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NESHOBA COUNTY FAIR — Ty Pinkins, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, pledged at the Neshoba County Fair on Wednesday to work on ways to improve Mississippi’s dire health outcomes, some of the worst in the nation. 

“I’m running to take a common sense voice to Washington, D.C., so that I can work for everyone,” Pinkins said. 

Speaking at the Founders Square pavilion during the first day of political speeches, Pinkins said, if elected, he would seek out ways to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Mississippians and emphatically supported a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. 

“Whether you are a pro-life or a pro-choice woman, I support you to make that pro-life choice for yourself and that pro-choice decision for yourself,” Pinkins said.

Pinkins is challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker for the seat he’s held since 2007. Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not speak at the fair this year. 

A campaign spokesperson previously told Mississippi Today that Wicker would be working in Washington during the week of the fair and “doing the job Mississippians have elected him to do.” 

Wicker did visit with several attendees at the fair on Saturday, according to his social media accounts. 

Pinkins also claimed his Republican opponent had forgotten his oath of office to defend the country against enemies “foreign and domestic” and seemed to tie him to the January 6, 2020, insurrection when a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the certification of the presidential election results .

However, Wicker voted to certify the election and rejected false claims that there was widespread voter fraud in the election. Pinkins later clarified to reporters that he was criticizing Wicker’s support of Trump. 

“Many in our legislative branch, they’re not doing their job,” Pinkins said. “Their job is to protect our democracy. What they have done is capitulated to power and put party over country.” 

Before his election to the Senate, Wicker, a Tupelo resident, served several terms in the U.S. House and in the Mississippi Legislature. 

Pinkins, an attorney in Vicksburg, has spent some of the last several years aiding Black farm workers in the Delta who were being paid less money for their work than white visa workers from South Africa doing the same jobs. Pinkins unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state in 2023.

The two will compete in the general election on November 5. Mississippians can begin voting by absentee ballot on September 23, according to the secretary of state’s elections calendar.

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Editor’s note: This article was written by Monica Land, niece of the famed civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer. It first published in The Enterprise-Tocsin newspaper on June 21, 2024, and is republished below with permission. Click here to read the story on The Enterpise-Tocsin’s website.

Everything I know about Fannie Lou Hamer, I learned from someone else. And that will forever haunt me as a tremendous loss of opportunity considering that she was my great-aunt.

Growing up, I often heard my family speak of her as an almost mythical figure. A woman, who not only prayed for change, but vowed herself to bring it. They’d laugh when they recalled the funny things she said or did. But their faces turned somber, cold and sad when they remembered the pain and sufferings she endured.

As a youngster from Chicago, I recall visiting my Uncle Pap and Aunt Fannie Lou during the summer. When we walked into their Ruleville home, I remember she was always lying down or sitting. As was customary, I spoke and gave her a hug, but then off I went to play with her two daughters, Cookie (Jacqueline) and Nook (Lenora).

It was the 1970s, and I deeply regret that I was too young to know that I should have stayed and talked to her, listened to her and asked her questions. As a teenager, I regret not asking my Uncle Pap or my maternal grandparents — who were very close to her — questions about her life and her childhood. And now those opportunities are gone.

As a writer and an aspiring filmmaker, I was determined to learn more about her life and to tell her story, and it took me more than 15 years to do it.

That film, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, allows audiences to see and hear a side of Aunt Fannie Lou that many never have before. In fact, during the research phase of that project, I learned things myself that I had never known. Things that both surprised and horrified me.

Aunt Fannie Lou was an exceptional person. While many remember her as a fierce proponent of voting rights, who was “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Aunt Fannie Lou did so much more, providing food, clothing, housing, educational opportunities and even jobs for the marginalized residents of the Mississippi Delta, while she herself had nothing.

My research into her life took me deep into the trenches where I met many of her fellow freedom fighters. Unfortunately, many are now only remembered for their work, while still others, decades later, are still fighting the good fight.

And now, in the midst of the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, which Aunt Fannie Lou helped organize, I recall the kindness of four people in particular who helped me on my cinematic journey: Heather Booth, Rita Bender, Charles Prickett and Richard Beymer.

During what was called the Mississippi Summer Project or Freedom Summer, hundreds of college students — mostly middle- and upper-class whites — descended upon Mississippi as volunteers to build support for the MFDP’s challenge; to teach at the Freedom Schools and to encourage Black residents to register to vote.

