OurTupelo

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

It is with great pride and excitement that Mississippi’s Capital City prepares to host the 82nd Annual National Folk Festival, Nov.  7-9. This is significant in the life of the National Folk Festival because it marks the first time in the history of the event that it has been held in the Deep South.

November also marks the beginning of a three-year residency for Jackson. The event also will be hosted in Jackson in 2026 and 2027.

At the conclusion of the 2027 festival, the Jackson community will have the opportunity to create a legacy that will sustain a vibrant, locally-produced festival celebrating our living heritage, utilizing the infrastructure of the National Folk Festival.   

For years, citizens and visitors alike have inquired, “When is Jubilee JAM! returning?” Well, hosting the National Folk Festival creates an opportunity to birth an annual event with many similarities to that historic and enduring event.

Why does the National Folk Festival matter?

For over 90 years, the National Folk Festival has celebrated the artistry, music, dance, story and crafts that form the living traditions of America. We are honored to bring this storied festival to Jackson. The 2026 festival will play an integral role in the American 250 (Mississippi) Celebration.     

The National Folk Festival is more than a festival. It is a statement. It’s about honoring the roots of America’s music and culture, from the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf Coast, from African-American traditions to Native American crafts and beyond.

Everybody knows that Mississippi is the Birthplace of America’s Music. Also, it is about a place known as “The City with Soul” stepping into the national spotlight and celebrating what makes us unique. It’s about doing so together. We at Visit Jackson call it “collective ambition.”

What Is folk?

Folk is a cultural tradition from all across America.  It’s Bobby Rush, bluegrass, steel guitars, gospel and Jackson State University’s Sonic Boom of the South marching band. It is western dance, South African qawwali, the Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago and E.U. and their hit from my college days, “Da Butt.” It is basketmaking and multiple other activities. 

Over three days, downtown Jackson will be transformed. More than 300 artists, musicians, dancers and storytellers will grace multiple stages, with continuous performances, craft demonstrations, food representing regional and international traditions, a bustling marketplace of folklife and family-friendly programming.

From blues and bluegrass to hip-hop and Irish fiddle, from Choctaw social dancing to South Asian qawwali, there is something for everyone. 

The event reinforces the commitment to accessibility, sustainability, community and cultural celebration.

Hosting the National Folk Festival isn’t only about the arts. It’s about the broader impact on our city and state. Over the three-year run, the festival is projected to generate significant economic benefit and elevate Jackson’s standing as a cultural destination.

It will bring tens of thousands of visitors, fill our hotels, restaurants and shops, and spotlight our region’s talents on a national stage.

Jackson is uniquely positioned to host the event.

Mississippi is rightly known as the birthplace of so much of America’s music: blues, gospel, soul, marching bands and traditions that shaped the world. Jackson is located at the heart of that legacy, and we are perfectly positioned to host a festival of this magnitude.

The city of Jackson, Visit Jackson, the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership, the Mississippi Arts Commission, Visit Mississippi, the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, Hinds County Economic Development Authority, the Community Foundation for Mississippi and many others have come together to make this possible.

Far too many times I have heard metro Jacksonians say that there is nothing to do here. And while that is far from the truth, I encourage our residents, families, friends and visitors to attend this historic event. Bring your children, grandparents and friends.

Walk the streets of downtown Jackson, enjoy the music, sample the food, browse the crafts and celebrate the diversity of tradition that binds us together. Volunteer opportunities are available, vendor applications are open, and the festival is a platform for our local artists and makers to shine. 

Will the festival be safe?

The festival is produced by a respected national organization, the National Council for the Traditional Arts, in partnership with the city and local agencies, which suggests there will be professional event planning, crowd management, security coordination and infrastructure.

In fact, local and state law enforcement agencies have been a part of the planning process since the event selected Jackson.

The location and staging have been intentionally strategic. Multiple stages and programs have been planned in an open public space, utilizing proven event safety best practices.

We encourage attendees to review the event map before arrival so that they can more easily locate venues, vendors and stages. Also, know where you will park. The event organizers have this type of information and much more on the website, www.nationalfolkfestival.com.

Thank you for being part of this journey. I look forward to seeing you downtown in Jackson, Nov. 7-9, tapping your toes, dancing, exploring and celebrating –  together.

In short, enjoy the National Folk Festival in Jackson, Mississippi – MY CITY – THE CITY WITH SOUL.

