Mississippi Today profiled both Jackson mayoral candidates competing in the April 22 Democratic primary runoff. Read the profile of state Senator John Horhn here.

A brief encounter with Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba left the festivalgoers at Urban Foxes so stunned, as if they had just experienced the coolest thing in the world. 

“What has happened?” said Zac Clark, whose band had just finished playing a set at the coffee shop’s annual CouchFest.

“My day is great, my day is made,” his friend responded.  

“Word,” Clark said.

Lumumba was at the Belhaven Heights coffee shop on Saturday as part of a busy day campaigning for reelection, but after meeting Clark, the two-term mayor paused to share what he called his “origin story.” 

“So my wife and I have known each other since kindergarten, right,” Lumumba began. “We lived in the same townhouse community and walked to school together. I’ve always had a crush on my wife.” 

But there was competition. 

“When we were five, there was a little boy who was a drumming prodigy … and all the little girls loved (him), so I asked my parents to get me a drum for Christmas,” he said. “They did. I never learned how to play, so I been trying to learn how to play the drums my whole life.” 

“I had to share that,” Lumumba added. “One day I’m going to learn.” 

Just as the two-term mayor has yet to learn the drums, Lumumba is still working to achieve the goals he set out to accomplish when he was first elected in 2017 on a wave of grassroots support — most notably, creating what he has termed a “dignity economy” in the beleaguered city of Jackson.

He says he’s had success. But he’s faced many challenges, too. 

For one, Lumumba has repeatedly said that Jackson has more obstacles than other cities when it comes to basic government functions like data collection or blight elimination. And that’s not to mention the numerous crises he’s faced: The COVID-19 pandemic, multiple water system failures, a years-long contract dispute leading to garbage pickup interruptions, and now, federal corruption allegations in an FBI sting involving campaign checks and a favor for a prospective developer.

It may be one too many mishaps for Jacksonians to justify giving Lumumba, 42, another chance. Earlier this month, Sen. John Horhn, 70, all but trounced him in the Democratic primary. The incumbent took home just 17% of the vote and lost support in every single one of the city’s precincts compared to eight years ago.  

But the race isn’t over yet, and Lumumba and his supporters have been out in the city, touting the accomplishments he says Jacksonians don’t know about. 

Will it be enough? Clark’s bandmate, drummer Katie “Fort” Fortenberry, said defending the mayor is complicated. 

“I feel that a lot of the stuff that happened while he was in office, what I saw of him was I saw someone who had a lot of integrity, almost so much integrity that it sometimes created issues with things actually working in our favor, if that makes sense?” she said. “Like with the city council, he wasn’t just going along with whatever everyone else wanted to do. … I would rather be like, yeah, we’ve got issues but it’s because we’re doing things the right way.” 

It’s hard because she doesn’t trust “those people” — conservative politicians in Mississippi — and believes that when things are seamless in government, it’s often because “it’s all a show.” But sometimes, that’s what is needed. 

“Because, practically, people do need things to just kind of work sometimes.”  

Lumumba completed his first important initiative as mayor in 2018: A strategic plan for the city written with input from residents in the form of focus groups and “people’s assemblies,” periodic community meetings with a history in Jackson dating back to the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in the 1990s.

The plan had five pillars: healthy citizens, affordable homes in safe neighborhoods, a thriving educational system, occupational opportunities in a growing tax base, and a city that is open and welcoming to visitors.

Some goals were more specific than others. The plan called for more public art in the city. It also specified the elimination of 25% of the city’s blight by 2021. 

“We’ve been in reactive mode,” Lumumba said when he announced the plan. “We’ve been in often crisis management mode. And so we’re trying to look at how we move to not only creating a more stable plane but how we look at optimization.” 

Since then, Lumumba said the plan has functioned as a “guiding star” for his administration. But it’s been tricky to measure progress. 

That’s partly because the city is not as data-driven as Lumumba said he would like it to be. The mayor said he can point to examples of events the city has put on that support the goal of being welcoming and open to visitors — such as free concerts the city used to hold before the pandemic — but that’s not the same thing as being able to measure outcomes.

“While you may be doing good work,” he said, “the question is how does it contribute to the whole, and how much are you shaving off from the overall challenges?”

Plus, some information hasn’t been collected over the last 30 to 40 years, Lumumba said. But he added that he’s taken steps to fix that. Under his tenure, the city created a rental registry of landlords that Lumumba said is used for code enforcement. He’s also hired the city’s first-ever data analyst who primarily works with the Jackson Police Department. Lumumba hopes the analyst will examine homelessness in the city, including the primary cause in Jackson. 

In another example, Lumumba has touted in campaign materials that his administration has paved more miles of roads than any others. While he didn’t have the numbers on hand, Lumumba said his administration has paved 144 roads and “spent well beyond what other administrations have had available to them.”  