Richard Beymer had heard about the struggles in Mississippi, and he and his friend, Charles Prickett, another young volunteer, wanted to help. Richard was a hot commodity in Hollywood at the time. Five years earlier, he portrayed Peter Van Daan in the 1959 Academy Award-winning film, “The Diary of Anne Frank.” And in 1961, he played “Tony” in another Oscar winner, “West Side Story” opposite Natalie Wood.

An independent filmmaker, Richard is the only known person to document the events of Freedom Summer and then compile them in his 1964 film, A Regular Bouquet. Aunt Fannie Lou was heavily featured in the film, which was narrated by another well-known actor of that era, Robert Ryan.

Richard and Charles traveled across Mississippi filming and documenting the Freedom Schools, voter registration projects, mass meetings and other like events that summer.

“One of our stops was in Sunflower County … at the home of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer. She was very welcoming and gracious, and invited us to stay at her home, which we did,” said Charles Prickett, an activist, attorney and author. “Mrs. Hamer had love and compassion for everyone, and we were privileged to accept her kindness … There is so much more I can say about the intensely caring person Mrs. Hamer was. She was very clear about what she wanted to achieve and how your individual contribution could help. She was open to sharing her home to anyone, to us – strangers. She was always in the moment and that says a lot about her.”

Freedom Summer officially began on June 14, 1964, and one week later, three volunteers — two white men and one Black — went missing. The local man, James Chaney, was from Meridian. The others, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were from New York.

During an extensive search for the trio, federal investigators combed the woods, fields, swamps, and rivers of Mississippi, ultimately finding the remains of eight other Black men, including two college students who had been missing since May. The battered and bruised bodies of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were found buried 14 feet deep in an earthen dam on August 4. All had been shot. Chaney had been castrated and Goodman was buried alive.  

Aunt Fannie Lou was devastated by the murders and spoke of them often. In an iconic photo, she is comforted by Schwerner’s mother, Anne, while his father, Nathan, stands nearby.

Following the murders, the media sought to turn the story of Schwerner’s young widow, Rita, into a national tragedy. But an activist herself, Rita converted that attention to the many overlooked victims of racial violence and disparities in Mississippi. Rita, still an activist and a civil rights attorney, credits Aunt Fannie Lou with helping her through that ordeal.

“Mrs. Hamer was a remarkable woman,” she said, “and certainly, was one of the people who helped me to get through a difficult time. She was not only emotionally strong, but truly kind and caring. Mrs. Hamer’s support was a major contribution to my personal path forward.”

Heather Booth, now a renowned organizer, activist and filmmaker, was another Freedom Summer volunteer.

“I met Mrs. Hamer at her home in Ruleville … and her moral courage, her clarity, her deep commitment to decency and caring has stayed with me my whole life. She treated me, an 18-year-old student, with the same kind of caring and decency as she did with everyone else. I try to carry on her legacy. And … one of the greatest honors of my life [was] to have met Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.”

Aunt Fannie Lou truly motivated and empowered others. And her former colleagues and friends all agree that her legacy must be preserved and amplified since there is so much we can still learn from her.

Aunt Fannie Lou experienced things that many people today can’t even begin to imagine: The atrocities of Jim Crow and segregation, gross miscarriages of justice and the constant threat of intimidation and death.

Her vision of equal rights for everyone has yet to fully materialize. But her sacrifices and her efforts to achieve that goal should never be forgotten.  

Aunt Fannie Lou accomplished so much. But deep down, she confessed to a dear friend that she wondered if she was truly making a difference. She did. And that’s something we all can be grateful for.

The post Remembering Fannie Lou Hamer: Monica Land pays tribute to her aunt appeared first on Mississippi Today.

There was a time, in the early-to-mid 1960s when Archie Manning thought he would probably play football, basketball and/or baseball at Sunflower Junior College (now Mississippi Delta Community College). Or, Manning dreamed, if he really improved and put on some weight, he might even play at Delta State.

Those were the college teams Manning knew well. Those were the schools closest to his hometown of Drew. Those were the places his daddy and uncles took him to watch college teams play.

Ole Miss and Mississippi State? For a skinny, 155-pound, red-headed kid from the tiny town of Drew, those places were pipe dreams.

You know the rest of the story. Manning did add some muscle to his lanky frame. He did improve and went on to become one of Mississippi’s most beloved football players with Ole Miss and then in the NFL.