Rickey L. Thigpen serves  as chief executive officer of Visit Jackson, the official destination organization for Jackson.. He assumed the role in February 2019 after rising through the ranks of the organization since his arrival in 1987. A native of Jackson, Thigpen holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Mississippi  Valley State University, a master’s in leadership from Belhaven University and a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from The  Chicago  School of  Professional  Psychology.

Mississippi’s children, older adults and low-income families will suffer when federal food assistance halts tomorrow if the state does not step in, pediatricians and legislators urged in letters to the governor this week. 

New benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will not be issued beginning Nov. 1 due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, the Mississippi Department of Human Services announced Oct. 24. Food assistance has continued to flow in past shutdowns, but the federal government has said it cannot use emergency funds to pay for the program. 

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has not indicated that he will move for Mississippi to bridge the gap in the food assistance program. Democratic and Republican governors in a handful of other states, including Louisiana, have pledged to use state funds to cover all or part of the program.

There will be long-term consequences for children if Reeves and state legislators do not take similar steps to fund the benefits, leaders of the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote in a Tuesday letter. 

“The cost of inaction will be far greater than the cost of temporary assistance,” said the letter penned by President Dr. Patricia Tibbs and Vice President Dr. David Reeves. 

“Families already struggling to make ends meet will be forced to choose between food, utilities, and medicine. Hospitals and clinics will inevitably bear the burden of increased malnutrition and preventable illness. Our children, the future of this state, will suffer the most.”

Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus Chairman Kabir Karriem, a Democrat from Columbus, encouraged Reeves to declare a state of emergency and call a special session of the Legislature to appropriate funds to cover the shortfall. 

“Ensuring that no Mississippian faces hunger due to gaps in SNAP delivery is a critical public health and humanitarian priority,” he wrote in a letter Tuesday. 

Reeves did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today.

In a social media post Monday, he blamed Democrats for the government shutdown’s ramifications and said the state cannot cover the halted funds. 

“Democrats in Washington are evidently more interested in providing free healthcare to illegals than a safety net for poor Mississippians,” he wrote. 

“They evidently hate Trump more than they like their constituents. There is sadly no simple way for state government to just step in and pay the hundreds of millions of dollars in harm that this shutdown by the Washington Democrats is causing.”

The battle over whether or not to extend expiring tax credits that make health insurance more affordable for millions of Americans is at the heart of the government shutdown standoff, with Democrats pushing for their renewal, along with the reversal of cuts to Medicaid. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for the subsidies, nor are they eligible for full Medicaid benefits.  

Reeves announced Friday that he has requested a waiver from the United States Department of Agriculture to ban using SNAP benefits to purchase processed foods high in sugar and allow for the purchase of hot prepared chicken. The benefits can not currently be used to buy foods that are hot at the point of sale. Twelve other states have been approved for similar waivers.

“In a nation that is printing money daily just to make our debt payments, it doesn’t make sense to throw your tax money at anything other than the true necessities,” he said in a statement. “So it makes no sense at all to fund sugar instead of hearty nutritious meals. That’s why we’re amending our food stamp rules to allow good sustaining food like rotisserie chickens and disallow sugary candy and drinks.”

Nearly 400,000 Mississippians — or 13% of the state’s population — receive food assistance through SNAP. Two thirds of participants are in families with children, and about 41% are in households with older adults or adults with a disability. 

Mississippi has one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the nation, with over 1 in 5 children living in poverty and lacking reliable access to food.  

“I’m really worried,” Tibbs told Mississippi Today. She referenced the effects that hunger can have on children’s development, behavior, academic performance and long-term health. 

Some counties rely heavily on SNAP benefits. In four Mississippi counties, over a third of residents rely on the program to purchase food, according to a report from WLBT. 

The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1 as Congress works to strike a deal on the national budget. It is now the second-longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

More than two dozen states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over the halted food assistance benefits, arguing that the decision was illegal and will harm the 42 million Americans who depend on the benefits. 

Federal officials say they are legally prohibited from extending the benefits by using emergency funds.

“No child in our state should go hungry because of political gridlock in Washington,” Tibbs and Reeves, the pediatrics association’s vice president, wrote in the Oct. 28 letter. 

SNAP beneficiaries in Mississippi must meet income and resource limits, and most able-bodied adults must also meet work requirements. 

