi to raise its minimum wage, which remains set at the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour. Proposals to do so have repeatedly died in the Legislature.

At the Mississippi Museum of Art, the SPLC convened panels on gaps in the social safety net that impact Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the country. Federal cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, housing, education and childcare have rattled communities across the the state, the center has said.

Joseph Cranney is a reporter with the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center in collaboration with The New York Times. Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. 

The police officer who shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley while chasing two women accused of shoplifting was justified in shooting at their car as it pulled out of a Walmart parking space in June, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office ruled Monday.

The decision came four months after Hunter Foster, an officer with the Senatobia Police Department, was placed on leave while state authorities investigated his actions. Although he has not been directly named as the officer who fired, Foster is the only officer among those present that day who was placed on leave.

Many details of the incident remain unknown, and it wasn’t immediately clear if or when law enforcement would release body-worn camera footage or other surveillance video of the incident.

It is also unclear what other evidence state authorities considered. Several witnesses and Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, said as recently as this month that they had never been interviewed by investigators.

Video taken by bystanders around the time of the shooting shows officers on foot intercepting the slow-moving vehicle in the close quarters of the parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. Five officers had surrounded the car, but none of the video made public so far clearly shows the car or the officers’ actions when the shots were fired.

Vellesiya Wiley said she was holding her son in her arms in the front passenger seat when her friend, Latoya Ferrell, tried to back out of a space and then drove forward to get away from the officers. Both women are Black. Foster is white.

In the hours after the shooting, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation issued a statement saying police had fired at a vehicle when it drove toward an officer, “almost striking” one.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch “found the use of force was justified,” her short statement Monday said. The statement said “one officer” was involved, though it did not name the officer or share any more details about what had happened.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Wiley family, reiterated his calls Monday for law enforcement to release video of the incident.

“How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen’s family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?” Crump said in a statement.

“If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it,” Crump added. “We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth.”

Reached by phone Monday, Vellesiya Wiley wept over the decision. The Senatobia Committee for Accountability and Transparency, founded by Senatobia resident Patrick Lumumba after the shooting, posted on its Facebook page that it was withholding comment too.

“Our founder has literally wiped the tears of Kohen’s grandmother,” the statement said. “It affected people, relationships, and a community in ways that cannot be fully captured in headlines or social media statements.”

Martin Zummach, a lawyer for Foster, said Fitch’s decision was “expected” and “overdue.”

Veronica Roberson, the toddler’s grandmother, said Monday she learned of the attorney general’s decision when she logged onto Facebook. No state or local law enforcement official had reached out to the family, she said.

Foster, 33, is a former member of the U.S. Army National Guard and the son of a longtime law enforcement officer. Prior to joining the Senatobia department in March 2025, Foster made a name for himself at the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office, where he won a statewide award for issuing the most DUI citations of any law enforcement officer in Mississippi in back-to-back years in 2023-24.

Foster was promoted to sergeant six months into his term at Senatobia. In the last year, he was twice accused of directing racially offensive language toward coworkers on the job, including referring to a Black officer as a “Black motherfucker,” Mississippi Today reported.

Senatobia’s former chief, Harold “Hal” Vanderford, who took no action against Foster in either case, was fired in September less than two weeks after The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News revealed he had routinely used racist slurs in private texts with a colleague.

Angelica Maze, a Black woman who was serving as a lieutenant in the department, was named Vanderford’s interim replacement. She didn’t respond Monday to a request seeking comment on the attorney general’s decision. The city of Senatobia released a brief statement on Facebook on Monday, saying it “continues to extend its deepest sympathy to Kohen Wiley’s family and all those affected by this tragedy.”

Update, 10/19/2026: This article has been updated with additional details.

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced it reached a settlement forcing reforms in a Mississippi city and its police department, which the DOJ found discriminated against Black people, used excessive force and retaliated against critics.

The settlement announced Friday comes after a scathing 2024 DOJ report said the Lexington Police Department routinely violated citizens’ civil rights in the rural, poor, majority-Black city located about 65 miles north of the state’s capital. Police targeted Black people for arrests, made arrests for low-level offenses to generate money for the police department and locked people up for extended periods of time if they could not afford to pay fines, according to the report.

The out-of-court settlement requires the City of Lexington and its police department to reform practices on a number of issues — from fines and bail to stops, searches and use of force — and bring them into compliance with state and federal law.

The Associated Press called and emailed city and police department officials but did not immediately receive responses.

