Editor’s note: Mississippi Today and the Mississippi Humanities Council cosponsored an event – “Reimagining Statuary Hall” – on Sept. 18 at The Station in Fondren. Several speakers suggested accomplished Mississippians to represent the state in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. Currently, statues of staunch segregationists Jefferson Davis and J..Z. George represent Mississippi. What follows is Mississippi Today sports columnist Rick Cleveland’s pitch from the event.
Walter Payton, running back for the Chicago Bears, is pictured in 1986. (AP Photo)
I have spent a lifetime writing about football, primarily Mississippi football. I have watched and written about many of the greatest football players to ever play the sport. And I am here to tell you Walter Payton of Columbia and Jackson State is easily the greatest all-around football player I have ever seen or ever hope to see.
You don’t have to take it from me. The National Football League is the most popular and easily the most successful sports organization on Earth. Since the league began, tens of thousands have played and coached. And here’s the deal: The most cherished award the NFL gives is known as the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which recognizes excellence both on and off the field. At first, the award was known just as the NFL Man of the Year. Payton himself won it in 1977. Shortly after Walter’s untimely death in 1999, the league renamed the trophy as a tribute to Walter’s incredible work ethic, his football greatness and his legacy as a giver, a humanitarian.
Now then, choosing just two people to represent Mississippi in the National Statuary Hall Collection is an incredibly difficult task. That said we can do a whole lot better than we have. Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black population in the United States. To have two Confederate leaders, champions of slavery, representing us in the U.S. Capitol is nothing short of appalling. Mississippi’s two statues should be of people who represent what we do best. They should represent the best of Mississippi, not the worst. We do many things exceedingly well, including writing books, making music and playing sports.
Rick Cleveland
You could argue — and I will — that we excel at nothing more than we do football. Mississippi has produced more NFL players per capita than any other state. And it’s not just quantity; it’s quality. We have produced more Pro Football Hall of Famers per capita than any other state, as well.
Our football heroes, Black and White, have emerged mostly from small towns. Walter Jerry Payton, nicknamed “Sweetness,” grew up in Columbia and came along at the cusp of integration. Walter was part of the first integrated football team at Columbia High School. In many ways, Columbia was a microcosm of Mississippi society as it pertains to integration: Black kids and White kids were playing organized sports together for the first time, working together, sweating together as teammates and being all the better for it. The late Maurice Dantin, a political leader and a candidate for governor, was a lineman on that first integrated team. He was, as he put it, one of seven White guys, blocking for four Black guys. Maurice told me: “The first time I saw Walter I was like everybody else. I was astounded. He did things on the football field I could never have imagined. Off the field, he was a good guy, a regular guy, a great teammate.” The two, Payton and Dantin, were friends for life.
Walter Payton at Jackson State.
That happened in small towns across Mississippi. Sports, football especially, showed the way. We were better for it. It says something about Mississippi a little more than half a century ago that Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Southern Miss, the three major football colleges in the state, did not recruit such a remarkable talent. I was a neophyte sports writer in Hattiesburg at the time. We had a Columbia correspondent, an elderly woman named Eva B. Beets, who called in the Columbia results every Friday night. I’ll never forget her rich, melodious Southern voice. “Rickey,” she’d drawl, “you are not going to believe what that Payton young’un did tonight…” In his last high school game, Walter scored six touchdowns, and on the last one he ran the last 35 yards backwards. Nobody could catch him.
Well that was it for the coaches at historically white universities. They weren’t about to have their first Black football player be a showboat drawing attention to himself. It remains singularly the dumbest thing I have ever heard. You can teach a player how to run forward and then hand the ball to the referee after scoring a touchdown; you can’t teach him how to score six touchdowns. Walter led the nation in scoring and set an NCAA scoring record at Jackson State. With the Chicago Bears, he scored a remarkable 125 touchdowns and handed the ball to the official after nearly every one.
Walter became the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, but he also excelled as a blocker, a receiver, a passer, a kick returner and even as a punter and kicker. He would have been a helluva strong safety, too. I once asked the great linebacker D.D. Lewis of Mississippi State and the Dallas Cowboys who was the hardest guy he ever had to tackle. D.D. didn’t hesitate. “Walter Payton, by far,” he answered. “It hurt. I mean, it really hurt. Trying to tackle Walter was like trying to tackle a 215-pound bowling ball.”