Manning never attended Delta State, but he never lost his admiration for the school and its rich athletic history. That’s why he will join his longtime friend (and Delta State graduate) Langston Rogers for fundraising conversation and sports auction at DSU’s Sillers Coliseum on Thursday night. The program, billed as “Night of Champions,” will begin at 7 p.m.

Rogers played baseball for DSU legend Boo Ferriss and later become the school’s sports information director before going to Ole Miss in the same capacity. That’s where Manning and Rogers became good friends.

“Delta State and Cleveland are 15 miles from Drew,” Manning said. “That’s where we went to the picture show after the one in Drew closed down. That’s where we went to eat after the two restaurants in Drew had closed for the day. I have great memories from growing up and going to Delta State games. My sister, Pam, went to Delta State. I practically grew up there.”

Horace McCool, the longtime DSU football coach, recruited Manning when other colleges did not.

“No big colleges knocking my doors down in recruiting,” Manning said. “I was a skinny quarterback and I suffered a broken arm my junior football season and only played in three games.”

There was a time when Maning thought he might play basketball in college. He was the leading scorer and best player on Drew teams that sometimes played preliminary games before Delta State varsity games at Sillers Coliseum, opened in 1960.

“Oh man, that was a big deal for us back then,” Manning said. “For us, Sillers Coliseum, when it was brand new, was like Madison Square Garden.”

Manning, a Major League prospect as a shortstop, played summer league baseball games at what is now Harvey Stadium at Boo Ferriss Field. Manning’s Babe Ruth League baseball team was coached by future Delta State football coach Don Skelton.

“Everybody in the Delta knew who Boo Ferriss was,” Manning said. “He spoke to my summer league team when I was 13. I remember it well not only because Coach Ferriss was so impressive, but because my daddy was so disappointed that it was my mother and not him who took me to practice that day. My daddy loved Boo Ferriss and so did I.”

Manning was also a huge Mississippi State basketball fan back in the early and mid-60s when Babe McCarthy-coached Bulldogs teams were among the best in the nation and battled Kentucky almost annually for the Southeastern Conference championship. Manning remembers December of 1963 when McCarthy brought his Bulldogs to Sillers to play Delta State. Manning couldn’t wait to see his basketball hero, State’s Red Stroud, in person.

“Red Stroud’s hair wasn’t just red, it was flaming orange,” Manning said. “I remember that and I remember he could ever more shoot the basketball.”

Manning had told his father, Buddy Manning, he wanted to go to the big game. His father came home with one ticket.  “How am I supposed to get there?” Archie asked.

“Better start calling around,” his mother answered. And he did.

Delta State’s financial woes have been well publicized in recent months. Academic programs have been cut. Budgets have been slashed.

Delta State athletic director Mike Kinnison, who played for Ferriss and later coached Delta State to a national baseball championship, is tasked with trying to keep Delta State nationally relevant in NCAA Division II with limited resources. Delta State has won national championships in football, baseball and women’s basketball and has been to the Final Four in men’s basketball.

“We’re staying optimistic and focused on increasing revenue to offset our budget cuts,” Kinnison said. “It will require utilizing every asset we have to maintain nationally competitive programs and positive experiences for our student athletes. …It is a challenge we will work through.”

Money raised from Thursday night’s program dubbed “Night of Champions” will help, Kinnison said. The program also includes a silent and live auction of sports memorabilia. 

“We are honored to have Archie and Langston engage our community,” Kinnison said. “Their long-time support of college athletics and student-athletes are evident and appreciated.”

Click here for details of the “Night of Champions” auction.

The post Archie Manning and Langston Rogers team up to raise money for Delta State athletics appeared first on Mississippi Today.

NESHOBA COUNY FAIR — Republicans state Auditor Shad White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann threw a little political shade at each other, and both indicated they have 2027 gubernatorial aspirations at the Neshoba County Fair on Wednesday.

Hosemann told a crowd Wednesday that Mississippi’s next step in tax cuts should be reducing the state’s 7% tax on groceries – the highest levy of its kind in the nation.

Hosemann made the commitment Wednesday – the first of two days of political speaking at the historic Neshoba County Fair – to make reducing the grocery tax a priority during the upcoming 2025 legislative session, which begins In January.