The agreement bars the Lexington police from continuing to jail people for unpaid fines without first assessing whether they can afford to pay them, a practice that violates the Fourteenth Amendment. The 2024 report found the city court had issued arrest warrants for more than 650 people, roughly half of the city’s population, for unpaid fines.

The city and the Lexington Police Department must also dismiss all existing warrants for unpaid fines and fees that violate the law and move to expunge the records of all unlawful fine-based convictions.

Additionally, the city and the Lexington Police Department are barred from creating and implementing a quota or incentive system for stops, warnings, citations, arrests or related revenue. The DOJ previously found that between 2022 and 2024, the Lexington Police Department made one arrest for every four people in town, more than 10 times the per-capita arrest rate for the state of Mississippi.

The department will also require DOJ-approved trainings on stops, searches, arrests and use of force, in addition to implementing documentation and review systems to ensure such actions are lawful.

“Through these reforms, we seek not only to address the concerns identified in our investigation, but also to strengthen public trust and promote practices that respect the rights and dignity of every person,” U.S. Attorney J.E. Baxter Kruger for the Southern District of Mississippi said in a news release.

The DOJ said it would work with the city and police to “ensure that they remedy the alleged violations.” The agreement lasts for three years, but could be cut short or extended depending on whether the parties mutually determine the city and police department have reached compliance.

The DOJ launched a probe into the Lexington Police Department in 2023, after citizens accused officers of using roadblocks to target Black drivers, engaging in excessive force, committing sexual assault and arresting people without justification, among other claims.

SAN FRANCISCO – These eight women and their families fought in a war known as America’s Civil Rights Movement. Over the weekend, they gathered, perhaps for the last time, as former President Bill Clinton and others cheered their courage and their grace.

“Throughout the course of their lives, these women have proved that love and compassion are better than bitterness and hatred,” Clinton said in a videotaped message. “They have led with courage, strength, dignity and grace to help build an America that more closely lives up to our founding ideals of equality and justice for all. And through their actions and their example, they have inspired millions of people, including me.”

He wished four of the women happy birthdays: Minnijean Brown Trickey and Elizabeth Eckford, two of the Little Rock Nine who integrated Central High School in 1957; Reena Evers-Everette, whose father, Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, was assassinated in Jackson in 1963; and Lisa McNair, whose sister, Denise, was among the four girls whose lives were stolen by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing.

“To the four of you celebrating your birthdays, I thank you for the life you have lived and continue to live,” Clinton told them. “We’re all better off because of you.”

The other women gathered at the event, sponsored by the Sojourn Project, included: Kim McNair, the other sister of Denise McNair; Bettie Dahmer, whose father, voting rights activist Vernon Dahmer Sr., died defending their family from a Klan attack in Hattiesburg in 1966; the Rev. Gwen Webb, who took part in the 1963 Children’s March; and Angela Lewis, whose father James Chaney was among the three civil rights workers killed by Klansmen in Neshoba County in 1964.

Salute from San Francisco officials

On Friday, the city of San Francisco, county supervisors and the sheriff’s office honored these women.

“Your courage changed history,” Mayor Daniel Lurie told them. “It changed the course of history, and your example continues to inspire generations and generations.  I know we still have a whole lot of work to do, but your example will help guide us forward.”

Sheriff Paul M. Miyamoto praised the women.

“We know their names, the events and some of the photographs, but we don’t know the people,” he said. “You’ve helped change our history by being part of our history.”

The history of the Civil Rights Movement includes some in law enforcement “who failed to protect people at that time, who failed to protect you in our community, and, in some cases, were responsible for the very injustices that people experienced during this time,” Miyamoto said. “That’s not an easy part of our history to confront, but it’s one that we have to accept and understand and move on from.”

More than 20 Klansmen, including some Mississippi law enforcement officers, killed three civil rights workers, Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, on the first day of summer in 1964 and buried their bodies 15 feet down in an earthen dam.

Three years later, seven Klansmen were convicted of federal conspiracy charges, including a deputy sheriff. In 2005, a Neshoba County jury convicted Edgar Ray Killen of orchestrating the killings of the trio. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he died.

Miyamoto has taken some of his deputies on the Sojourn trip, walking across some of the same ground that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once walked.

“He’s always been, from birth, an influence on my life,” Miyamoto said. “It meant something very special to me as a history major and also sharing Martin Luther King’s birthday.”

He said it’s important for young people and for those in law enforcement “to learn together, to remember the past and make sure that it’s our responsibility to make sure nothing comes close to repeating it again.”