Despite these gains, Jackson has remained in reactive mode under Lumumba’s administration. Some of the crises he’s faced have resulted in gains for the city, such as $800 million in federal funding to help fix the water system — but they’re not exactly what Lumumba set out to achieve when he was first elected. 

As far as whether the city has met its blight elimination goal, Lumumba was candid that hasn’t happened, mainly due to what he called “limitations” with the state’s blight elimination program, especially when it comes to the cost of clearing titles. 

“The narrative that my opponent has tried to share is that the city has left money on the table,” Lumumba said. “First of all, that money was for statewide, and it was inefficient and ineffective statewide, because the program while it gave money for the demolition of the property and the upkeep, it didn’t give as much money for the administrative costs and those are some of the most expensive.” 

The city’s current planning department has taken steps to better understand the current scope of the problem, Lumumba said, but it’s still a moving target. 

After introducing a band and looking at local art booths, Lumumba left Urban Foxes to meet up with his campaign staff and volunteers at a gas station on Medgar Evers Boulevard. It was time for a canvassing event in Presidential Hills, a neighborhood in Ward 2 that Lumumba lost to Horhn this primary despite historically drawing support there. 

A red truck carrying a campaign sign rolled through the neighborhood with a recorded message for voters. 

“Jackson, don’t be fooled,” a woman said on a loudspeaker. “Don’t let the state take our city. The Republicans are using John Horhn to take our city. They are fighting to take our airport, our water system, Smith-Willis stadium, our zoo, and our schools. If you want to keep your city our city, Jackson, vote for Chokwe Antar Lumumba for mayor.” 

Since the primary, Lumumba and his supporters — including former mayoral candidates David Archie and James Hopkins who are now endorsing him — have accused the Horhn campaign of being driven by hidden interests.

The challenge was to deliver that message in a neighborhood where many people support Horhn. Initially, there was some confusion over whether to knock on doors at homes that had a Horhn sign out front. One volunteer told Lumumba not to. 

“That’s not a strategy,” he responded. 

As he walked along John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Lumumba passed out a card with information about his accomplishments and aspirations for the city, as well as an edition of the Jackson Advocate with an endorsement of Lumumba. His campaign removed a page that contained an advertisement for Horhn. 

When people answered the door, Lumumba wouldn’t say his opponent’s name, but he would make references, such as “I believe you deserve an administration that wants to be held accountable” or “we don’t need our resources taken.” 

Mostly, people were just excited to see Lumumba, as if he was a celebrity. 

“Oh Chokwe!” the guy who answered the door exclaimed. He ran back inside to get his grandma. “Grandma, it’s Chokwe!” 

At a house with a Horhn sign on the property line, Lumumba was vindicated: The woman who answered the door said she was going to vote for him. Nearly every person Lumumba talked to said the same. A man in white socks holding a TV remote told Lumumba, “I’m gonna give you another shot.” 

In one of his last stops, Lumumba, his wife and his daughters met a woman who wanted speed bumps installed on her road. 

“Absolutely, well, you know what, that’s a council decision, however, have y’all gotten through the process of getting a petition?” Lumumba asked her. 

The conversation then shifted to Callaway High School and Murrah High School, who attended which schools, what years they’d graduated, and if they knew the same folks. 

What does it say about the direction Jackson has chosen if Lumumba is not reelected? 

Sitting outside of Soule Coffee shop in Fondren, the mayor said it would mean that Jacksonians think another person is better equipped to handle the city’s future.

“It would also suggest that maybe people are not as familiar with the gains that we’ve made,” he said. “That’s my hope that we can communicate with them just how much work has taken place and how heavy of a lift it’s been, in spite of the odds.” 

Communication – or lack thereof – has been a defining feature of Lumumba’s time as mayor, especially in recent years. And the mayor and his supporters have, at times, been critical of the media coverage his administration has received. 

A dispute between Lumumba and the City Council over the city’s garbage contract, which spanned from 2021 until they finally inked a long-term contract in 2024, is the chief example, he said. Lumumba contended that Richard’s Disposal, a Black-owned company from Louisiana, had the lowest bid, while other city council members said that wasn’t true.

“It was very clear,” he said. “All you had to do was look at the documents and what was being offered. It was very clear. We released the numbers.” 

But the media did not dig as far as it should’ve, Lumumba said. He also didn’t think it was clearly communicated to Jacksonians that the council stopped the trash service, not him. 

“I think the media profited from the so-called ‘trash fight’ and it was more valuable to them to show dissension than to tell the truth,” he said. 

Lumumba lobbed bribery allegations against council members, but when FBI agents eventually started poking around in Jackson, it was Lumumba they accused of corruption. He pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to face trial in 2026.

If Lumumba is not reelected, it won’t be the end of his work, he said. He’ll keep fighting for his ideals through his job as a criminal justice attorney. 

Through his sister’s nonprofit, he said people’s assemblies would continue. 

“There will be a million different ways that I’m going to continue working in community,” he added. 

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