White, who spoke before Hosemann under the balmy tin-roofed Founders Square Pavilion, also endorsed a cut to the grocery tax.

“It is time to lower the grocery tax,” Hosemann said before a sparse crowd for the off-election year political speeches. “We can do this. This is the year (2025 session) to do that.”

Hosemann pointed out that a $525 million cut in the income tax passed in 2022 will be completely phased in during the next two years. A cut in business taxes, costing the state about $42 million annually, will be phased in by 2029. He said a reduction in the 7% tax on groceries should be Mississippi’s next step.

White agreed, saying that because of the high cost of food, a reduction in the grocery tax would be big boost for families.

But White blamed Hosemann, as presiding officer of the Senate, for killing legislation that would ban the expenditure of public funds at universities for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. He said the efforts are a waste of taxpayer money.

He said some Mississippi Republican officials should act more conservative and “a little less like Joe Biden,” an apparent jab at Hosemann given the context of his speech.

After his speech, Hosemann was asked about White’s comments. He said he did not hear them, but added he was surprised White was at the fair.

“I thought he would be on a book tour,” Hosemann said, referring to the the state auditor releasing a book next week on the misspending of at least $77 million in federal welfare funds, part of an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The 77-year-old Hosemann indicated that he intends to seek another political office in 2027 when his second term as lieutenant governor ends. Constitutionally Hosemann cannot seek a third consecutive term as lieutenant governor.

On Wednesday, he did not say which office he might pursue, though, in the past Mississippi Today has reported he is considering a run for governor.

‘We have a vision for Mississippi. We have been at it since 2008 …,” said Hosemann who previously served as secretary of state. “If people still want us, we want to continue to work.”

White was more succinct about his political ambition to media after his speech: “I’ll be honest with you, I am seriously considering a run for governor in the next election.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Democratic Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps called on 81-year-old President Joe Biden to step down and for Vice President Kamala Harris to assume his role. He said Harris should select the Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson as her vice president for the remainder of this term, which ends in January. He said such a move would unify the country.

He said Biden should resign to avoid “tarnishing” his long tenure of public service.

Central District Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons, also a Democrat, called on the Legislature to appropriate an additional recurring revenue source – presumably a tax increase — for his agency to deal with road and bridge needs. Simmons said the other two transportation commissioners, both Republican, also believe more recurring revenue should be directed to road and bridge needs.

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GREENVILLE – Sharon Johnson-Eby, a former respiratory therapist with 30 years of experience in the medical field, founded An Medi-Zen, a holistic clinic in Greenville, Mississippi, this year.

Johnson-Eby integrates Eastern and Western medicine to address local health disparities, offering services such as acupuncture, cupping therapy and herbal medicine.

Inspired by the success she found with acupuncture for her own asthma and acid reflux, Johnson-Eby earned a master’s degree in 2018 and a doctorate in 2019 from Northwestern Health Sciences University in Chinese Medicine.

“I got treated in the beginning of that first year of grad school for asthma and acid reflux,” Johnson-Eby said. “It basically changed everything for me.”

She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine in La Jolla, California. She is licensed in Minnesota and Mississippi and is board-certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

“I love Chinese medicine because we treat mind, body and spirit, and that’s something Western medicine might be missing.”

She moved from Bloomington, Minn. to Greenville in 2023 to be closer to her aging mother.

Supported by Delta State University’s Women’s Minority Business Incubator Program,  Johnson-Eby emphasizes community outreach and education. At a wellness fair, she discovered that the local school district’s health care plan did not cover acupuncture and has since advocated for its inclusion with the insurance company.

“I’ve been working to highlight not just the benefits of acupuncture, but also its potential to improve overall health outcomes and reduce long-term health care costs. It’s about ensuring that everyone has access to the full spectrum of care they deserve.”

Johnson-Eby’s specialties include respiratory health, dermatology, mental health, and overall wellness using Traditional Chinese Medicine techniques. Driven by a childhood aspiration to become a doctor and in memory of a late friend, she plans to develop a comprehensive wellness center to integrate holistic practices into mainstream health care and address issues such as obesity, hypertension, and mental health.

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This weekend, Eli Manning joins his father, Archie Manning, in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Manning joins the podcast to talk about his latest honor, fatherhood and a whole lot more.

Stream all episodes here.

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The Republican National Committee will appeal a recent ruling from U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. determining that Mississippi’s practice of counting mail-in absentee ballots received up to five days after Election Day is legal. 