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins praised Trickey and Eckford for “stepping up at that time to make that sacrifice. You were so strong and brave.”

She told Evers-Everette, who now heads the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute, ”Your father died doing the work to give us the chance to be here, to give people like me the chance to serve in these positions. Thank you.” 

In 1994, his killer, Byron De La Beckwith, was finally convicted of murder. Beckwith was sentenced to life in prison, where he died.

Through photos of the children marching in Birmingham or the Black students entering school in Little Rock amid a screaming mob, “we see strength, and we see beauty,” Jenkins said, “but what nobody wants to talk about are their scars.”

She said she hopes “we can set aside all the many differences that so many of us have and make sure we continue to work together to maintain their legacy — people who lost parents, who lost siblings, who lost so much of themselves to give us the chance to just go to school together.”

‘Women Who Dared, Women Who Cared: Warriors of the Civil Rights Movement’

She noted the upcoming elections in November. “I’m not telling you how to vote,” she said, “but you have to vote because we have multiple people who lost their fathers trying to make sure we had the right to do so.”

In 2023, Jenkins took her first of four Sojourn’s trips to civil rights sites in the South, where she met these women and visited landmarks where history was made. Through these trips, “we gain a deeper understanding of the courage it took, and continues to take, to change our country for the better,” she said. “These lessons matter.”

On Saturday, Sojourn celebrated these “Warriors of the Civil Rights Movement” with songs, speeches and birthday cakes with photos of the women.

Jenkins pointed toward the historic photos of the women and their families. She told them that she keeps a photograph of the four Dahmer sons dressed in military uniforms, standing over the rubble of what had been their home.

“Vernon Dahmer Sr. spent his life and lost his life over voting rights, over making sure that we could vote,” she said. A part of Medgar Evers’ work “was making sure that Blacks got the right to vote,” she said. “James Chaney and the others lost their lives to give us the right to vote.”

There is no more critical time than now, she said. “Their spirits are calling upon us to act, or else we will see this time again.”

Jenkins said when she walked inside the 16th Street Baptist Church, where the bomb killed four girls and injured dozens of others, “I had no idea how I would feel.”

But after hearing the McNair family speak, “I was overcome with emotion, not just because of their story, but because I, too, had buried my child,” she said. “When you think about losing your baby because of hate, there’s nothing worse.”

What led her to the path of becoming a prosecutor was the loss of her son, she said. “We have to look at these experiences of loss and of grief and of trauma, and use it as our purpose to act. Find the purpose out of our pain.”

When she thinks of Eckford and Trickey, she thinks of her grandmother, who graduated from a segregated high school in Texas and what it meant for her younger siblings to attend an integrated high school, she said. “It was because of your sacrifice that they had that opportunity.”

She praised Webb, who as a teenager faced the dogs and firehoses of Birmingham police to march for justice, only to later become one of the first Black police officers.

“She said, ‘I won’t be turned away by my experience,’” Jenkins said. “I’m going to come into this institution and make it change.”

Sojourn’s founder, Jeff Steinberg, said his nonprofit organization aims to amplify stories that people should know beyond King and Malcolm X — people such as Dahmer, Medgar Evers and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who was repeatedly beaten for his activism in Birmingham and whose home was blown up by Klansmen.

“They live up to America’s ideals,” Steinberg said. “They set the standard of what we all should aspire to be.”

Lewis said if people want the world to change, they need to become part of that change. “It has to start with us,” she said. “We all want to see things change in a major way, but the way things change is in small amounts over time.”

When it comes to voting, “a lot of people think that their vote doesn’t count, but it does count,” Lewis said. “It begins with us being responsible by voting, because we have to make sure that we have a say in how this country is being run.”

Eckford said she tells “young people today to use your voice, ’cause if you don’t use your voice, somebody else is speaking for you.”

Marlena Jenkins is a public high school teacher who loves helping kids ask the right questions. 

Jenkins, 47, knows what happens when kids don’t learn that skill. At 18, Jenkins had a baby after graduating high school in Hattiesburg in 1997 with no sex education. While she counts her daughter as “one of her greatest blessings,” Jenkins said what came next was not. Two months after giving birth, Jenkins was prescribed “the birth control shot” at her local county health department. Over the next two decades, she developed diabetes and struggled to lose the 60 pounds she gained during her four-year stint on the contraceptive. 