New work requirements for SNAP are set to begin next month as a result of federal budget legislation President Donald Trump signed into law last summer. The law increases the existing work requirement’s upper age limit from 54 to 65 and extends the requirement to people who were previously exempt: veterans, those facing homelessness, and young people aging out of foster care. There is still a caregiver exemption, but parents must have children younger than 14 — down from 18. 

Even in the best of times, many Mississippi families aren’t able to provide healthy meals for their kids, said Tibbs. A pause to SNAP could be devastating. 

“I just hope that the state sees the crisis that’s looming for our vulnerable citizens and that they do something to extend benefits for as long as we can,” she said. 

“We need to have said in the future that we tried, we tried to do the things we need to do for the children in our state, regardless of what’s happening in Washington, D.C.”

Update: This story has been updated to include comments from Gov. Tate Reeves on changes he has requested for SNAP benefits.

Marquita Brown is joining Mississippi Today as its education editor. Brown, a Mississippi native, will lead a team of three reporters covering K-12 and higher education. Part of the K-12 coverage will be focused on the Mississippi Delta. 

Brown will lead a team that produces contextualized reporting on a range of topics ranging from school funding and postsecondary opportunities to curriculum and mental health in schools. The stories will be anchored in community-centered reporting with an eye toward racial justice and equity. 

She is looking forward to using her expertise to guide and shape coverage of one of the state’s most consequential topics. 

“Jackson is my hometown. As someone born and raised in the city and metro area, I was proud to serve my community years ago as a daily newspaper reporter,” Brown said. “Since then, I’ve relied on Mississippi Today for in-depth journalism that holds state and local officials accountable and uncovers issues important to Mississippians’ everyday lives. It’s an honor to join that team and serve my hometown and state again as a journalist.”

As a former education reporter and a graduate of Murrah High School and the University of Mississippi, Brown is intimately familiar with the successes and challenges of the state’s education system. She also has a keen awareness of how those issues fit into a national context. 

She has worked with national education groups such as the Education Writers Association and, most recently, on a contract with the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. She also spent more than a decade as a reporter at newspapers in Mississippi, Virginia and North Carolina and received her master’s degree in interactive media from Elon University.

“I was impressed by Marquita years ago when she was an early-career reporter at The Clarion-Ledger, and I’m even more impressed with the leadership she has shown as her career developed,” said Emily Wagster Pettus, editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today. “She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her new role at Mississippi Today, and we’re happy to have her as part of the team.” 

With tariffs, trade wars and high production costs, Mississippi’s farmers have had a volatile year. 

Wednesday’s state Senate Agriculture Committee hearing focused almost exclusively on soybeans and cattle, two of the state’s top agricultural products. 

Soybeans are the state’s number-one crop, benefitting from easy access to the Mississippi River and New Orleans port. China is the world’s largest soybean importer and historically buys about half of all U.S. soybeans. However, since 2016 and the Trump administration’s first trade war, China has strategically shifted to buying more Brazilian soybeans. 

“It’s a real dilemma for us  in Mississippi and the Delta trying to decide where we go from here with our soybean crop,” said Duane Dunlap, president of DNS Commodities, to the committee. 

China did not buy any soybeans from the U.S. this year until Wednesday. On Thursday, after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump posted on social media that China would begin buying “massive amounts” of U.S. soybeans.

But Dunlap thinks there’s also a market opportunity within Mississippi for soybeans.

Mississippi’s chickens, hogs and catfish all eat soybean meal but there are currently no soybean processing facilities in the state. So soybean meal is imported from other states. Dunlap pointed out that Mississippi is the largest soybean-producing state without a processor. He suggested that there’s an opportunity here to build a plant that could supply Mississippi farmers.

Beef prices are at record highs, driven by high demand and historically small herds. Trump has said that the U.S. could buy more beef from Argentina to bring prices down. This has led to push back and concern from U.S. cattle farmers. 

 ”Producers are just now starting to feel like they’re in recovery,” said Ethan Lane, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. 

Have you been impacted by the tariffs? Email me at  marketplace@mississippitoday.org

Gov. Reeves seeks to strengthen Coast’s defense industry

Last week, Gov. Tate Reeves announced the formation of Mission 3, a nonprofit with a goal of strengthening the defense industry along the Gulf Coast. 

“Mission 3 is our region’s answer to a changing defense economy,” said Jamie Miller, President and CEO of the Gulf Coast Business Council.