D.D., as any player who played with or against Walter, had the utmost respect for No. 34. Walter Payton was the epitome of what any athlete should strive for: Uncommon ability, superhuman work ethic, beloved teammate.
I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know who Mississippi’s two statues in the U.S. Capitol should be. I do know there are so many great choices other than what we have. And I believe Walter Payton, the greatest to ever do what Mississippians do best, should be strongly considered.
Rick Cleveland on his Statuary Hall pick; Walter Payton
Healthcare professionals and advocates are gearing up for the 10th Annual Mississippi Perinatal Quality Collaborative (MSPQC) Statewide Conference, a landmark event celebrating a decade of commitment to improving perinatal care in Mississippi. The conference, themed “A Decade of Dedication: Enhancing Perinatal Outcomes in Mississippi,” will take place on September 26-27, 2024, at the Sheraton Flowood: The Refuge Hotel & Conference Center.
Monica Stinson, MSPQC Program Manager, emphasized the importance of collaboration: “We invite all healthcare professionals and stakeholders in perinatal health to join us in committing to the ongoing work of improving care for mothers and newborns across Mississippi.”
This two-day event offers a comprehensive program. The Preconference Day on September 26th provides training opportunities for hospital teams, while the Full Conference on September 27th runs from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., featuring expert speakers, informative sessions, and networking opportunities.
Kim Sheffield, NNP-BC, MSPQC Neonatal Clinical Improvement Advisor
Kim Sheffield, NNP-BC, MSPQC Neonatal Clinical Improvement Advisor, highlighted the impact of their efforts: “We have seen remarkable outcomes from our collaborative efforts. Our shared commitment to quality improvement has truly made a difference in maternal and neonatal care in Mississippi.”
The conference will highlight ongoing projects facilitated by MSPQC focusing on developing, disseminating, and implementing best practices in clinical settings that care for mothers and infants. Attendees will hear firsthand accounts from peers about their successful project implementations, offering valuable insights, lessons learned and practical knowledge. This event is not only a reflection of past work in the field, but also a critical opportunity to discuss future strategies and innovations in maternal and neonatal care.
To learn more about the Mississippi Perinatal Quality Collaborative and how to get involved, contact Monica Stinson at mspqc@msphi.org.
The Mississippi Perinatal Quality Collaborative is a program of the Mississippi Public Health Institute, dedicated to pursing excellence in maternal and infant health for all families in the state.
The Justice Department announced Thursday that it had expanded its investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department where a self-described “Goon Squad” of deputies has been accused of torturing people for nearly two decades.
Investigators will seek to determine if the suburban Mississippi sheriff’s department engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional policing through widespread violence, illegal searches and arrests or other discriminatory practices.
“Since the Goon Squad’s sickening acts came to light, we have received reports of other instances where Rankin deputies overused Tasers, entered homes unlawfully, bandied about shocking racial slurs, and deployed dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody,” Kristen Clark, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, said during a press conference.
Rankin County came to national attention last year after deputies, some from the Goon Squad, tortured two Black men in their home and shot one of them, nearly killing him. Six officers pleaded guilty and were sentenced to federal prison in March.
During the press conference Thursday, Todd Gee, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, noted that journalists “have compiled harrowing” details of torture and abuse of Rankin County citizens.
He also recalled hearing first-hand accounts of alleged abuse from “men and women, old and young alike,” during community meetings in Rankin County.
“If the Justice Department determines this is a pattern or practice, we will seek remedies,” Gee said.
In a statement on Facebook, the sheriff’s office wrote that it would “fully cooperate with all aspects of this investigation, while also welcoming DOJ’s input into our updated policies and practices.”
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey has sought to distance himself from the brutality of his deputies, saying he was never aware of any of these acts.
But some of the deputies who pleaded guilty said during their sentencing hearings that they were rewarded for their use of violence or that they modeled their behavior on those who supervised them.
In some cases, residents who accused deputies of violence filed lawsuits or said they lodged complaints with the department.
The Times and Mississippi Today identified 20 deputies who were present at one or more of the incidents. They included several high-ranking officials: an undersheriff, detectives and a deputy who became a local police chief.