With her first shot, Jenkins joined thousands of Mississippi women on Medicaid who receive the injectable contraception, typically administered as one shot four times a year. In 2025, Mississippi Medicaid recipients received more than 19,000 prescriptions for the drug known as depot medroxyprogesterone acetate or by its brand name “Depo-Provera,” across both generic and brand name versions. In that same year, the state accrued the highest prescription rate per Medicaid recipient in the U.S., the fourth year in a row Mississippi led the nation. 

Experts say that too often, providers don’t give Medicaid patients extensive options or engage in discussion to reach informed consent. Many times, it comes down to providers making assumptions about what might be best for low-income women, young women and people of color. 

Jenkins said thinking about birth control once every three months appealed to her. But she wishes she had been given more information. If she had, Jenkins said she might not have taken the shot. And she might not have needed gastric sleeve surgery in 2019. 

Now, Jenkins partners with Converge, a Jackson-based nonprofit program that administers Title X federal family planning funds to 91 clinics statewide. She tables events monthly and shares her experience with other women to ensure Mississippians know what informed consent around contraceptive care looks like. 

“If you’re new (to something), you don’t know what to ask,” Jenkins said. 

Brain tumors?

Some people who have taken this contraceptive say they experienced side effects more adverse than weight gain. 

Two studies published in 2024 and 2025 found that prolonged use of the shot is associated with a higher relative risk of meningiomas, a brain tumor that is not usually cancerous but can still have harmful side effects. A 2024 case-control study from France of more than 108,000 women found increased risk with more than a year of use, and a 2025 retrospective study of more than 10 million U.S. women on birth control found that the risk increased after more than four years of use.

Over 6,400 plaintiffs across the country have since filed lawsuits against the manufacturers of Depo-Provera.

One plaintiff is Ecclesiastes Patton, a 37-year-old Clinton resident who filed a lawsuit on behalf of his mother. 

For years, Victoria Patton suffered migraines. But it wasn’t until she turned 50 that she learned she had a meningioma. According to her son, by that time, the tumor had swelled to “the size of a grapefruit.” Within two weeks of being admitted to a hospital in Jackson, she couldn’t hold a glass or form sentences, he added. Doctors successfully removed the tumor, but the surgery left the elder Patton with sepsis, a life-threatening condition where the body overreacts to an infection. She was placed in a medically-induced coma for 10 days.

She recovered enough to leave the hospital, but two years later, in 2022, she died of heart complications. Her meningioma and death were due partly to the Depo-Provera shots she had taken for 25 years, the lawsuit alleges. She was 51.

“I had a lot of anger around that time,” recalled Patton, adding that many of his questions about the cause of her death remain unanswered. Since he was a child, Patton said his mother suffered migraines, and he doesn’t know why doctors didn’t take them more seriously. 

Cassandra Welchlin, executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, a nonprofit program that fights for economic justice, voting rights and reproductive health, was not surprised to hear that doctors took so long to diagnose the elder Patton. 

Along with her collaborators, Welchlin’s organization interviewed 34 Black women around the state about their experiences with contraception and the medical system. Welchlin said she couldn’t comment on the specifics of Patton’s case, but that stories of Black women being dismissed in doctor’s offices are common. 

“We always hear that they are not believed, that the pain is ignored,” she said. 

Welchlin thinks providers should have paused on dispensing the drug after scientists linked it to meningiomas, so that more information could be made available. “When they saw the risk, they should have discontinued it,
because now people are hurt by it,” she said. 

Dr. Jennifer Karlin, associate professor of family and community medicine at University of California, San Francisco and clinical director of a provider-focused reproductive healthcare hotline, emphasized that while there is a risk of meningiomas from the shot, the overall risk is still small, adding that all contraceptives have pros and cons.

“The absolute risk of it is so low, and yet, there’s an absolute risk,” said Karlin, adding that individuals need to weigh their own tolerance for that risk against the risk of pregnancy. “Part of it is telling people about these different risks.” 

Karlin also shared a draft of an upcoming article from the hotline that cited more recent, smaller studies suggesting that stopping use may reverse or stabilize meningiomas.

Patton’s lawsuit, and the thousands of others, have been consolidated into multi-district litigation, a type of lawsuit that resembles a class action but that keeps individual lawsuits distinct. In June 2026, Pfizer agreed to a settlement with about 80% of plaintiffs. The other 20% are continuing to pursue litigation to trial.

In an emailed statement Thursday, a Pfizer spokesperson told Mississippi Today that the settlement agreement “includes no admission of liability or wrongdoing and has no effect on cases pending in state courts.”