The appeal, which has not yet been filed, will go to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative appellate courts in the nation. 

Gineen Bresso, the election integrity director for the RNC and President Donald Trump’s campaign, told Mississippi Today in a statement that the organization is “confident the 5th Circuit will properly apply federal law.” 

“The election should end on Election Day — that’s the law, and voters deserve fair and accurate results on November 5th,” Bresso said. “Counting ballots that come in after Election Day in Mississippi and other states threatens election security and undermines transparency for voters.”

The Mississippi statute in question is a 2020 state law passed by the Legislature amid the COVID-19 pandemic that allows local election workers to process mail-in absentee ballots for up to five days after an election. The law permits workers to count only the mail-in votes if the ballots were postmarked by the election date. 

The state and national Republican parties, a Harrison County election commissioner and the state Libertarian Party were the plaintiffs in the litigation and argued that Guirola should strike Mississippi’s five-day window because only Congress gets to determine regulations for federal elections. 

Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson is the named defendant in the suit because he is the administrator of Mississippi’s elections – not because he necessarily supports the policy. However, lawyers from Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office have defended the state law in federal court. 

One of the main points of disagreement between the parties is what is the legal definition of Election Day, which will likely be the central question for the Fifth Circuit to answer.

The appellate court has not ruled on whether ballots received after an Election Day may be counted, but it previously determined in a 2000 case that a Texas early voting statute did not conflict with federal law. 

The plaintiffs argue Election Day is the literal first Tuesday in November and vote-processing after that date runs afoul of federal law. State officials responded that the federal statutes only require that a vote be cast, not received, on or before Election Day.

Guirola ruled that no “final selection,” or voting occurs under Mississippi’s five-day window for processing absentee ballots — only election officials counting the votes. 

“All that occurs after election day is the delivery and counting of ballots cast on or before election day,” Guirola wrote. 

A federal district judge in Nevada recently dismissed a similar lawsuit in Nevada, rejecting the GOP’s claims that counting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day but received days later was unconstitutional.

Other federal suits brought by the RNC alleging the same arguments against states with similar post-Election Day receipt deadlines for absentee ballots remain pending.

Mississippi is one of several states that allow mailed ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 

A quick, clear resolution before November’s presidential and congressional election would be vital. The appellate process is lengthy and time-consuming, and different rulings from the district and appellate courts could lead to voter confusion. 

Mississippians can request an absentee ballot application starting September 6, and the earliest day they can vote by absentee is September 23, according to the secretary of state’s elections calendar.

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The day President Joe Biden announced he would step aside and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, one of the first calls Harris made was to her longtime pastor, a native Mississippian and storied civil rights leader.

The Rev. Amos C. Brown, an 83-year-old Jackson native and pastor at San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, is no stranger to such high-profile contacts. He has often been turned to by U.S. presidents. He was a close mentee of Medgar Evers. Martin Luther King Jr. tutored Brown at Morehouse College and even wrote Brown a letter of recommendation for seminary. 

But Brown acknowledged in an interview with Mississippi Today that July 21 was extraordinarily memorable. He was just about to walk to the pulpit of the historic church to deliver his sermon when a deacon privately shared the news about Biden’s just-announced decision to drop out of the race.

“I paused to mention it to the congregation before I read the sermon text, which I selected well before I knew anything about what would happen that day,” Brown said. “That text was from Hebrews 12: ‘Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily beset us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.’ The timing of that text struck me as providential and poetic.”

After the Sunday service, Brown and his wife visited with members, went home, and, as pastors so often do on Sunday afternoons, he laid down to rest.

“I was actually about to go to sleep and my phone rang,” Brown said. “When I answered, it was the vice president’s voice. She said, ‘Hello, my pastor. I call because I need for you to pray for me, for Doug (Emhoff, her husband), for this nation because I’ve decided to run for president.’ I handed my phone to my wife, they talked for a minute, and then we had prayer together.”

Brown, invoking a cornerstone Christian verse from the Book of Micah, continued: “I prayed for her safety and security. I prayed she’d be led by spirituality as she sought the presidency, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with her God. Then I recited a passage from James Weldon Johnson’s great hymn ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing.’”

