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In the remaining weeks before his scheduled execution, Richard Jordan, Mississippi’s oldest and longest serving death row inmate, is looking for ways to fight his death sentence. 

Jordan was sentenced to death for the kidnap and murder of Gulfport resident Edwina Marter in January 1976. Marter’s sons, who were 3 and 9 at the time of her death, and her husband are still alive, according to public records. About a decade ago, her family told The Advocate they were hoping to receive closure from the execution after years of its delay. 

The decision to let the execution proceed rests in the hands of the Mississippi Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal district court judge – two courts that have rejected his previous requests and a judge who has allowed another execution to be carried out while a challenge to the state’s execution protocol continues. 

Attorneys filed two motions asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to rehear its denial of the 78-year-old’s petition for post conviction relief and to rehear its order setting his execution. 

They wrote that when the court denied his post-conviction relief petition, it “misapprehended the facts and the law.” To fix it, Jordan asked the court to vacate his death sentence or at a minimum return it to the trial court for another look. 

His attorneys argue Jordan’s death sentence is not valid because in 1976, when the murder was committed and Jordan was sentenced, Mississippi and all other states had ceased executions based on a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia that capital punishment was unconstitutional. 

On July 2, 1976, four months after Jordan was sentenced, the Supreme Court overturned this ruling in Gregg v. Georgia. Mississippi passed a statute allowing discretionary death penalty sentences in 1977.

“Here, because there was no constitutional provision for the death penalty at the time of Jordan’s offense, his death sentence is unconstitutional,” the May 15 filing states. 

Jordan went to trial multiple times and his sentences were overturned. His death sentence did not stick until decades later in 1998. Since his first trial, Jordan has been incarcerated for nearly 50 years. 

In another recent court filing, Jordan’s attorneys argue the state’s motion to set Jordan’s execution didn’t follow state law because he has not exhausted all state and federal remedies. 

Jordan asked the U.S. Supreme Court in March to hear his case. As of May, that petition for writ of certiorari is awaiting a decision. The state opposes and has asked the high court not to take up Jordan’s petition, saying the Mississippi Supreme Court was correct in its ruling. 

That petition centers around his access to a mental health expert separate from the prosecution to develop and present sentencing mitigation as an indigent defendant, which was established as a constitutional right through the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ake v. Oklahoma decision. The other issue is how the Mississippi Supreme Court handled Jordan’s Ake claims in his appeal and post-conviction. 

At trial, Jordan was evaluated by a state psychiatrist whose report was also given to the prosecution, which his attorneys argue undermined his mitigation case since the Ake decision specified the evaluation was to be used on the indigent defendant’s behalf.

The petition states he was not diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his combat service in Vietnam, but instead incorrectly as having antisocial personality disorder. 

“Review of that decision is manifestly warranted to ensure appropriate respect for this Court’s decisions, vindicate the supremacy of federal law, and ensure that those defendants in Mississippi whose mental health will be an issue at trial receive the right to the expert assistance to which the Due Process Clause entitles them,” the March court filing states. 

Additionally, Jordan and fellow death row inmate Ricky Chase are lead plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the drugs used for lethal injection. 

Since 2022, the state has since added alternative execution methods if lethal injection drugs aren’t available: execution by gas chamber, electrocution or firing squad. To date, a handful of states have used these other methods, including the use of nitrogen gas in Alabama and firing squad in South Carolina. 

The Mississippi lawsuit did not stop the December 2022 execution of Thomas Loden, another inmate who was part of the legal challenge. 

The same day Jordan’s attorneys filed motions with the Mississippi Supreme Court, Jordan and Chase filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, asking for him to order the state to provide essential documents to the plaintiffs about the state’s possession and planned use of execution drugs as well as documents related to the most recent executions of David Cox in 2021 and Loden. 

Plaintiffs wrote that access to this information would help them seek an injunction to stay Jordan’s execution and help with discovery, which is the process of obtaining evidence from other parties before trial. Trial for the lawsuit has been scheduled for Dec. 1, 2025. 

“It is unconscionable for Defendants to seek the execution of Richard Jordan while continuing to stonewall Plaintiffs’ repeated demands for supplementation of discovery in this case,” a May 14 court filing states. 

Weeks before the city could conclude its “100 Days of Peace” initiative, Jackson ousted the director of its Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery.

Keisha Coleman had led the less than 3-year-old office, a key piece of outgoing Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s efforts to tamp down on crime, since January 2023. 

She was by Lumumba’s side earlier this year when he announced, weeks before losing reelection, that the office had awarded $150,000 to community-based organizations working to prevent violence. The press conference marked the beginning of 100 Days of Peace, also known as 100 Days of Action, an initiative that was to feature events like town halls, trainings and listening sessions and conclude with a sneaker ball to celebrate the Jacksonians working to reduce violence. 

But if an event required funding, it did not happen, Coleman said, and she’s doubtful it will. Just a few months later, on May 7, Coleman said she received her termination letter from Lumumba’s chief of staff, Safiya Omari.

The alleged stated reason? The trauma recovery specialist had spoken to the mayor’s electoral opponent at a festival to celebrate south Jackson, Coleman wrote in an email to other city officials obtained by Mississippi Today.

“The termination, verbally framed as a ‘loyalty’ issue, follows repeated attempts to hold the administration accountable for gross misuse of public funds and nepotism that jeopardized critical community safety programs,” Coleman wrote. 

In an interview, Omari said she could not discuss personnel matters but called Coleman’s allegations “false and misleading.” The chief of staff also said she could not discuss how the allegations are misleading, “because then that would involve me talking about her.”