In late December, the Food and Drug Administration approved the addition of a safety warning to Pfizer’s label for Depo-Provera. “Cases of meningiomas have been reported following repeated administration of medroxyprogesterone acetate, primarily with long-term use,” the warning reads. 

The Pfizer spokesperson told Mississippi Today that “Pfizer stands behind the safety and efficacy of Depo-Provera, which has been used by millions of women worldwide and remains an important treatment option for women seeking to manage their reproductive health.”

Questions emerge about provider bias

The FDA first approved Depo-Provera in 1992. The now-defunct Upjohn Company manufactured the medication until Pfizer acquired its then-parent company in 2003. A year later, the first generic version of the medication became available. Generics now account for the overwhelming majority of Medicaid prescriptions. (The multi-district litigation only applies to brand-name Depo-Provera and “authorized generics” by a handful of manufacturers that repackage the Pfizer formulation). 

The history of the injectable contraceptive known as “the shot” has dark beginnings. Decades before Depo-Provera was approved by the FDA, the largest study of its use was conducted in the 1960s and 1970s at the Grady Memorial Hospital Family Planning Clinic in Atlanta. According to “Contraceptive Risk,” a book by political scientist and historian William Green, more than 11,400 women were administered the drug. Most were Black and on Medicaid. Later, an FDA audit would conclude that these women had signed consent forms without knowing the drug was not yet FDA approved. 

In 1987, a congressional hearing examined the drug’s use by the Indian Health Service, which had administered it to more than 150 Native American women, even though the FDA had declined to approve the drug in 1978 for contraceptive use, due to early concerns of breast tumors from animal studies.

Millions of women have taken the drug at least once in their lifetime, many of them through Medicaid. Among contraceptive users, Depo-Provera and its generic are more popular among Medicaid recipients than those with private insurance, according to a KFF analysis of nationwide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. A Center for Mississippi Health Policy analysis of 2016 data from more than 26,900 reproductive-age Mississippi women found that 58% of Medicaid users used an injectable contraceptive compared to 45% of privately-insured women.

Across the country, Black sexually-experienced women are more than twice as likely as white sexually-experienced women to have ever been prescribed an injectable contraceptive, according to the CDC. It was also three times more common in women without a high school diploma than those who had a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the same report.

Women aren’t necessarily taking Depo-Provera because they prefer it to other forms of contraception, said Danielle Lampton, co-founder and co-executive director of Converge, the Jackson-based nonprofit program that administers Title X federal family planning funds to 91 clinics statewide. 

Contraceptive use is greatly influenced by provider bias, Lampton continued. For example, providers might make assumptions that the convenience of not having to take a pill every day will outweigh potential side effects for patients. Most of the time, she said, providers have good intentions. 

“Bias often is not located in a nefarious plot to harm someone,” Lampton said. “It’s often located in believing that you know what’s best for them.”

Mississippi is not the only state where exam rooms hold little discussion or women are dismissed. Studies show that across the U.S., asymmetrical power dynamics between providers and patients are starker when it comes to patients who are young, low-income and people of color. 

Years of stagnant research has left many people feeling disillusioned about their available birth control options, said Mary Ziegler, a professor and reproductive health expert at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. 

Among sexually active women not using contraception, 1 in 5 don’t use birth control because they dislike or worry about the side effects, according to a 2024 KFF analysis. Improving birth control methods demands deeper investment in research, said Ziegler, but that’s unlikely to happen if the issue remains politically polarized. 

Conservatives often discourage research on birth control because they fear contraceptives verge on being abortion-causing substances, Ziegler said. But progressives worry that saying anything negative about the existing options paves the way to restrict abortion and contraception. 

“What’s looming over everything involving reproductive health is the abortion debate, and it kind of twists everything else,” Ziegler said. 

‘…then she ended up pregnant’

In September, Sen. Kamesha Mumford, a Democrat from Jackson, got a call from one of her constituents. The woman she spoke to, Mumford said, had received a letter in the mail about the multi-district litigation for Depo-Provera and didn’t know what to do. 

That was the first time Mumford heard about the issue, and she said it has reignited concerns for her about health disparities for vulnerable women in rural areas. Mumford said her constituent turned to Depo-Provera because it meant skipping a monthly trip to the pharmacy.

“She talked to me about a family member of hers who tried to go the pill route, and things would come up, she couldn’t get a ride, she ended up missing a week here or there, and then she ended up pregnant,” Mumford said. 