The investigation marks the 12th pattern or practice investigation into law enforcement misconduct by the current administration. Justice Department officials said previous investigations in other cities were followed by a reduction in use of force by the local officers.
Trent Walker, the lawyer for Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins, said his clients are “exceedingly happy” about the investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and hope the department is held to account “for its long and storied history of brutality, discriminatory policy and excessive force.”
Mississippi consistently ranks in the top five in the nation for its rates of antipsychotic drugging in nursing homes, data from the federal government shows.
More than one in five nursing home residents in the United States is given powerful and mind-altering antipsychotic drugs. That’s more than 10 times the rate of the general population – despite the fact that the conditions antipsychotics treat do not become more common with age.
In Mississippi, that goes up to one in four residents.
“The national average tells us that there are still a large number of older residents who are inappropriately being prescribed antipsychotics,” explained Dr. Michael Wasserman, a geriatrician and former CEO of the largest nursing home chain in California.
“The Mississippi numbers can not rationally be explained,” continued Wasserman, who has served on several panels for the federal government and was a lead delegate in the 2005 White House Conference on Aging. “They are egregious.”
The state long-term care ombudsman, Lisa Smith, declined to comment for this story.
Hank Rainer, who has worked in the nursing home industry in Mississippi as a licensed certified social worker for 40 years, said the problem is two-fold: Nursing homes not being equipped to care for large populations of mentally ill adults, as well as misdiagnosing behavioral symptoms of dementia as psychosis.
Both result in drugging the problem away with medications like antipsychotics, he said.
Antipsychotics are a special class of psychotropics designed to treat psychoses accompanied by hallucinations and paranoia, such as schizophrenia. They have also been found to be helpful in treating certain symptoms of Tourette syndrome and Huntington’s disease, two neurological diseases. All of these conditions are predominantly diagnosed in early adulthood.
The drugs come with a “black box warning,” the highest safety-related warning the Food and Drug Administration doles out, that cautions against using them in individuals with dementia. The risks of using them in patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia include death.
Yet more than a decade after a federal initiative to curb antipsychotic drugging in nursing homes began, 94% of nursing homes in Mississippi – the state with the highest rate of deaths from Alzheimer’s disease – had antipsychotic drug rates in the double digits.
Long-term care advocates and industry experts have long said that the exponentially higher number of nursing home residents on these drugs – 21% in the country and 26% in the state – is indicative of a deeper and darker problem: the substandard way America cares for its elders.
“If the nursing homes don’t have enough staff, they try to keep people quiet, so they give them sedatives or antipsychotics,” said gerontologist and nursing home expert Charlene Harrington.
And the problem, she emphasized, isn’t going away.
“Over the last 20 years we’ve had more and more corporations involved and bigger and bigger chains, and 70% are for-profit, and they’re really not in it to provide health care,” Harrington said. “… It’s a way to make money. And that’s been allowed because the state doesn’t have the money to set up their own facilities.”
‘It’s just not right to give someone a drug they don’t need’
On a late Thursday morning in August, Ritchie Anne Keller, director of nursing at Vicksburg Convalescent Center, pointed out a resident falling asleep on one of the couches on the second floor of the nursing home.
The resident, who nurses said was previously lively and would comment on the color of Keller’s scrubs every day, had just gotten back from another clinical inpatient setting where she was put on a slew of new drugs – including antipsychotics.
One or more of them may be working, Keller explained, but the nursing staff would need to eliminate the drugs and then reintroduce them, if needed, to find the path of least medication.
“How do you know which ones are helping her,” Keller asked, “when you got 10 of them?”
The home, which boasts the second-lowest rate of antipsychotic drug use in the state, is led by two women who have worked there for decades.
Keller has been at the nursing home since 1994 and entered her current position in 2004. Vicksburg Convalescent’s administrator, Amy Brown, has been at the home for over 20 years.
Ritchie Anne Keller, director of nursing at Vicksburg Convalescent Home, center, talks with Twyla Gibson, left, and Amanda Wright at the facility in Vicksburg, Miss., on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Low turnover and high staffing levels are two of the main reasons the home has been able to keep such a low rate of antipsychotic drug use, according to Keller. These two measures allow staff to be rigorous about meeting individual needs and addressing behavioral issues through non-medicated intervention when possible, she explained.