Coleman alleged in a pointed May 7 email to city council members that over her time as director, Omari and the mayor’s executive assistant, Tiffany Murray, blocked her efforts to get the new office up and running by stymying Coleman’s ability to spend city funds. She wrote that they prevented her from using empty office space to host workshops and slowwalked the distribution of city funding meant to create a youth engagement center. 

“OVPTR’s mission—to reduce violence and trauma in Jackson—has been crippled by Dr. Omari’s actions,” Coleman alleged. 

The office was launched in 2023 with a $700,000 grant from the National League of Cities, a nonprofit. Despite being the office’s director, Coleman wrote that the mayor’s office did not grant her access to spend city funds until the beginning of this year, making it difficult to execute events. 

“Most of the work was done from my personal funds and people in the community who supported the work,” Coleman wrote. 

Reached at her office line, Murray said she did not have any comment at this time.

Coleman told Mississippi Today that she doesn’t want the termination to overshadow the office’s work. On June 3, Jackson will hold a General Election for mayor, in which Democratic nominee and longtime state senator John Horhn is the expected winner.

“I do want to keep a good standing in the community in the event that John Horhn does come in and I want to advocate for that office,” she said. “I don’t want to diminish what’s going on there and the importance of that work.”

City spokesperson Melissa Payne told Mississippi Today that while it had not been long since Coleman left the city, several applicants had already interviewed for the position. 

“Her staff is still working, and they’re still doing what they need to do,” Payne said. 

But in the email, Coleman alleged that she had recently put one of her two subordinates — Omari’s son, Kuwasi Omari — on a performance improvement plan for “chronic tardiness, absenteeism, incompetence to the role, and failure to complete tasks or submit weekly reports.” Coleman also alleged Omari used her position by “withholding staff hires in order to hire her son.”

Kuwasi Omari, listed online as the office’s community outreach specialist, did not return Mississippi Today’s messages. His 45-day improvement plan was set to end on May 8, Coleman wrote, but the city fired her on May 7.

Responding to this allegation, Omari, whose other son works as a community services coordinator in the city’s department of human and cultural services, said that Kuwasi Omari is responsible for a program the office is running that works with boys at Lanier High School, which involves plans for a community clean-up.

“Let me just say this: It was certainly her right as his director to do that, but contextually I will say that the only real work that has taken place in the office,” Omari said before pausing. “Okay, no, I won’t say that.”

The office will be without a director until at least July 1, when a new mayor comes in, after the city council instituted a hiring freeze Tuesday. Omari said this means that events like the sneaker ball probably won’t happen.

“Having an idea and making statements doesn’t mean that the work to make those things happen has taken place,” Omari said.

The council’s decision to freeze hiring came after WLBT reported the city had hired Lumumba’s former election opponent-turned-campaign supporter in the 2025 Democratic primary, David Archie, a former county supervisor, as a staff assistant to the mayor. 

The city also recently brought on Tariq Abdul-Tawwab, a former employee of the third party manager over the city’s water utility, JXN Water, which reportedly fired him in 2023, as a deputy director in the city’s public works department. He was recently described as a director at one JXN Water’s staunchest critics, the nonprofit People’s Advocacy Institute founded by the mayor’s sister and where Abdul-Tawwab’s wife works.

The Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery was established as an office under the mayor’s executive branch. In response to a recent public records request, the City Clerk told Mississippi Today that the city does not have an overall organizational chart, but provided several departmental organization charts.

The mayor’s office was not among them.

One of the violence prevention office’s goals is to quantify the impact of violence prevention work in Jackson through data. In the press conference earlier this year, Lumumba cited data showing that efforts by local organizations, including credible messenger groups, have ushered in long periods without violence in some of the most troubled areas of the city.

“I don’t have access to that data, as you know Keisha is no longer with us,” Omari said, “so we’re trying to figure out how we’re gonna move forward with the data that has come in, as well as a lot of the data I’m sure is coming directly from JPD, and everybody has access to that.”  

Coleman had told Mississippi Today earlier this year that her office was developing a public-facing data dashboard making it easier to examine crime trends and patterns in the city.

The office’s work has been supported by local advocacy organizations, and Horhn previously told Mississippi Today that he did not have plans to close the office. 

But under the current administration, Coleman wrote her efforts were not receiving adequate support. 

In one example, she alleged that she had repeatedly asked to use empty office space in a city building on North State Street to host events like youth workshops. But in front of the mayor, Omari and Murray told her “no,” Coleman alleged, because that space was going to become Lumumba’s second office.

“This directly denies community of service, support, and resources that would assist in the goal of the OVPTR,” Coleman wrote. “As of today, the space has yet to be used.” 

The $50,000 grants that Lumumba announced earlier this year, the first transfers from the office to outside organizations, represent some of its largest expenditures, according to public records obtained by Mississippi Today. As of March, the office had reported spending nearly $430,000 since its inception, the bulk of it categorized under wages and benefits and the credible messenger grants. Coleman alleged that part of the money was used to pay Murray’s salary, “despite providing no operational support.”

The records show it has spent $1,200 on office supplies, $12,000 on travel and nearly $4,000 on data processing equipment, though if the office has conducted crime stats analysis to inform evidenced-based approaches to violence interruption, it has not publicized any such reports.

Coleman urged in her email that the office has remaining sources of funds that are at risk: A little over $200,000 the city council allocated to the office for a youth engagement center, and about $270,000 left from the National League of Cities. 