Mumford has advocated for women’s healthcare and the right to contraception throughout her first year in the Mississippi Legislature. She said she intends to introduce legislation next session that expands access to healthcare through telehealth and transportation. Mumford said she hopes that will allow more women to choose the option best for them – and not just the only one they can access. 

Dr. Jennifer Karlin, the UCSF professor, said resource limitations might obstruct providers from counseling patients adequately. 

“Providers aren’t being malicious. They don’t care whether someone’s on depo or not,” said Karlin. “They just want to have the time to be able to counsel people so people can be on things that work for them.” 

Karlin encouraged providers to reach out to the reproductive health hotline that she is clinical director of, ReproHH, which is available to providers all around the country. “We will help you,” she said. “There are specialists sitting online right now ready to answer your questions.”

Cassandra Welchlin, the executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, agreed that better provider training is integral to addressing inequities in contraceptive access. 

In 2026, Welchlin’s team conducted several two-hour cultural sensitivity training sessions with 52 healthcare providers across Jackson, Biloxi, Mound Bayou and Laurel. They also gave those providers guides on how to use language as a tool for equity, dignity and quality care. The guide advises providers to swap phrases such as “resistant to care” for “patient expressed concerns or requested more information.”

That additional training is necessary, Welchlin said, because racism has been baked into the healthcare system. It has caused providers to make assumptions about who should give birth – and when. 

“Mississippi should not regulate when and how a woman should or should not have a baby,” Welchlin said. 

The New York Times’ Susan Beachy and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Methodology: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) State Drug Utilization Data was used to calculate the number of prescriptions for medroxyprogesterone acetate (brand name “Depo-Provera”) for each state and year. Medicaid data does not distinguish between prescriptions that were made to the same user and different users. So, the number of prescriptions is likely several times higher than the number of unique users, as the contraceptive is typically taken once every three months. Both brand-name and generic versions were included, as the vast majority of Medicaid prescriptions (more than 95% in 2025) use the generic version. Prescriptions for oral tablets/pills and high-dose formulations (400 mg/mL), typically used for palliative cancer care, were excluded. Subcutaneous (“SubQ”) formulations, which can be dispensed at a pharmacy and self-administered, make up less than 1% of Medicaid prescriptions and were excluded, though Mississippi’s ranking did not change with inclusion. CMS Medicaid & CHIP enrollment data was used to calculate the number of Medicaid enrollees for each state and year, obtained via KFF. Data analyses were restricted to 2018 onward as data from 2017 is unreliable due to state and federal Medicaid changes. (While Census data includes the number of self-reported Medicaid recipients, this tends to be an undercount.) State Drug Utilization Data is not broken down by age or sex, so all Medicaid enrollees, regardless of age or sex, were used to calculate the prescription rate among Medicaid enrollees.

House Speaker Jason White – or at least the poll he commissioned – does not seem to be embracing what has become known as the “Mississippi miracle” that references the state’s dramatic gains on some national education tests.

While Mississippi still has numerous hills to climb in terms of improving its education system, there is no doubt the state has made impressive strides.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and others often tout those improvements.

The governor has gone across the country touting the state’s education gains, appearing on multiple national news shows. In January 2025, Reeves said in a statement, “This is another massively historic win for education in Mississippi. Mississippi fourth graders aren’t just one of the best in reading and math gains — they’re the best in the nation.”

Did Speaker White and his Republican-leaning Cygnal pollsters not get the memo?

White, perhaps the most forceful elected official pushing to spend public money on private schools, commissioned a recent poll that seemed to dismiss those education gains. By a slim 41.1% to 39.2% margin, with 19.6% having no response, poll participants supported some form of school choice or vouchers.

Apparently not satisfied with that narrow result, the pollster asked a follow-up question: “Supporters point to other states with existing school choice programs, where student test scores have improved in both public and private schools as a result of increased options and competition. Knowing this, do you support or oppose creating a school choice program in Mississippi like the one described in the last question?”

Response to that question was 50.1% to 27.1% in favor of vouchers, with 22.8% having no opinion or not being sure.

The question might influence poll results

The question completely ignored the “Mississippi miracle” that many state education experts say is more aptly described as the “Mississippi marathon,” referring to the decades-long effort to improve the public schools.

Critics of modern polling often say the wording of the question can have a dramatic influence on the outcome of a poll.

What if the question posed by the Republican polling company for White was “in light of the fact that Mississippi has received national praise for its test score improvements that has been described by many as miraculous, should a change be made to take money away from public schools and direct it to private schools?”