In Fiscal Year 2023, federal defense spending made up 6% of Mississippi’s GDP. In 2021, the state established the Governor’s Office of Military Affairs to coordinate groups across the state. 

Other news: Madison development, economic officer for Jackson, Cadence Bank sold

• The Madison Board of Aldermen approved plans for a $60 million mixed-use development. Developers announced the project in April of this year and expect it to be completed by Fall 2026. The development will include dining, retail and office space, as well as a 120,000-square-foot entertainment center
• In his first State of the City address, Jackson Mayor John Horn announced that Mississippi’s economic development agency would assign a dedicated project officer to the city. This follows the formation in the Legislature of a Senate committee to study how to boost the capital city’s economy.
• The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality approved a higher air emissions permit for U.K.-based wood pellet company Drax. The Amite County plant has been fined by MDEQ for multiple violations. Mississippi gave Drax $2.8 million in grants to attract the company to the state. 
• Tupelo- and Texas-based Cadence Bank will be bought by an Ohio company, Huntington Bancshares, for $7.4 billion. The purchase will make Huntington the state’s top bank by deposits. Cadence was founded in Verona in 1876.

Mississippi’s top politicians told hundreds of business leaders Thursday that economic development and the state’s economy are booming, but some also warned about looming meltdowns for agriculture and the state’s insurance market.

The business leaders mingled and heard politicians speak at the Mississippi Economic Council’s annual Hobnob event. MEC is preparing to merge with two other organizations in 2026 to form the Mississippi Business Alliance.

Scott Waller, president and CEO of the Economic Council, called the merger “an unprecedented step forward” that will propel the state’s business community and economy.

“Business drives the future for our state,” said John McKay, president and CEO of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association. He will lead the new organization.

The Alliance will be the state’s new chamber of commerce. It will bring together MEC, the Mississippi Manufacturers Association and the Business and Industry Political Education Committee. 

Gov. Tate Reeves said the new group will help build “a bigger, stronger Mississippi in the years to come.”

The state’s top politicians, all Republicans, on Thursday spoke about wide range of topics during the casual gathering at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson.

Reeves said the state now has “the strongest economy” in its history.

“No state, and I mean no state, is hotter than Mississippi,” he said.

But others leaders offered warnings of major challenges or problems.

Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson said Mississippi is in the midst of an “agriculture crisis,” from high input costs for farmers and global trade wars that have sapped overseas sales of commodities.

But he said solutions are in the works, including a soybean trade deal with China announced by President Donald Trump this week. He also said Mississippi’s geography, with plenty of fertile land and water, promises a brighter future.

Gipson said lack of water in other parts of the U.S. will within 20 years turn the Southeast into “the food production center for the country.” 

Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said Mississippi being the only state without a robust mitigation program to strengthen housing stock against hurricanes and other natural disasters could spell doom for the state’s insurance market, and economy at-large.

“Some gaslighting members of the state Legislature decided (earlier this year) they would kill the program to mitigate houses,” Chaney said. “Now, we’re the only state without a mitigation program.”

Chaney also warned of major, continuing problems with access to health care and of the potential for hundreds of thousands of Mississippians to lose health coverage amid the ongoing battle in Washington over the federal Affordable Care Act.

House Speaker Jason White told the business leaders they should support his push in the coming legislative session for expanding “school choice,” or “education freedom.” This push, coming from the Trump administration, would include using public tax dollars for private schools and allowing families more choices in their children’s education. White said it would help with workforce development, better training Mississippi students for jobs.

White also said the House plans to tackle another major issue for businesses by pushing to raise the corporate tax credit for spending on child care for employees to 100%, or “dollar-for-dollar” of what companies spend.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told the audience Thursday that state economic growth hinges on three things: “Good schools, a trained workforce and a solid housing market.”

“This year, the Senate will be addressing all of these,” Hosemann said.

An investigation into a shooting at the Issaquena County Correctional Facility is underway, but local investigators have yet to confirm details nearly a week later. 

Shots were fired Saturday at the front of the regional prison in Mayersville. At least one shot hit a window as visitors, inmates and staff were inside, according to a Wednesday statement from the Issaquena County Sheriff’s Department. 

Prison Warden Don Brown issued a memo Sunday to all held at the facility: Due to the recent shooting, visitation would be suspended until further notice “for the safety of the visitors, the inmates and staff.”