Harris is a longtime member of Third Baptist Church — Brown called her “an old-timer” — and she has talked extensively about her upbringing in both the Christian and Hindu faiths. Harris wrote in her 2019 memoir that her “earliest memories of the teachings of the Bible were of a loving God, a God who asked us to ‘speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves’ and to ‘defend the rights of the poor and needy.’”

Her Baptist upbringing, in particular, centers on the teachings of Brown, a civil rights leader who has fought for those same virtues for nearly 70 years.

Brown’s civil rights work began in his hometown of Jackson, where he organized the first NAACP youth council at College Hill Baptist Church. At age 15, he rode with Medgar Evers from Jackson to San Francisco for the 1956 NAACP national convention, held at the same Third Baptist Church that he has now pastored for nearly 50 years. He was temporarily expelled from Jim Hill High School for talking with a national newspaper about the importance of integration, and he was later stripped of his earned class president and high school valedictorian status. The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission kept an extensive file on the teenager.

Later, after leaving Jackson for college at Morehouse in Atlanta, he traveled around the South to help lead the Movement, like organizing a wade-in at Tybee Island, Georgia, and serving as a leader for NAACP chapters in numerous states. While preaching at Third Baptist and at churches in St. Paul, Minnesota, and West Chester, Pennsylvania, he has been elected or appointed to numerous civil rights posts. He served as a delegate to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in 2001, president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, and vice chair of California’s Reparations Task Force.

“I think Vice President Harris was attracted to the history of this church, to the role we’ve played in social justice and advancing the human race,” Brown said. “She’s a strong, spiritual person who comes from a strong, spiritual family that we’ve known for a very long time now.”

The relationship between Brown and Harris transcends faith. Brown said Harris served as his campaign manager when he ran for reelection to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1999, and he publicly supported her successful campaigns for San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general, U.S. Senate and vice president.

But the spiritual bond the two share, Brown said, is what he’s been dwelling on most these past few days as his friend and church member barrels toward the Democratic presidential nomination ahead of a pivotal November election.

“She’s above all else a good and decent human being,” Brown said. “If we had more people in this world of her integrity and her personhood, we’d get closer to being an expression of that beloved community that Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned. That’s the kind of outlook we need to hear in America today.

“All this division and put-down and hate speech and fear mongering is too much,” Brown continued. “There’s just too much of that. Someone once said people tend to hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other. Well, they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate or connect with each other. We must connect with each other, and we must love each other. That’s the message Kamala Harris is going to share with the country because that’s who she is. That’s the person I’ve known for so long.”

As for his time in Mississippi, Brown said he’s been fortunate to carry his home state legacy with him around the world.

“Everybody has a connection to Mississippi. I think about Jackson often,” he said. “You know, the deacon who tapped me on the shoulder before I preached (on July 21) to tell me that President Biden had stepped down? That was Brother Cedric Carter, who’s actually from Vicksburg originally.”

The post When Biden stepped down, Kamala Harris called her pastor, a Mississippi native, for a prayer appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning heads the list of eight former athletes and sports figures who will be inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame this weekend.

The MSHOF Class of 2024 will be enshrined Saturday night at the Clyde Muse Center on the Pearl campus of Hinds Community College.

Other 2024 inductees, in alphabetical order, include: Walter “Red” Barber, Baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster; Madison-Ridgeland Academy basketball coach Richard Duease, who has coached the second most basketball victories of any high school basketball coach in the U.S.; Laurel fisherman Paul Elias, 1982 Bassmasters Classic champion and winner of five other national pro tournaments; former Jackson State and NFL wide receiver Jimmy Smith, a five-time Pro Bowler and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ all-time leading receiver; Jackson native Savante Stringellow, a former world champion long jumper who prepped at Provine and was an All American at Ole Miss; tennis champion Becky Vest, another Jackson Provine product, who competed on the Virginia Slims Tour, at Wimbledon, and the U.S. and French Opens; and Florence’s Jimmy Webb, a Mississippi State All American defensive lineman and first-round NFL Draft choice who played seven years of pro football in San Francisco and San Diego.

While Manning, who follows his father Archie Manning into the Hall of Fame, headlines the 2024 inductees, he is not the only new inductee who gained A-list celebrity status in New York City. Barber, a Columbus native, did that more than half a century before Eli as a Baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees among other Major League teams.

Vin Scully, perhaps the most beloved baseball announcer ever, counted Barber as a mentor and an inspiration. Scully called Barber “the consummate reporter,” and “perhaps the most literate sports announcer I ever met.” Scully also called Barber “a profound influence on my life and a major reason for any success that I might have had in this business.”