What would have been the answer to that very accurate question?

Studies cite negative voucher test results

Research can be found both touting the success of vouchers in terms of student improvement and lamenting the decline in test scores in states with voucher programs. 

But multiple peer-reviewed studies indicate that vouchers harm student achievement.

Research compiled by The Parents’ Campaign, a Mississippi group that supports public education and opposes vouchers, cites multiple studies revealing numerous voucher states have struggled in recent years on test scores.

Based on the analysis of test scores in multiple states, The Parents’ Campaign concluded, “voucher students experience significant losses in achievement.”

The anti-voucher National Coalition of Public Education produced a study saying “vouchers harm student achievement as much as natural disasters.” The study cited test scores declines in multiple places with vouchers, including Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio and the District of Columbia, saying they were comparable to regressions after disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the COVID-19 pandemic.

As stated, studies can be found arguing the opposite. An EdChoice study, for instance, argues that voucher students are much more likely to pursue a college education.

But the fact remains that Mississippi has been cited for making dramatic gains on standardized tests when compared to other states, thanks to efforts in the public schools. That is happening now, even as White tries to divert money from public to private schools.

White’s poll failed to mention that.

The question is: Was that failure intentional?

Jackson’s water and sewer systems would remain outside city officials’ control under a proposal by a federally appointed manager that would establish an independent, customer-governed authority to oversee the troubled utilities.

The 36-page transition plan JXN Water released Thursday blamed Jackson leaders for “decades of failure and the ultimate collapse of the water system.”

The manager, Ted Henifin, was especially blunt: “At bottom, there is no case to be made to return governance to the City in the foreseeable future.”

Henifin’s proposal would create a separate governing entity from the Metro Jackson Water Authority state lawmakers established earlier this year. A federal judge has partially blocked the state-created authority amid a legal challenge from Jackson officials over who should control the utilities once federal oversight ends.

During his State of the City address earlier this week, Jackson Mayor John Horhn acknowledged the ongoing strife.

“Our relationship with JXN Water has been tested. We are now having serious conversations about what comes next when the current arrangement ends,” he said.

“Let me be clear: Jackson owns these water assets. Jackson carries the debt. And the people of Jackson have a legitimate interest in the future of their water system.”

Henifin, who is expected to step down by July 2028, would be replaced by a court-appointed chief executive to lead the new authority – which could be in place as soon as next year.

The proposed authority, which would need court approval, would assume responsibility for the utilities while remaining under federal oversight. That oversight could end by December 2029.

In 2022, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate placed Jackson’s struggling water system under Henifin’s control following a crisis that left much of the city without reliable running water. The following year, he placed Jackson’s sewer system under Henifin’s control, also.

Under Henifin’s plan, a federal judge would appoint the initial members of the authority’s governing board, with future members elected by ratepayers.

While Henifin considered privatizing the water and sewer systems, he concluded that doing so could prioritize profits over much-needed long-term investments.

Earlier this year, Henifin floated the idea of selling the city’s water and sewer system to an independent authority. The proceeds, he said, could help the city retire roughly $121 million in utility debt, potentially reducing the need for future rate increases.

The idea drew opposition from City Council members, some of whom argued that Jackson should not be forced to surrender ownership of its infrastructure.

Henifin’s transition plan outlines several possible scenarios for governing Jackson’s water and sewer systems.

His recommendation to establish an independent authority, he said in the report, would make it easier to get financing for infrastructure improvements and protect the system from political influence.

That influence is a key reason for his rejection of the legislative remedy adopted earlier this year. The Metro Jackson Water Authority would have board members appointed by  the governor, lieutenant governor and the mayors of Byram, Ridgeland and Jackson. Jackson’s mayor would also serve as a non-voting ex-officio member.

Dr. Richard E. Holmes, the first Black student to enroll at Mississippi State University, died Friday. He was 82. 

Holmes enrolled at the previously segregated university in Starkville on July 19, 1965, three years after James Meredith integrated the University of Mississippi amid violent opposition. 

MSU president Mark Keenum remembered Holmes as a man of courage, vision and patience who left a lasting impact on the university. 

“Dr. Holmes cast a long, productive and impactful shadow over this institution, a shadow that also leaned forward,” Keenum said in a statement. “I will miss his company and his counsel.” 

Holmes, a Starkville native, earned a liberal arts degree from MSU in 1969 and a master’s degree in microbiology in 1973. He earned his medical degree from Michigan State University in 1977 and later worked as an emergency room physician in Birmingham, Alabama. 