“This is not an attempt to smear this administration,” Coleman wrote in the email. “This is me being proactive because there is over $470,000 of funds out there that someone will have to answer for and I will NOT be thrown under the bus because I’m no longer there to speak for myself.” 

Omari said the youth engagement center will open sometime this summer at the currently defunct Mary C. Jones Center that is being rehabilitated with funds from the facilities department. The $202,000, Omari added, will be used for programming.

“I know when I looked a couple months ago, the money hadn’t even been set up in our budget,” Omari said.

The city did provide Coleman with one bit of support, she wrote. But it was apparently fleeting. 

“Outside of the one time in March 2024 (that) Tiffany gave me a realm (sic) of copy paper, I’ve purchased, on my own, copy paper, office supplies, flyers, rack cards, brochures, etc. just to have an operational office,” Coleman wrote. 

Erica Reed could feel herself tearing up as she walked into work at Jackson Medical Mall on a Monday in April. 

It was the first time she had seen the lights out at the now relocated Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center’s adult medicine clinic – a harbinger of changes to come at the former shopping mall turned medical center. 

The transfigured shopping mall finds itself on the cusp of change as the University of Mississippi Medical Center, long one of the medical mall’s key stakeholders and largest lessee of space in the facility, readies itself to move many of its clinical services and reduce its square footage at the mall by about 75% in the next year. 

And with UMMC goes Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center, a federally qualified health center and one of the largest providers of primary health care services to poor and uninsured people in central Mississippi. The center has subleased space at the mall from UMMC for over a decade and is one of the last providers to offer primary health care services at the mall. 

“It was just very overwhelming when I walked in the clinic,” said Reed, who began working at the medical mall as a housekeeper in 2010 and rose through the ranks to become chief operating officer of the Jackson Medical Mall Foundation. “I had never seen the lights out. And so to see the lights out, you know, it was kind of a day like, ‘this is real.’” 

UMMC declined to answer any of Mississippi Today’s questions about its decision to leave the mall, future involvement at the mall or the impact that the changes will have on patients. 

Since the late 1990s, the medical mall has stood as an access point to health care and an economic anchor in a majority-Black neighborhood in Jackson with a high concentration of people living in poverty. People from across Jackson and Mississippi have also come to the mall to receive care. 

Jackson lawmakers argue that the loss of health care services will negatively affect patients who rely on the mall for health services and on the neighborhood as a whole. 

“The impact is going to be very severe on that area,” Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, told Mississippi Today. “Not only just in the face of the residents who need medical services, but in the whole aspect of an empty medical mall with no cars, or very few vehicles in there, which shows no life, which adds opportunities for crime.” 

As Reed walked through the medical mall, she greeted each person she saw: patients, shop owners and fellow staff members. She picked crumpled receipts off the floor and threw them in the waste bin. The mall has grown into a home for her, she said. 

She has watched the mall adapt before, but the loss of primary care, pediatrics and other clinical services at the medical mall is one of the most significant adjustments the medical mall has yet faced. 

“We will persevere,” she said. “… One closed door is an opportunity for another open door.” 

A long history

When Jackson Mall opened its doors in 1970, it was the first shopping mall in Mississippi, drawing customers from across the state. But it didn’t take long for business to falter with the opening of Metrocenter Mall in 1978 and Northpark Mall in Ridgeland in 1984.

By the 1990s, the mall was largely vacant, with only a few tenants left. 

“The mall was but a skeleton of its onetime glory, surrounded by a decaying neighborhood,” wrote journalist Bill Minor in a 1998 column for the Clarion-Ledger. “For more than a decade it stood as a sort of elephant’s graveyard, a gargantuan relic of urban blight and a breeding ground for crime.”

Legislators and local leaders considered a range of failed proposals to revitalize the property in the late 1980s and 1990s. Plans proffered included a public arts school, an office building for state agencies, a federal Department of Defense accounting center, a latex glove plant and a temporary jail to ease prison crowding.

But the idea for Jackson Medical Mall, Executive Director Primus Wheeler recounted, was devised in an unexpected manner: drafted on a Piccadilly cafeteria napkin during a lunch meeting of Dr. Aaron Shirley, the first Black UMMC resident and then director of Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center, and Ruben Anderson, the first African American Supreme Court Justice in Mississippi. 

Anderson said it didn’t exactly happen that way, and he doesn’t remember the napkin. But a lunch at Picadilly’s – which has remained a tenant at the mall since 1970 – did launch the vision: a multi-institution medical and commercial facility that would bring together UMMC, Jackson State University and Tougaloo College. Shirley passed away in 2014.

Jackson Medical Mall Foundation – a collaborative nonprofit helmed by board members from each academic institution – purchased the crumbling mall property for $2.7 million and its first health clinic opened its doors to patients in 1997. 

Members from each academic institution remain on the foundation’s board today. The property is now worth $77 million, said Wheeler. 

The mall addressed UMMC’s urgent need at the time for additional space to expand its outpatient clinics, and gave it room to open additional services, including a diabetes center, an adult day care center and a prevention and wellness program. When UMMC clinics opened at the mall, it was the hospital’s largest presence away from its main campus on North State Street. 

UMMC has invested a total of $200 million in the medical mall over the years, according to the medical center. 

The medical mall foundation has also redeveloped the area surrounding the mall by creating affordable housing, bringing a grocery store to the area and selling an old pawn shop to a local bank aiming to help low-income people access banking services. 

The mall has served as a model for similar facilities across the country. In 2013, researchers estimated that there were 28 such facilities in the U.S. 