Keller said she often sees the effects of unnecessary drugging, and it happens because facilities don’t take the time to get to the root cause of a behavior.
“We see (residents) go to the hospital, they may be combative because they have a UTI or something, and (the hospital staff) automatically put them on antipsychotics,” she said.
Urinary tract infections in older adults can cause delirium and exacerbate dementia.
It’s important to note, said Wasserman, that Vicksburg and other Mississippi nursing homes with the lowest rates are not at zero. Medicine is always a judgment call, he argued, which is why incentivizing nursing homes to bring their rates down to 0% or even 2% could be harmful.
Schizophrenia is the only mental illness CMS will not penalize nursing home facilities for treating with antipsychotics in its quality care ratings. However, there are other FDA-approved uses, like bipolar disorder.
“As a physician, a geriatrician, I have to use my clinical judgment on what I think is going to help a patient,” Wasserman said. “And sometimes, that clinical judgment might actually have me using an antipsychotic in the case of someone who doesn’t have a traditional, FDA-approved diagnosis.”
In order to allow doctors the freedom to prescribe these drugs to individuals for whom they can drastically improve quality of life, Wasserman says the percentage of residents on antipsychotics can have some flexibility, but averages should stay in the single digits.
When 20 to 30% of nursing home residents are on these drugs, that means a large portion of residents are on them unnecessarily, putting them at risk of deadly side effects, Wasserman explained.
“But also, it’s just not right to give someone a drug they don’t need,” he said.
Experts have long said that staffing is one of the strongest predictors in quality of care – including freedom from unnecessary medication – which makes a recent federal action requiring a minimum staffing level for nursing homes a big deal.
The Biden administration finalized the first-ever national minimum staffing rule for nursing homes in April. The requirements will be phased in over two to three years for non-rural facilities and three to five years for rural facilities.
In Mississippi, all but two of the 200 skilled nursing facilities – those licensed to provide medical care from registered nurses – would need to increase staffing levels under the standards, according to data analyzed by Mississippi Today, USA TODAY and Big Local News at Stanford University.
Even Vicksburg Convalescent Center, which has a five-star rating on CMS’ Care Compare site and staffs “much above average,” will need to increase its staffing under the new regulations.
Mississippi homes with the highest antipsychotic rates
The six nursing homes with the highest antipsychotic rates in the state include three state-run nursing homes that share staff – including psychiatrists and licensed certified social workers – with the state psychiatric hospital, as well as three private, for-profit nursing homes in the Delta.
The three Delta nursing homes are Ruleville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Ruleville, Oak Grove Retirement Home in Duncan, and Cleveland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Cleveland. All have percentages of schizophrenic residents between 26 and 43%, according to CMS data.
Ruleville, a for-profit nursing home, had the highest rates of antipsychotic drugging in the state at 84% the last quarter of 2023. Slightly more than a third – or 39% – of the home’s residents had a schizophrenia diagnosis, and nearly half are 30-64 years old.
New York-based Donald Denz and Norbert Bennett own both Ruleville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and Cleveland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
CMS rated the Ruleville facility as one out of five stars – or “much below average” – partly due to its rates of antipsychotic drugging.
But G. Taylor Wilson, an attorney for the nursing home, cited the facility’s high percentages of depression, bipolar and non-schizophrenic psychoses as the reason for its high rate of antipsychotic drug use, and said that all medications are a result of a physician or psychiatric nurse practitioner’s order.
While CMS has identified high antipsychotic drug rates as indicative of potential overmedication, Ruleville appears to be an exception, though it’s not clear why it accepts so many mentally ill residents or why its residents skew younger.
It is unclear what, if any, special training Ruleville staff has in caring for people with mental illness. Wilson did say the home contracts with a group specializing in psychiatric services and sends residents to inpatient and outpatient psychiatric facilities when needed.
There is no special designation or training required by the state for homes that have high populations of schizophrenic people or residents with other mental illnesses. Nursing homes must conduct a pre-admission screening to ensure they have the services needed for each admitted resident, according to the Health Department.