Sheriff Waye Windham was not immediately available for comment Thursday to offer details about the shooting. Information about identification of those involved in the shooting and whether any charges have been filed was not immediately known. 

A correctional facility staff member reached Thursday declined to say whether visitation is still suspended or if the facility is in a lockdown. 

The sheriff’s office contacted the Mississippi Department of Corrections, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics to assist with the investigation. 

Spokespeople from MDOC and the Department of Public Safety referred questions to the sheriff’s office. 

The Issaquena facility houses state inmates who have been convicted as well as pretrial county inmates. 

OXFORD — Twenty people, including 14 law enforcement officers, across the Mississippi Delta and Tennessee were arrested on Thursday by the FBI in a drug conspiracy takedown after a sprawling years-long investigation, federal authorities announced.

The investigation and alleged police corruption spanned counties across the Delta and stretched into Memphis, Tennessee, where some of the officers are alleged to have accepted bribes in exchange for providing protection to undercover FBI agents posing as members of a Mexican drug cartel. On three occasions between 2023 and 2024, the officers escorted the undercover agents transporting cocaine through the rural Delta along U.S. Highway 61 and into Memphis, court records allege.

Of the 20 individuals charged, 19 are accused of illegally carrying a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime. The charges, which are outlined across multiple indictments, portray an operation that extended from rank-and-file patrol officers up through police chiefs and sheriffs. The allegations mark a “monumental betrayal of the public’s trust,” said Clay Joyner, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Andrew Bailey, Co-Deputy Director of the FBI, said corruption permeated “multiple counties and multiple jurisdictions in the state of Mississippi and beyond.”

“They disgraced the badge and undermined the hard work of law enforcement officers across the state and across the region,” Bailey said at a news conference in Oxford.

The allegations differed slightly in their specifics, but most of the charges revolved around officers providing protection to undercover FBI agents in exchange for bribes. Joyner said the federal investigators did not identify any connections to the Mexican drug cartels, even though agents posed as members. But he said the federal investigation began years ago after the FBI’s Jackson Office began receiving tips from accused drug dealers themselves about bribes demanded from police officers in the Delta.

The individuals charged include: Brandon Addison, Javery Howard, Milton Gaston, Truron Grayson, Bruce Williams, Sean Williams, Dexture Franklin, Wendell Johnson, Marcus Nolan, Aasahn Roach, Jeremy Sallis, Torio Chaz Wiseman, Pierre Lakes, Derrik Wallace, Marquivious Bankhead, Chaka Gaines, Martavis Moore, Jamario Sanford, Marvin Flowers and Dequarian Smith.

Gaston is the elected Washington County sheriff, and Bruce Williams is the elected Humphreys County sheriff. Gaston allegedly gave his blessing “for the cartel to transport narcotics and narcotics proceeds through Washington County and for the cartel to use his deputies” for the illicit drug runs. Williams allegedly received multiple bribes “for the cartel to operate in his county” and for the cartel to use his deputies for protection.

Two more individuals were arrested and listed in the federal indictments, but they were later cleared on Thursday, and charges against them were dropped, Joyner said.

The Mississippi law enforcement agencies that had officers charged include the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Hollandale Police Department, Humphreys County Sheriff’s Department, the Metcalfe Police Department, Washington County Sheriff’s Department, Sunflower County Sheriff’s Department, Yazoo City Police Department, Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department, Greenwood Police Department and the Greenville Police Department.

The bribes ranged from a few thousand dollars to as much as $37,000, Joyner said. Some of the officers are charged with escorting the trafficking of 25 kilograms of cocaine, sometimes referred to as “birds.” In other instances, they protected the transport of illegal drug money, investigators allege.

Before sunrise on Thursday, word of the arrests had already begun spreading across small, close-knit communities in the rural Delta. The area is one of the poorest regions of the country, and distrust of law enforcement is high.

Ahead of the Thursday afternoon news conference, Sunflower County Sheriff James Haywood told Mississippi Today that FBI agents called him early that morning and informed him that Marvin Flowers, his chief deputy, had been arrested. The scandal could further decimate trust between police officers and Delta communities, Haywood feared.

“In law enforcement, we’re supposed to set the bar of honesty. We’re supposed to set the bar on trust in our community. We can’t violate it,” Haywood added. “This is devastating news, and we just got to pick up the pieces and regain the public trust.”