“It is something that wasn’t supposed to happen, wasn’t supposed to be successful, but with all the partners working together, it became a great success story,” said Wheeler. 

Health clinics’ departure

When Joey Goodsell began receiving cancer treatment at Jackson Medical Mall in 2023, he was impressed by the convenience of having all of his medical appointments housed at a single location. He was also struck by a palpable sense of community at the medical mall.

“It just felt like a neighborhood,” he said. 

But he has begun to notice changes. There are fewer cars in the parking lot, he said, and he recently received a notice that he will now have to go to UMMC’s main campus for certain health services.

UMMC has leased about half of the mall’s approximately 900,000 square feet of space since 2010. After May 2026, the medical center will maintain just 100,000 square feet of space at the mall, which will include renal and dialysis, dental, infectious disease, pharmacy, addiction and HIV services.

UMMC has shared little information publicly about their decision to leave the medical mall, but a February memo distributed to legislators outlined its plans to exit the mall in phases. 

UMMC will vacate unused, storage, administrative, education and subleased spaces in the mall by the end of this year, including clinic space subleased by Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center. The comprehensive health center has already removed adult medicine, cardiology, podiatry and social services from the mall. Its pediatrics clinic will leave in June and women’s health services by October.

UMMC will relocate the cancer center, OB-GYN and pain management services to its main campus by May 2026. 

In the memo shared with legislators, UMMC said that ongoing building infrastructure challenges at the mall have resulted in disruptions to UMMC business practices, and that the medical center has experienced challenges with city services including water, crime and aging roads and bridges in the surrounding area. 

Wheeler refuted these claims, saying that the building is in “great condition” because it was gutted in the late 1990s when the medical mall was created and has undergone constant renovations since then. The facility pumps in water delivered by tanker trucks when needed and crime is “basically nonexistent.” The mall has its own full-time security staff. 

“The place is just as solid and new as when it was first built in 1970,” he said. 

Mississippi Today spoke to patients from across the state who received health care services at Jackson Medical Mall. Many said they appreciated the convenience of the medical mall’s location and parking, clean facilities and the feeling of safety at the mall. But they also said some clinical services were crammed in areas that were too small, slowing patient visits, and that the roads around the facility are in disrepair. 

Goodsell said beyond a loss of convenience, he worries that the mall’s community will be lost once health services leave. 

“There’s this community that’s built up there, and people that have invested in putting a restaurant there,” he said. “And if all these people, if all the places move out of there, their livelihood is just evaporated.”

A ‘troubling trend’

At the same time that UMMC is scaling back services at Jackson Medical Mall, it is expanding outpatient clinical services in Ridgeland – a move that reflects a trend of UMMC outpatient clinics moving to wealthier, whiter areas in the Jackson suburbs. 

UMMC opened its Grant’s Ferry clinic in Flowood, which offers primary and specialty care, in 2010. 

Earlier this year, UMMC opened Colony Park South, another clinic offering primary and specialty care services, in Ridgeland. The movement of services to the new location allowed medical mall clinics to move to UMMC’s main campus, said LouAnn Woodward in an email to UMMC faculty staff and students in April. UMMC plans to open another clinic in Ridgeland next year. 

Census tract data shows that the area Jackson Medical Mall is located in has a median household income of $22,500 and that 93% of residents are Black. By comparison, Grant’s Ferry and Colony Park South have median household incomes of $92,665 and $169,844, respectively, and over 70% of residents are white.

The movement of health care services out of Jackson and into the city’s suburbs is a “very troubling trend” and will make it more difficult for Jackson residents to access health services, said Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, who won the city’s Democratic primary race for mayor last month.

“We’re seeing a hollowing out of health care providers … being available in Jackson, and patients are feeling the brunt of that hardship upon them,” said Horhn.

UMMC provides a free shuttle every 30 minutes to Colony Park clinic locations from its main campus in Jackson, and many outpatient clinical services are offered at UMMC’s main campus in Jackson. 

The Legislature sought to limit UMMC’s expansion outside of Jackson this year by restricting the medical center’s exemption from requiring state approval to open new educational medical facilities. The bill would limit this exemption to areas around its main campus and the Jackson Medical Mall. Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed the legislation, saying he opposed another unrelated provision in the bill.

Bringing primary health care to the mall is a priority, said Wheeler, who envisions new health services opening in the mall, the space being transformed into senior or dormitory housing and the Jackson Medical Mall Foundation implementing more of its own programs. The foundation will soon open a 500-seat auditorium in the space that formerly housed UMMC’s conference center. 

Horhn said he hopes to see the medical mall house a workforce training facility. 

The future of the medical mall remains uncertain, but whatever comes next, the foundation’s goal is to remain an anchor in the community, said Reed, the foundation’s COO. 

“We don’t want to let Dr. Shirley’s vision die,” she said. 

But it is clear the medical mall will look different than it has for the past 25 years. 

“It will not be a medical mall,” Wheeler said. 

Wendy White, director of the Jackson Heart Study Undergraduate Training and Education Center at Tougaloo College, has experienced what financial markets and world leaders have all felt this year: whiplash. 

In April, the Trump administration paused funding to the center, which is the nation’s largest and longest-running training program for early-career scientists and hub for research on heart disease in African Americans. 

In total, 36 college students lost their scholarships. Five staff members, including White, lost their jobs. As a result of the cuts, the center planned to end its undergraduate training program later this summer. 

Then came the whiplash. The administration reversed its decision in May. Relief. 

White is “cautiously optimistic” about the $1.7 million grant’s renewal and the future of this program that has been the crown jewel for this small, private, historically Black liberal arts college in Jackson, Mississippi. 