An official with the State Health Department, which licenses and oversees nursing homes, said there are more private nursing homes that care for people with mental illness now because of a decrease in state-run mental health services and facilities.
Agency officials pointed specifically to the closure of two nursing homes run by the Department of Mental Health after the Legislature slashed millions from the agency’s budget two years in a row.
“Due to the lack of options for many individuals who suffer from mental illness, Mississippi is fortunate that we have facilities willing to care for them,” said State Health Department Assistant Senior Deputy Melissa Parker in an emailed statement to Mississippi Today.
However, the Health Department cited Ruleville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in May after a resident was allegedly killed by his roommate.
The resident who allegedly killed his roommate had several mental health diagnoses, according to the report. The state agency said that the facility for months neglected to provide “appropriate person-centered behavioral interventions” to him, and that this negligence caused the resident’s death and placed other residents in danger.
Wilson, the attorney for Ruleville, said his clients disagree with the state agency’s findings.
“The supposed conclusions reached by the (state agency) regarding Ruleville’s practices are not fact; they are allegations which Ruleville strongly disputes,” he said.
Oversight of nursing homes is limited
In 2011, U.S. Inspector General Daniel Levinson said “government, taxpayers, nursing home residents, as well as their families and caregivers should be outraged – and seek solutions” in a brief following an investigative report that kickstarted the movement against overprescription of antipsychotics in nursing homes.
“It was pretty striking,” said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to improving the lives of elderly and disabled people in residential facilities. “The Office of the Inspector General … They’re pretty conservative people. They don’t just come out and say that the public should be outraged by something.”
That landmark report showed that 88% of Medicare claims for atypical antipsychotics – the primary class of antipsychotics used today – were for residents diagnosed with dementia. The black box warning cautioning against use in elderly residents with dementia was introduced six years earlier in 2005.
But the problem persists today – and experts cite lack of oversight as one of the leading causes.
“CMS has had that whole initiative to try to reduce antipsychotics, and it’s been 10 years, and basically, they’ve had no impact,” Harrington said. “Partly because they’re just not enforcing it. Surveyors are not giving citations … So, the practice just goes on.”
Ritchie Anne Keller tries to calm a resident at the facility in Vicksburg, Miss., Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
In Mississippi, 52 nursing homes were cited 55 times in the last five years for failing to keep elderly residents free of unnecessary psychotropics, according to State Health Department data.
Barring specific complaints of abuse, nursing homes are generally inspected once a year, according to the State Health Department. In Mississippi, 54% of nursing home state surveyor positions were vacant in 2022, and 44% of the working surveyors had less than two years of experience.
During an inspection, a sample group usually consisting of three to five residents is chosen based on selection from surveyors and the computer system. That means if a nursing home is cited for a deficiency affecting one resident, that’s one resident out of the sample group – not one resident in the entire facility.
The state cited Bedford Care Center of Marion in 2019 for unnecessarily administering antipsychotics. The inspection report reveals that four months after a resident was admitted to the facility, he was prescribed an antipsychotic for “dementia with behaviors.”
The resident’s wife said her husband started sleeping 20 hours a day after starting the medication, according to the inspection report, yet the nursing home continued to administer the drug at the same dose for six months.
CMS mandates that facilities attempt to reduce dose reductions for residents on psychotropic drugs and incorporate behavioral interventions in an effort to discontinue these drugs, unless clinically contraindicated.
The facility did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today.
In another instance, Ocean Springs Health and Rehabilitation Center was cited in 2019 after the facility’s physician failed to decrease three residents’ medications as a pharmacy consultant had recommended. The inspection report says there was no documentation as to why.
Officials with the nursing home did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today.
These two incidents – and all citations for this deficiency in the last five years – were cited as “level 2,” meaning “no actual harm” as defined by federal guidelines. Facilities are not fined for these citations, and their quality care score is only minimally impacted.
“If they don’t say there’s harm, then they can’t give a fine,” Harrington said. “And even when they do give fines, they’re usually so low they have no effect. A $3,000 fine is just the cost of doing business. They don’t pay any attention to it.”
“Level 3” and “Level 4” are mostly used in extreme and unlikely situations, explained Angela Carpenter, director of long-term care at the State Health Department.