The Sunflower County Sheriff’s Department said Flowers was in custody on Thursday and could not provide other contact information for him.

In neighboring Washington County, Greenville Police Chief Marcus R. Turner Sr. told Mississippi Today that Greenville Police Department Sgt. Chaka Gaines was arrested.

Gaines was awarded “Supervisor of the Month” by the Greenville Police Department in April 2024. He was a 14-year veteran of the department and supervised lieutenants on multiple shifts, according to a department social media post.

Multiple videos circulated online Thursday that appeared to show confused neighbors filming some of the arrests. One video shows a law enforcement vehicle parked outside an apartment complex with its sirens blaring, ordering Gaines to surrender.

“Chaka Gaines, this is the FBI. Come out with your hands up. We have a warrant for your arrest,” a law enforcement officer said.

A resident of an apartment complex in Greenville, who feared blowback from local law enforcement officers and was granted anonymity by Mississippi Today, woke up to what sounded like a bomb around 5 am on Thursday. He said he could see two SWAT trucks and one regular van. He said he watched his neighbor, Gaines, emerge from his apartment with his hands up.

In Greenwood, a neighbor of the arrested Mississippi Highway Patrol Officer Marquivious Bankhead said he witnessed the arrest, and it shook him.

“You feel safe with law enforcement as a neighbor, you know? It sort of erodes that trust in law enforcement,” the man said. “Just trying to process something like this first thing in the morning with FBI agents in your yard is just wild.”

Mississippi has been the site in recent years of other federal probes into local law enforcement agencies that have resulted in criminal charges and lengthy prison sentences.

In Rankin County, six former law enforcement officers — most of them in a self-named group called the Goon Squad pleaded guilty to federal civil rights offenses for torturing and sexually assaulting multiple men. The Department of Justice has signaled that the investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department will continue.

In Holmes County, also located in the Mississippi Delta, the Department of Justice accused the Lexington Police Department in 2024 of engaging in excessive force, illegal searches and sexual harassment.

In 2024, former Noxubee County Sheriff Terry Grassaree was sentenced to one day in jail for lying to the FBI and former Deputy Vance Phillips received a similar sentence for bribery for procuring sexual favors from a jailed woman in exchange for contraband.

Delta residents are still reeling from a mass shooting earlier this month that killed nine people and wounded a dozen more during or after high school and college homecoming celebrations. Robert Eikhoff, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Jackson Field Office, said his agents faced initial impediments responding to the shooting.

The episode exposed firsthand the consequences of distrust born from the abuse of power by law enforcement, he said.

“We learned of the community’s distrust of select law enforcement officers due to concerns of corruption,” Eikhoff said. “Law enforcement is only effective when the communities they protect can trust that law enforcement officers are honest in serving the community’s interest. Mississippians deserve and rightfully expect officers to obey their oath.”

This story has been updated to add information from federal officials and from residents in the Delta. Mississippi Today reporter Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this report

OXFORD — Vice President JD Vance and Erika Kirk, the widow of slain political activist Charlie Kirk, called for a generational realignment around conservative Christian values at the University of Mississippi on Wednesday.

About 10,000 attendees packed into the Sandy and John Black Pavilion on the university’s Oxford campus. It was the latest stop on a tour of college campuses across the nation by the conservative grassroots organization Turning Point USA, founded by Charlie Kirk. 

“Your generation is living at a crossroads, and we are witnessing in real time the battle raging for the soul of your generation,” said Erika Kirk.  

The event marked the only joint appearance of the vice president and Erika Kirk, the newly minted CEO of Turning Point USA.   

Charlie Kirk, one of the nation’s most famous conservative activists, was scheduled to speak at the event before he was assassinated last month in Utah. Vance was asked to speak in his place in Oxford by Erika Kirk. The vice president delivered brief remarks honoring the life of Charlie Kirk, whom he called a personal friend. 

Vance also took questions from audience members, a hallmark of the late conservative activist Kirk, who built a media empire in part based on viral videos of himself verbally sparring with college students. 

“We ought to have faith that the best way to make sure the best idea wins is to actually just have a discussion. And that is what this event is all about, that is what Turning Point USA is all about,” Vance said. “We’re going to have a discussion tonight, and that is what Charlie would want us to do.” 

Calling himself a “geriatric millennial,” Vance aimed a large portion of his remarks at young people. He said the Trump administration’s immigration policies would limit competition for new entrants to the labor market, which he said would prevent immigrants from driving down wages. 