“It’s been a roller coaster of emotions ranging from gratefulness to frightening,” White said. 

Since January, federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation have slashed millions of dollars in grants and contracts to comply with federal directives to end research on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as the study of misinformation. 

Some colleges have lost federal funds in President Donald Trump’s first 100 days of office. Others are trimming already lean budgets and launching fundraising campaigns to prepare for the worst, according to Inside Higher Ed.  

While Trump has signed executive orders supporting HBCUs to “promote excellence and innovation,” the cuts to federal agencies and programs have had a chilling effect at these schools, which are already dealing with decades of underfunding. HBCU professors and graduates say the losses have greater potential for harm and eliminate professional opportunities for students. 

Millions of dollars are potentially at risk. This year, Jackson State University received $7.2 million in federal research from NIH. Tougaloo College received $10 million.  

Low hanging fruit

White and other professors believe their grants were pulled because of words like  “race” or “gender” in the award’s abstract. 

“[These federal agencies] are going for the low-hanging fruit,” Byron D’Andra Orey, political science professor at Jackson State University, said. “Our grants are on the chopping blocks simply because they are under this umbrella of D.E.I.” 

Orey received an email in late April from JSU’s Office of Research that his $510,000 National Science Foundation Build and Broaden (B2) grant was terminated. In 2021, the grant was awarded to study the emotional and psychological toll of racial discrimination and trauma on African Americans participating in democratic and political activities such as voting and activism. 

The research produced new insights on understanding racial disparities in the United States. It has also led to collaborations with prominent research institutions such as the University of Michigan. The collaboration brought resources, professional development, staffing and support that JSU lacked. 

Since the grant was awarded four years ago, 21 students have taken the seminar and graduated. It has provided exceptional learning opportunities and exposed students to new career possibilities, Orey said. 

“I’ve had students who have taken my classes apply to law schools, competitive Ph.D.  programs at Ivy leagues and get into congressional public policy and advocacy work,” Orey said. “They get to see career avenues other than federal government jobs.” 

A whole new world 

Michael J. Cleveland, a graduate of Tougaloo College, benefited from these types of programs and mentorship. Cleveland trained as an undergraduate from 2014-2017 through the Jackson Heart Study program. He had opportunities to shadow medical professionals at hospitals and clinics. 

In his sophomore year, he decided becoming a doctor wasn’t for him. Cleveland received guidance from his professors to pursue apprenticeships in community and public health research in Jackson. 

The course work and curriculum as an undergraduate set him apart from his peers at Morehouse School of Medicine when Cleveland applied to get his master’s degree in public health. It eventually led him to become the first African American healthcare executive administrative fellows at Salem Health Hospital and Clinic System in Oregon. 

The need for public health professionals of color in healthcare and medical settings is more important than ever, Cleveland said. 

“Being a JHS scholar opened me up to a whole new world,” said Cleveland, who is now the chief operating officer of Care Alliance Health Center, a community health center in Cleveland, Ohio. “I’ve accomplished all of who I am at 30 because of this program.”  

Future of research

Last month, Trump signed a new executive order that pledged to continue two existing White House efforts to support HBCUs during his first term in office. 

The White House Initiative on HBCUs aims to increase funding, improve infrastructure and provide access to professional development opportunities for students in fields such as technology, healthcare and finance. And the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs will include appointed members who will sit in the U.S. Department of Education and is meant to guide the administration’s efforts on supporting these institutions. 

“[The administration] is saying something on paper and in theory, but their actions aren’t aligned,” White said. “You can’t say you support [HBCUs] when you are cutting student loans, financial aid, research and other programs that support these students and institutions.” 

While the future of this program remains unclear, she warned of the larger, overlooked impacts of potential cuts to this undergraduate program: It could mean the end to a unique collaboration between two HBCUs and a predominantly white institution in the state. 

When the Jackson Heart Study began in the late 90s, it brought Jackson State University, a public HBCU, Tougaloo College and University of Mississippi Medical Center, a predominantly white medical school, together to create a first-of-its-kind partnership. 

The goal was to provide funding in research for the colleges, and promote careers in public health to students. Eliminating this partnership could undermine NIH’s credibility and a symbol of racial progress in Mississippi, White said. 

“We’ve spent more than two decades focusing on overcoming that legacy of medical mistrust for people in this city,” White said. “A move like this could set back decades of science and health research for this country. I just want us to ask, what are we doing about this?”

The best baseball teams in Mississippi, high school and college will be busy in post-season tournament play this week. Meanwhile, Davis Riley was pretty busy and pretty successful last weekend.

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Mississippi Today is pleased to announce the addition of Katherine Lin to its Politics and Government team. Lin is a 2025 corps member of Report for America, joining 106 fellow journalists in placements across the country.

Report for America says this round of placements is the organization’s latest response to the growing crisis in local, independent news and an increase of 31% from initial plans to help meet today’s challenges.

“It’s a good day for journalism as we welcome 107 next-generation journalists into a compelling phase of their careers at a time when their energy, integrity, and skill are urgently needed,” said Kim Kleman, executive director at Report for America. “Our model of corps member recruitment and newsroom partnerships is a proven solution to today’s crisis in local news, bringing voice and coverage to undercovered communities and building back trust in media as a central pillar of our democracy.”

At Mississippi Today, Lin will report on development, where politics and economics intersect throughout the state.