“For example,” she said, a Level 4 would be “if a person was placed on Haldol (an antipsychotic), he began having seizures, they still continued to give him the Haldol, they didn’t do a dose reduction, and the person ended up dying of a heart attack with seizures when they didn’t have a seizure disorder.”
“Actual harm” is supposed to also include psychosocial harm, according to federal guidelines, but Carpenter said psychosocial harm “can be very difficult to prove,” as it involves going back to the facility and doing multiple interviews to figure out what the individual was like before the drugs – not to mention many symptoms are attributed to the cognitive decline associated with the aging process instead of being seen as possible symptoms of medication.
Experts say the bar for “harm” is far too high.
“And that sends a message that ‘Well, you know, we gave them a drug that changes the way their brain works, and we did it unnecessarily, but you know, no harm’ – and that’s where I think the regulators really don’t have a good understanding of what is actually happening here,” said Tony Chicotel, an elder attorney in California.
‘Looking at the person as a whole’: More humane solutions
Hank Rainer, a licensed certified social worker, has worked in Mississippi nursing homes for decades. Nursing homes contract with him to train social services staff in how best to support residents and connect them with services they need.
Rainer believes there are several solutions to mitigating the state’s high rates of antipsychotic drugs. Those include training more physicians in geriatrics, increasing residents’ access to psychiatrists and licensed certified social workers, and creating more memory care units that care for people with dementia.
The nation is currently facing a severe shortage of geriatricians, with roughly one geriatrician for every 10,000 older patients. The American Geriatrics Society estimates one geriatrician can care for about 700 patients.
Because it’s rare for a nursing home to contract with a psychiatrist, most residents are prescribed medication – including for mental health disorders – by a nurse practitioner or family medicine doctor, neither of which have extensive training in psychiatry or geriatrics.
Rainer also said having more licensed certified social workers in nursing homes would better equip homes to address residents’ issues holistically.
“LCSWs are best suited to help manage behaviors in nursing homes and other settings, as they look at the person as a whole,” he said. “They don’t just carve out and treat a disease. They look at the person’s illness and behaviors in regard to the impact of environmental, social and economic influences as well as the physical illness.”
That’s not to say, he added, that some residents might not benefit most from pharmacological interventions in tandem with behavioral interventions.
Finally, creating more memory care units that have the infrastructure to care for dementia behaviors with non-medicated intervention is especially important, Rainer said, given the fact that antipsychotics not only do not treat dementia, but also pose a number of health risks to this population.
Dementia behaviors are often mistaken for psychosis, Rainer said, and having trained staff capable of making the distinction can be lifesaving. He gave an example of an 85-year-old woman with dementia who kept asking for her father.
The delusion that her father was still alive technically meets the criteria for psychosis, he said, and so untrained staff may think antipsychotic medication was an appropriate treatment.
However, trained staff would know how to implement interventions like meaningful diversional activities or validation therapy prior to the use of medications, he continued.
“The father may represent safety and they may not feel safe in the building because they don’t know anyone there,” Rainer said. “Or the father may represent home and security and warmth and they may not feel quite at home in the facility. You don’t ever agree that their dad is coming to get them. That is not validation therapy. But what you do is you try to key in under the emotional component and get them to talk about that, and redirect them at the same time.”
With more people living longer with conditions such as Alzheimer’s, good dementia care is becoming increasingly more important.
But first the nursing homes would need to find the staff, Chicotel said.
As it stands, with the vast majority of nursing homes in the country staffing below expert recommendations – nearly all nursing homes would have to increase staffing under not-yet-implemented Biden regulations, which are less stringent than federal recommendations made in 2001 – non-pharmacological, resident-centered care is hard to come by.
“Trying to anticipate needs in advance and meeting them, spending more time with people so they don’t feel so uncomfortable and distressed and scared – that’s a lot of human touch that unfortunately is a casualty when facilities are understaffed,” Chicotel explained.
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GRENADA (AP) — A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 — a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.
Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land. A concrete slab has already been poured behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from the square.
But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments.
The Grenada City Council voted to move the monument in 2020, weeks after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. The vote seemed timely: Mississippi legislators had just retired the last state flag in the U.S. that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem.