Vance, who has in the past railed against “childless cat ladies,” also filled his remarks with appeals to college students to have children when they are young and anchor their lives around family.

“While you’re young, have those babies if you’re able to,” Vance said. 

The future of the country would be best served with a “properly rooted Christian moral order” at its core, Vance added. 

That sentiment pulsed through both Vance’s remarks and Erika Kirk’s. She called her presence on campus “a spiritual reclaiming of territory.”

She called Generation Z, which is trending rightward according to some surveys, the “courageous generation.”

“My husband believed that to his core,” Kirk said. “That’s why he went on campuses. That’s why he was trying to reach you.” 

Vance also revealed what he said was a never-before-shared anecdote about Kirk, whom he called the most effective political figure he had ever seen. The vice president said Kirk once called him with concerns about the Trump administration’s policies in the Middle East. The call reminded the administration that Kirk’s audience no longer supported sending American soldiers to fight in foreign entanglements, Vance said.     

A sea of red “Make America Great Again” and white “47” caps were worn by much of the jubilant crowd inside the arena. Seated in the front rows was a who’s who of Mississippi’s Republican political leadership. Attendees included Gov. Tate Reeves, U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde Smith, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Attorney General Lynn Fitch. 

Emily Lecler, a University of Mississippi student from Green Bay, Wisconsin, attended the event as a volunteer for the Turning Point chapter on campus. Kirk and his organization appealed to her because it counters what she sees as an “anti-American” sentiment on college campuses

“If you want the cookie-cutter model of how we should be. He is the umbrella of everything Turning Point stands for. Godly, American,” Lecler said. “I think when he died it was really hard, but it pushed people in the right direction and opened a lot of people’s eyes.”

But there was also opposition on campus. 

A coalition of student groups opposed to the Turning Point rally hosted a counter event that featured speakers such as California Congressman Ro Khanna and Tennessee state Rep. Gloria Johnson, a member of the “Tennessee Three,” a group of Democratic lawmakers who were expelled by the Republican majority over a protest over a gun-control protest in the Legislature in 2023.

The coalition also released a statement focusing, among other issues, on the Trump administration’s attempts to exert more federal control over the American higher education system. The administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from disfavored institutions and has asked universities to agree to conservative priorities such as caps on numbers of international students, limited definitions of gender and embracing the idea that “academic freedom is not absolute.” 

The student groups, which included the College Democrats, called Wednesday’s Turning Point event an attempt to “provide academic legitimacy to the hatred, suppression of free speech, and over-partisanship championed by the administration of President Trump and Vice President Vance.” 

The statement also referenced what it called a “complicated history, full of troublesome lapses in moral clarity, and this event brings just one more speaker whose legacy will not endure the test of time.”

The University of Mississippi occupies a unique status in the nation’s history of political divisions playing out on college campuses. 

In 1962, a white mob erupted in violence when James Meredith, a Black man, fought to integrate the university. U.S. marshals protected him on and off the Oxford campus. The episode became one of the most consequential confrontations over desegregation in American higher education, and the university has honored Meredith several times since. 

Decades later, against the backdrop of new political division, a heavy law enforcement presence again watched over the university after Kirk’s assassination seven weeks ago.  

Turning Point became a multimillion-dollar operation under Charlie Kirk’s leadership and was credited with helping to return Trump to office. 

Since Kirk’s killing, his podcast and social media have attracted millions of new followers. There has been an outpouring of interest in expanding Turning Point’s footprint on college and high school campuses, the group has said.

The medical examiner could not determine a cause or manner of death for Jimmie “Jay” Lee, the University of Mississippi student whose disappearance and death sparked a movement in Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community. 

Missing for more than two years, Lee’s remains were found earlier this year in a wooded gully in rural Carroll County – about an hour and a half south of Oxford – where people have been known to illegally dump trash. 

But the cause of death could not be determined in part because of the decomposition of Lee’s body, said Carroll County Coroner Mark Stiles who responded to the scene. The remains were skeletal, with no soft tissue. 

“It’s kind of hard for us as coroners when we go to a scene like a homicide or a suicide or a natural death,” he said. “We’ve got the body there, and we’ve got first-hand accounts of usually witnesses. But in this case, we didn’t have anything. It was just the remains that were found.” 