“As Mississippi Today’s first development reporter, Katherine will focus on Mississippi economic and workforce development, small business and labor issues, data and how state government policies, actions and spending impact the state’s economy and workforce,” said Politics and Government Editor Geoff Pender.  “We are excited to have Katherine join the growing Mississippi Today team and, specifically our politics and government team. Katherine brings unique skills, energy and inquisitiveness that will serve our mission to help move this state forward.”

Lin is a recent graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she focused on economic and business reporting and reporting on economic inequality. Prior to that, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of California at Berkeley.

“I’m excited to join the outstanding team at Mississippi Today,” said Lin. “I’ve been a fan for a number of years of their ambitious reporting and commitment to serving the people of Mississippi.”

About Report for America
Report for America is a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities across the United States and its territories. By creating a new, sustainable model for journalism, Report for America provides people with the information they need to improve their communities, hold powerful institutions accountable, and restore trust in the media. Report for America launched in 2017 as an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to rebuilding journalism from the ground up.

Just over half of the third graders in Jackson Public Schools are reading on grade level, according to test results released last week by the Mississippi Department of Education. 

At some elementary schools in north and central Jackson, nearly all the students passed the third-grade reading test on the first try. But the results show that a majority of third graders at schools in south Jackson failed the test, raising the possibility that those students will be retained this fall. They have multiple chances to test again before that happens.

Students at Barack H. Obama Elementary and McWillie Elementary had the highest scores, with more than 95% passing, while students at Key Elementary, Shirley Elementary and Wilkins Elementary had the lowest, with less than 40% of students passing at those three schools. 

There are likely many reasons for this disparity, but local educators say the low reading scores reflect that it can be hard to be a kid in south Jackson right now. 

Learning to read is all the more challenging for kids whose basic needs are not being met. 

“The less resources you have at home, the heavier that burden is going to be,” said Pam Franklin, the program director at Operation Shoestring.

The nonprofit is one of several groups in the city that are working to reverse the downward trend. In 2019, 63% of the city’s public schoolers passed the third grade reading test. Before that, the bar to pass was lower, and a decade ago, nearly 85% of the students passed.

But without nutritional meals, clean clothes, playtime, sleep and a supportive parent who reads to them, kids will struggle to be friendly with their peers or respectful to teachers, let alone concentrate on vocabulary or phonics. 

“Before I walk in the door, I’m bringing all of that with me,” Franklin said. 

These challenges exacerbate the urgency educators face in teaching them to read by the end of third grade. It’s not just because students must, with some exceptions, pass the third-grade reading test to advance to the fourth grade. The failure to learn to read by this age has been linked to poor outcomes later in life, such as dropping out of school, earning low wages or delinquency. 

That’s partly because knowing how to read is a crucial life skill, said Greer Proctor-Dickson, the executive director of the Mississippi Reading Clinic. 

“We’re not conscious of all the reading that we do,” Proctor-Dickson said. “Street signs, bills, legal documents, menus.” 

For instance, students need to learn how to read in order to solve math problems that are posed in paragraph form. 

“Now I’m getting a double strike,” Franklin said. 

As Jackson loses population, fewer families are sending their children to JPS, leaving the district with less funding.

Ironically, that’s exactly what educators say Jackson’s kids need: More resources and more support. 

During the school year, the Mississippi Reading Clinic hosts classes at local middle schools to work with students with poor reading skills. 

Proctor-Dickson recalled a story of a JPS teacher the clinic was coaching who noticed that something was off with a boy in her class. When she asked him what was wrong, he said he was long overdue for a haircut and embarrassed to be seen in public. 

So the teacher called a barber who volunteered to come to the school and cut the boy’s hair that day. 

“It was like a 180 shift,” Proctor-Dickson said.

CLARIFICATION: This story was updated to reflect that the bar for passing the third grade reading test has been raised since 2015.

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.

“The minor events of history are valuable, though not always showy or picturesque.” — Mark Twain, 1891

“I always say ‘tariffs’ is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.” — Donald Trump, 2025

If I could slow time down just a kiss it would all come back, clear as that wink of a moon over freshly planted rows of cotton on Trout Valley Farm. Seems like only yesterday I was living out my calling, farming with my family in Tallahatchie County. The year before we had picked our best crop on record, and 2018 promised healthier markets for the fiber. Heading into spring I couldn’t wait to prep fields for planting. 

As farmers we are fundamentally hopeful people. The mere act of putting a seed into the earth and hanging the well-being of an entire family on it is itself an act of radical hope. As I once heard my father say, “Every year I take all I have and all I hope to ever have and plow it into the ground.”

And so, we entered the 2018 planting season with even more cotton acres than 2017. We didn’t know then there was doom on the horizon, though no one in our universe had ever heard of Wuhan, China.

And yet, China loomed large in our daily discussions about the future. A trade war simmered throughout the Spring. It was like the child’s game “King of the Hill: Tariff Edition.” The contestants: President Trump and General Secretary Xi JinPing. Every time cotton and grain markets went on a run, a presidential tweet or an announcement from Beijing would send commodities tumbling, as Sisyphus after a traipse up the mountain. 

By 2019 the markets were severely depressed for both. A tariff-induced depressed market, untimely drought, runaway production costs, and uncertainty due to the trade war forced us to close the doors on a 148-year-old, multi-generational, family-run farm. We became another victim of economic central planning and the hapless confluence of calamitous circumstances.

It caused my wife, our young daughter and me to upend our lives. The dream I worked for all my adult life and upon which my future depended, dead. At 40-years old, I had to recalibrate. My wife and I had to move from my community where we were both hopeful and active participants in its revitalization. 