Barber, who died in 1992 at the age of 84, was one of the first two broadcasters inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. The New York Times memorialized Barber thusly: “During his 33-year career as a play-by-play announcer, Mr. Barber, the first regular baseball radio announcer in New York, became the recognized master of his profession, delighting millions of fans with his folksy expertise and influencing and inspiring a generation of broadcasters.”

Much later in life, Barber became a popular weekly contributor to National Public Radio. He also authored seven books and narrated numerous TV programs and documentaries.

Brief bios of each inductee follow:

• Red Barber was born in Columbus, where he lived his first 10 years. His family left the state but his rich, Southern accent stayed with him throughout his Hall of Fame broadcasting career. He broke into Major League Baseball with the Cincinnati Reds and later famously broadcast the games of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees. He and Mel Allen were the first two broadcasters inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.
• Richard Duease, born and raised Indianola, attended Mississippi State where he first majored in business, planning to eventually run his family’s two department stores in the Delta. Instead, he went into coaching. That was 48 years, 1,801 victories and 33 state championships ago. “I can’t think of a greater honor than being inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame,” Duease has said.
• Paul Elias said he was too small to play football, was “pretty good” at baseball but “was really, really good” at fishing while growing up in Laurel. “I praise the Lord every day for allowing me to make a good living doing what I love to do,” Elias, a Southern Miss graduate, said. He turned pro in 1979 and won the Bassmasters Classic in Montgomery in 1982. Twenty-six years later, he set a record that still stands for the largest four-day five-bass limit of 132 pounds, 8 ounces in a tournament at Lake Falcon in Texas.
• Eli Manning follows his father, Archie, into the MSHOF, just as he followed him to Ole Miss. During his time at Oxford, he set or tied 47 records to become the most honored offensive player in school history. He was the first player selected in the 2004 NFL Draft and played 16 years for the New York Giants. His jersey No. 10 has been retired by both Ole Miss and the Giants. In 2016, he was chosen winner of the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, named after another Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer. Manning will enter the MSHOF in his first year of eligibility for the honor.
• Jimmy Smith earned his nickname “Silk” at Callaway High School for how he made so many big plays so gracefully and with seemingly little effort. He then starred at Jackson State and began his professional career as a second round draft choice of the Dallas Cowboys. But he became one of the game’s most productive receivers with the Jacksonville Jaguars, for whom he caught 862 passes, including 67 for touchdowns. He is in the Jaguars’ Ring of Honor but considers his MSHOF induction “my greatest honor, something I have wanted for a long, long time.”
• Savanté Stringfellow played basketball and ran track at Provine, where he caught the eye of MSHOF track coach Joe Walker, then the coach at Ole Miss. He claimed three NCAA Championships as a Rebel All American became a U.S Olympian and follows in a long line of so many remarkable Mississippi long jumpers, including Hall of Famers Ralph Boston, Larry Myricks, Brittney Reese and Willye B. White. “I don’t know what it is about Mississippi and the long jump, but I’m just glad to be a part of it,” said Stringfellow, whose son, Kennedy, is a promising freshman long jumper and sprinter at Mississippi State.
• Becky Vest, another Jackson native and Provine grad, won five high school state tennis championships, two while still in junior high. She played collegiately at Trinity (Texas) University where she was a national champion. After college, she competed internationally as a professional and has become an acclaimed teacher. She follows her mother, Dorothy Vest, as the first mother/daughter combo in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
• Jimmy Webb of Florence became one of the greatest defensive players in Mississippi State football history, a consensus All American in the early-to mid-1970s. A first round draft choice, he also starred in the NFL with both the San Francisco 49ers and San Diego Chargers. At State, he studied veterinary medicine, preparing for his post-football career as a veterinarian and a cattle rancher. “I have been so blessed,” Webb said. “I appreciate this state so much and am so thankful for his honor. At my age, the honors don’t seem to come around that much any more.”

Hall of Fame weekend festivities begin Friday night’s Drawdown of Champions at 6 p.m. at the Sheraton Flowood Hotel and Convention Center, which will include silent and live auctions and a $5,000 drawdown. The public will have an opportunity to meet the inductees Saturday morning (9:30-11-30 a.m.) at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. For more information, call 601 982-8264.

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