Cause of death refers to how someone died, such as a gunshot, stabbing or strangulation, while manner of death is how medical examiners classify whether a person died from a suicide, homicide or natural death. 

An “undetermined” finding does not mean the autopsy has ruled out homicide as a potential manner of Lee’s death, Stiles noted. 

“The autopsy is going to be kind of vague just from what they had to work with,” he said. “It was just some bones.” 

The discovery of Lee’s remains, aided in part by a necklace with Lee’s name on it, came after a deadlocked jury led a Lafayette County Circuit Court judge to declare a mistrial in the state’s case against Shelton Timothy Herrington Jr., a fellow Ole Miss student who was arrested and charged with capital murder a few weeks after Lee went missing in the summer of 2022. 

One of the 12 jurors refused to convict Herrington due to the lack of Lee’s body during the first trial. The prosecution had built a circumstantial case against Herrington, arguing he was the last person to see Lee alive based on cellphone data. 

Herrington is set for trial again in early December in Lafayette County, with jurors to be drawn from Madison County – a similar setup to last year when jurors were drawn from Forest County. 

The judge, Kelly Luther, has taken several steps to insulate the case from intense media attention. Earlier this week, he granted an oral motion from Herrington’s defense attorney, Aafram Sellers, to file pre-trial motions under seal. Sellers did not respond to an inquiry from Mississippi Today.

“The Court has conducted a balancing test to weigh the competing interests of the public’s right of access and the Defendant’s request to seal certain pre-trial motions,” Luther wrote in the Oct. 27 order. “The circumstances do not warrant sealing the entire file; however, the Court finds no less restrictive alternative to protect the integrity of this matter.”

Last year, Luther denied a joint motion from the prosecution and Herrington’s defense to seal the entirety of the filings in the case. Legal experts had called the joint motion “highly unusual.” Instead, Luther said he would consider sealing some filings containing evidence that could prejudice a jury if requested to do so by the defense. 

In other filings this week, Sellers asked Luther to exclude the photographs of the crime scene and Lee’s autopsy as well as expert testimony the state plans to submit from a clinical social worker who has researched behavior in the LGBTQ+ community.

The prosecution’s theory of the case last year was that Herrington killed Lee to preserve the secret of their sexual relationship. 

“Relevance requires more than tangential connection to broad social categories,” Sellers wrote in an Oct. 28 motion. “It demands a meaningful relationship between the expert’s opinion and the specific facts in dispute.”

Herrington’s case is still considered an open investigation, Stiles said. But he noted the autopsy report from the state medical examiner’s office could be changed pending the outcome of Herrington’s trial. 

“If the boy was found guilty or if he has a change of heart and admits to everything, then they could change it,” Stiles said. 

When Stiles responded to the scene the night that Lee’s remains were found off a dirt road, he said investigators laid the skeleton on a tarp, the bones arranged anatomically. Several were missing, likely due to animals. 

“You could see that some of the hands, the appendages were missing, the phalanges and the toes were missing, the smaller bones like that,” he said. 

Stiles then photographed the remains and collected them to be sent to the state Crime Lab in Jackson for analysis. He was not involved in the autopsy, but Stiles said medical examiners can take certain steps to form a conclusion in the absence of soft tissue. 

The skeletal remains can be X-rayed, which could help determine if broken bones were due to gunshot wounds. Stiles said the autopsy report ruled out blunt or sharp force trauma or firearm injuries as the cause of death. 

Other DNA that can point to a perpetrator can be collected, but Stiles said the only DNA on the autopsy report was for the identification of Lee’s body. 

In the case of strangulations – a theory the prosecution had offered for Lee’s death – sometimes a neck bone can be broken. Stiles said that was not the case with Lee’s remains. 

“You can strangle someone, and it still not be broken,” he said. 

The heat, humidity and water in Mississippi means bodies can decompose faster here than in other places. In Carroll County, Stiles said water running down the hills causes erosion to the point that people have for decades been known to throw objects like washing machines into ditches and gullies to form a blockade.

“In the desert, (a body) would dehydrate and be mummified,” Stiles said. 

Because the county is so rural, Stiles said it’s common for bodies to be found years after a death, in advanced stages of decomposition. He began serving as the county coroner in 2016, and his first case was that of a missing person who was found as skeletal remains. There was no foul play, he said. 

“Ever since I became coroner, I’ve always said, you can get away with murder but you’ve got to do it yourself and not tell anybody.”