In 2019, there was a 20% increase in farm bankruptcies across America. And this despite government largesse in the form of an inflation-inducing 28-billion-dollar bailout. While bankruptcies ran rampant, we don’t even know the total number of farmers who simply stopped, as we did, rented their land and moved away. In the final accounting, we’ll likely find that depopulation and dispossession of our rural and agricultural class is what led to America’s demise. 

While a farm is a dynamic and complex enterprise whereby any number and any combination of things can cause its failure, there is one thing that poses a greater immediate threat to any farm at any moment: Tariffs. 

Agrarian people have always known this. Our history is replete with political and sectional strife over the federal government’s use of tariffs and the redistributionism that comes with it. This history needs a little sunshine as agricultural people have always pulled the short straw with protectionist tariffs. 

The current iteration, as far as I can tell, is a negotiating tactic, yes. Revenue tariffs, it seems. But, President Trump has also been adamant that they are protectionist, intended to bring manufacturing jobs back, which, of course, is a laudable goal. It’s not clear that further impoverishing farm families, many of whom are already in financial straits, is the way to do it.

A recent Farm Journal poll showed that 54% of farmers don’t support tariffs as a negotiating strategy. The same poll found a bleak 92% of agriculture economists believe tariffs will hurt farmers in the long run. All the while the number of farmers has dwindled to a point where we are no longer a statistically significant parcel of the population.

Conflicts concerning tariffs along the urban/agricultural divide go back to the early years of the Republic. In 1816 Congress approved the first protective tariff, the Dallas Tariff at 20% to help pay off the debt from the War of 1812. They also wanted to level the playing field between English manufacturing and the nascent attempt at industrialism in the North. In 1824, the Sectional Tariff on imported goods went to 33% . In another four years the “Tariff of Abominations” placed a 38% tax on 92% of imported goods. Each of these found opposition across the South, as Southern farmers sold their crops and bought their goods on the international market. So, they had to pay more for goods and sell their crops for less, as we did in 2018.

South Carolina threatened secession. By 1832, South Carolina had the support of several states and declared these tariffs unconstitutional, thus unenforceable. President Andrew Jackson threatened the unthinkable: using the military to go to South Carolina and collect the duties at gun point. In 1833, President Jackson successfully urged Congress to pass the Force Act, to get the authority to do it. Henry Clay (architect of the American System agenda) and John C. Calhoun (Jackson’s vice president) avoided a disaster by reaching a compromise to incrementally reduce the tariffs, thereby stopping the Nullification Crisis from devolving into violence.

By 1842 Northern industrial interests were back at it with the Black Tariff. This put rates back around the levels of the “Tariff of Abominations.” The South howled claiming revolution was the only solution for this issue. James Polk won the next election and started reducing the tariff. The Walker Tariff of 1846 lowered the average rate to 25%. This stimulated trade and led to higher government revenues. While other major sectional differences persisted, on the tariff front, at least, the sections seemed satisfied.

In 1857, however, with a healthy tariff of around 15%, it began to fall apart. There was a financial panic that year caused by several converging events. However, a leading economist – Henry Carey, a Republican and avowed protectionist– laid the whole thing at the feet of the lower tariffs.

Due to Carey’s prominence, Rep. Justin Smith Morrill (R., Vermont), a founder of the Republican Party, recruited him to help develop a new tariff. For two years, prior to 1860, Congress debated the Morrill Tariff. It didn’t pass until after Abraham Lincoln’s election once states had started to secede. James Buchanan signed it into law on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. 

As early as 1832, in the midst of the Nullification Crises, Lincoln said, “I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff,” before adding 28 years later in 1860, “My views have undergone no change… the tariff is to the government what a meal is to a family.” The Morrill tariff both informed and defined U.S. trade policy until the second incarnation of the income tax in 1913.

So, in terms of cultural differences in economic philosophy, what does this history verify except that farmers and stakeholders in an agricultural economy dependent on foreign trade have always vehemently advocated for free trade and against protectionist tariffs. And, that protectionist tariffs are a fundamental part of the Republican Party’s DNA. In fact, the Republican Party’s platform from 1860 featured the tariff as its 12th plank.

Mike Wagner, who owns Two Brooks Rice and farms grain in the Delta commiserated recently, “This tariff talk comes at the worst possible time for many of America’s farmers. There’s a perfect storm of conditions already [rising taxes, land/equipment/production costs] …China has not bought U.S. corn or soy since Jan. 16th.” After a pensive pause, he continued, “This happened most recently during the 45th presidency, and our export capacity never regained its footing…when agricultural markets are lost, the loss is permanent or gruelingly regained. A nation that can’t maintain the foundational part of its economy that farming is, and won’t support her growers, sacrifices her best defense.”

To better understand the impact of these particular tariffs, I spoke with Hank Reichle, president and CEO of Staplcotn, the oldest and largest cotton cooperative in the U.S. Echoing Mark Twain, he proffered, “By the way, history rhymes. Here we go again, like the Nullification Crisis, where agrarian South Carolina was concerned with tariffs restricting commerce, this time states concerned with the same are actually taking the President to court over the tariffs. 

“Compared to President Trump’s first term, this trade war is a little different because it doesn’t involve only China. Tariffs are only good for farmers if they create a competitive marketing advantage.” Reiterating the danger to farmers, he explained, “Tariffs slow the global economic growth that fuels consumption and so decreases demand for commodities.”