Holmes returned to Mississippi and joined MSU’s Longest Student Health Center in 2003, where he served as a staff physician. 

The university named its cultural diversity center in his honor in 1991 and recognized him in 2006 as its first Black National Alumnus of the Year. Holmes and his wife, Judie, also established an endowed scholarship supporting minority students. 

Most recently, on Aug. 21, MSU dedicated the Dr. Richard E. Holmes Plaza in recognition of his contributions to the university. 

For generations of Black alumni, Holmes’ legacy extended beyond the university honors he received. 

Edward Sanders, co-founder of Mississippi State University Black Alumni Weekend, recalled bringing Holmes and Meredith together during the event’s inaugural gala in 2016. Hearing the two men reflect on their experiences integrating Mississippi’s universities left a lasting impression, he said.  

“Both were full of wisdom and advice and it was one of the few times we got to see them interact together,” Sanders, a 2006 MSU graduate, said. “His passing will leave a huge void, but there are others from his time and era at Mississippi State that will continue to hold a torch.” 

Judy Alsobrooks Meredith, James Meredith’s wife and herself a 2007 MSU graduate, said Holmes’ courage opened doors for generations of Black students. 

“He did it,” Alsobrooks Meredith said. “And it allowed me to do it. For that, I’m grateful for him and his legacy.” 

Camille Scales Young, who became the MSU National Alumni Association’s first Black president in 2012, said Holmes’ legacy also inspired her own leadership. 

Alumni named a tailgating tent “Marvelously Maroon 1965” to commemorate Holmes’ historic enrollment. When she told Holmes about the tribute, Young recalled, he was honored and pleased. 

“All graduates have a responsibility of carrying on his legacy and dedication to the school he loved so much,” Scales Young said. 

Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, raised almost twice as much money as his Republican opponent over the last three months, according to federal campaign finance reports.

But Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith still far outpaces him in cash on hand. Federal Election Commission reports show that Colom raised $1.3 million and has $991,802 in cash on hand. Hyde-Smith raised $642,988 last reporting cycle and has $2.4 million on hand.

READ MORE: Mississippi midterms: Colom trying to capitalize on economic discontent. Hyde-Smith trying to tie him to far left

“We are on track to win because Mississippians are paying attention, and they’re tired of a senator who works for the special interests instead of them,” Colom said in a news release. 

As national Democratic figures, including Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, visit Mississippi to campaign with Colom, the Democratic nominee hopes the national attention will energize support in the Nov. 3 election and flip Mississippi’s Senate seat, long thought to be a safe Republican seat. 

Hyde-Smith has used the influx of out-of-state Democrats to tie Colom to the national Democratic Party to label him as out-of-touch with Mississippi’s conservative voters. 

Nathan Calvert, Hyde-Smith’s communications director, said in a statement that the Hyde-Smith campaign is not surprised “DC extremists are pouring money into Scott Colom’s campaign.”

“We planned for Colom to have plenty of resources,” Calvert said. “We are executing our own campaign plan with that in mind. We have a strong grassroots network statewide, and we believe we will once again win a majority of votes on November 3.”

Colom and Hyde-Smith are competing in the general election on Nov. 3. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins is also on the ballot. He reported raising $6,269 last cycle with $4,862 in cash on hand.

Here are the latest campaign finance reports from Mississippi’s congressional candidates:

U.S. Senate

• Scott Colom, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $1,315,816
  • Cash on hand: $991,802
• Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $642,988
  • Cash on hand: $2,425,284 
• Ty Pinkins, independent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $7,812
  • Cash on hand:  $5,351

U.S. House of Representatives – District 1

• Cliff Johnson, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $257,244
  • Cash on hand: $185,568 
• Trent Kelly, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $255,670
  • Cash on hand: $1,009,305

U.S. House of Representatives – District 2

• Ron Eller, Republican
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $16,847
  • Cash on hand: $37,761
• Bennie G. Thompson, Democratic incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $155,910
  • Cash on hand:  $1,358,478

U.S. House of Representatives – District 3

• Michael A. Chiaradio, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $40,101
  • Cash on hand: $32,435
• Michael Guest, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $192,995
  • Cash on hand: $1,051,609

U.S. House of Representatives – District 4:

• Mike Ezell, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $102,547
  • Cash on hand: $165,686
• Jeffrey Hulum III, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $25,020 
  • Cash on hand: $10,553