But, Reichle doesn’t only predict despair and doom. Due to the reciprocal nature of the context President Trump created, we could see commodity markets rise as new markets open to U.S. farmers. According to Reichle, “…there are several countries that buy a significant amount of cotton on the export market who could easily increase purchases from the U.S. while decreasing them from the likes of Brazil and Australia…”

Tenuous as it is, I worry for all my friends still farming and welcome this bit of hope. This is a year wherein the lives of many farmers and their families’ futures hang in the balance. If we get to harvest without a solution, it will not bode well for any of us. For without farmers prayerfully, hopefully and profitably “plowing all they have into the ground” every year, American society and its position in the world will crumble. 

Our greatest hope now is that our representatives in Washington remember their constituents and make deals (and tax cuts) that are in our best interest. Quickly.

Or, as Wagner put it, “Farming has always been a full contact sport…We need leadership. Not leadershit.”

Cal Trout holds bachelor’s degrees in history and English and a master’s degree in journalism. He currently owns and operates Trout Valley Quail Preserve and is a real estate agent. He also publishes and hosts the newsletter and podcast “Standing Point: Stories from Americans Afield,” which can be found at www.troutvalleyquail.com.

by Sophie Bates, Associated Press

TYLERTOWN, Miss. (AP) — More than two months after a tornado destroyed his home, Brian Lowery still looks through the rubble, hoping to find a tie clip his mother gave him, made from the center stone of her wedding band.

“I still have hope,” Lowery said.

He, his wife and 13-year-old son made it to safety before the tornado ripped apart their trailer home of 15 years, but the recovery from the storm has been a slow and painful process. Mississippi’s request for federal aid is still pending before the Federal Emergency Management Agency, meaning badly needed assistance has not yet made it to his hard-hit community of Tylertown to recover from the storms that struck in mid-March.

The delays could provide a glimpse into what’s in store for communities around the country as the summer storm season arrives and FEMA is mired in turmoil. A stretch of states including Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma have already been battered with tornadoes this week, setting the stage for more disaster requests to FEMA. And the Atlantic hurricane season is just around the corner.March storms left 7 dead and hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged

In Mississippi, nearly 20 tornadoes tore through the state on March 14 and 15, leaving seven people dead and hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged. Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves asked the Trump administration for a major disaster declaration on April 1. The state, and residents like Lowery, are still waiting.

The declaration would allow the state to access a wide range of FEMA resources, including financial aid for individuals and for government agencies still removing debris and repairing infrastructure.

“I don’t know what you got to do or what you got to have to be able to be declared for a federal disaster area because this is pretty bad,” Lowery said. “We can’t help you because, whatever, we’re waiting on a letter; we’re waiting on somebody to sign his name. You know, all that. I’m just over it.”

The declaration would allow the state to access a wide range of FEMA resources, including financial aid for individuals and for government agencies still removing debris and repairing infrastructure.

“We don’t have a declaration yet. People are still hurting,” said Royce McKee, emergency management director for Walthall County, which includes Tylertown.

Requests for help come at a time of upheaval for FEMA.

The agency’s acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was recently ousted after he publicly disagreed with proposals to dismantle FEMA, an idea President Donald Trump has floated in calling the agency “very bureaucratic” and “very slow.”

David Richardson, FEMA’s new acting administrator, committed himself to executing Trump’s vision for the agency. He also previewed potential policy changes, saying there could be “more cost-sharing with states” and that FEMA would coordinate federal assistance “when deemed necessary.”

Walthall County was hit especially hard by the massive storm system that wreaked havoc across multiple states. The storm spawned two significant tornadoes in the county, where four people died.

McKee said the county has sunk an estimated $700,000 into cleaning up the damage but can’t afford to spend more and has halted operations until it receives federal help.

“We need federal help, and we need it desperately, and we need it now,” said Bobby McGinnis, a Tylertown resident and firefighter. “I know President Trump said that — America first, we’re going to help our American folks first. But we haven’t seen the federal folks down here.”

While Mississippi has been waiting, a similar major disaster declaration request out of Arkansas after the storms hit was denied, appealed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and finally approved on May 13.

“We are encouraged by FEMA’s decision regarding Arkansas’ application from the same storm system that hit Mississippi,” Scott Simmons, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency’s director of external affairs, said in a statement. “We anxiously await a positive decision.”In Missouri, there are frustrations about the federal response to March storms

In Missouri, the federal response to storms earlier this year is being criticized as residents pick up the pieces from a Friday twister. The EF3 tornado packing winds of up to 150 mph (241 kph) slammed into St. Louis on Friday, and the city is awaiting a disaster declaration from the Missouri governor’s office so it can access federal help.

“We need to get the federal government mobilized,” said U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. “All federal resources that can be brought to bear here should be.”

The senator also expressed frustration over the federal response to a deadly March storm.

“We cannot wait months. I’m not happy about the fact we’re still waiting from all of that damage two months ago. We lost 12 people in those storms. We’ve lost seven here,” he said. “The scope of the damage is immense.”Mississippi lawmakers press federal officials about assistance

Mississippi lawmakers have been pressing federal officials on the issue. During a congressional hearing in early May, Republican Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest asked U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, to push forward the request.

“I would ask you if you could make sure that you could do everything to expedite that request,” Guest said. ”It is impacting my local jurisdictions with debris cleanup. It is impacting people as they seek to recover.”

Republican Mississippi U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith also asked Noem about FEMA assistance and the administration’s new approach to the agency.

“President Trump has been very clear that he believes that the way that FEMA exists today should not continue,” Noem responded. “He wants to make sure that those reforms are happening where states are empowered to do the response and trained and equipped, and then the federal government would come in and support them and financially be there when they need them on their worst day.”

___

Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.