The tarps went up soon after the vote, shrouding the Confederate soldier and the pedestal he stood on. But even as people complained about the eyesore, the move was delayed by tight budgets, state bureaucracy or political foot-dragging. Explanations vary, depending on who’s asked.
A new mayor and city council took office in May, prepared to take action. On Sept. 11, with little advance notice, police blocked traffic and a work crew disassembled and removed the 20-foot (6.1-meter) stone structure.
“I’m glad to see it move to a different location,” said Robin Whitfield, an artist with a studio just off Grenada’s historic square. “This represents that something has changed.”
Still, Whitfield, who is white, said she wishes Grenada leaders had invited the community to engage in dialogue about the symbol, to bridge the gap between those who think moving it is erasing history and those who see it as a daily reminder of white supremacy. She was among the few people watching as a crane lifted parts of the monument onto a flatbed truck.
“No one ever talked about it, other than yelling on Facebook,” Whitfield said.
Mayor Charles Latham said the monument has been “quite a divisive figure” in the town of 12,300, where about 57% of residents are Black and 40% are white.
“I understand people had family and stuff to fight and die in that war, and they should be proud of their family,” Latham said. “But you’ve got to understand that there were those who were oppressed by this, by the Confederate flag on there. There’s been a lot of hate and violence perpetrated against people of color, under the color of that flag.”
The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate.
“We are prepared to pursue such avenues that may be necessary to ensure that the statue is relocated to a more suitable and appropriate location,” she wrote, suggesting a Confederate cemetery closer to the courthouse square as an alternative. She said the Ladies Cemetery Association is willing to deed a parcel to the city to make it happen.
The Confederate monument in Grenada is one of hundreds in the South, most of which were dedicated during the early 20th century when groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy sought to shape the historical narrative by valorizing the Lost Cause mythology of the Civil War.
The monuments, many of them outside courthouses, came under fresh scrutiny after an avowed white supremacist who had posed with Confederate flags in photos posted online killed nine Black people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Grenada’s monument includes images of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a Confederate battle flag. It was engraved with praise for “the noble men who marched neath the flag of the Stars and Bars” and “the noble women of the South,” who “gave their loved ones to our country to conquer or to die for truth and right.”
A half-century after it was dedicated, the monument’s symbolism figured in a voting rights march. When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders held a mass rally in downtown Grenada in June 1966, Robert Green of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference scrambled up the pedestal and planted a U.S. flag above the image of Davis.
The cemetery is a spot Latham himself had previously advocated as a new site for the monument, but he said it’s too late to change now, after the city already budgeted $60,000 for the move.
“So, who’s going to pay the city back for the $30,000 we’ve already expended to relocate this?” he said. “You should’ve showed up a year and a half ago, two years ago, before the city gets to this point.”
A few other Confederate monuments in Mississippi have been relocated. In July 2020, a Confederate soldier statue was moved from a prominent spot at the University of Mississippi to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded part of the Oxford campus. In May 2021, a Confederate monument featuring three soldiers was moved from outside the Lowndes County Courthouse in Columbus to another cemetery with Confederate soldiers.
Lori Chavis, a Grenada City Council member, said that since the monument was covered by tarps, “it’s caused nothing but more divide in our city.”
She said she supports relocating the monument but worries about a lawsuit. She acknowledged that people probably didn’t know until recently exactly where it would reappear.
“It’s tucked back in the woods, and it’s not visible from even pulling behind the fire station,” Chavis said. “And I think that’s what got some of the citizens upset.”
Jeff Duncan went from the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson on Saturday to Jerry World in Dallas on Sunday where he watched and wrote about the Saints’ total dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys. We talk about both events and also about what happened in high school and college football last weekend and what’s coming up this weekend.
Willie Jerome Manning, sentenced to death for the murder of two Mississippi State University students 30 years ago, “has had his days in court” and now an execution date can be set, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Monday.
“Petitioner has had more than a full measure of justice,” Chief Justice Michael Randolphwrote in the majority opinion joined by justices James Maxwell II, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis.
“(Victims) Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler have not. Their families have not. The citizens of Mississippi have not. Finality of justice is of great import in all cases.”
The court wrote that unnecessary and unjustified delays affect justice and fairness owed to victims and defendants, and the Mississippi Constitution directs the court to balance the rights of both.
Justices James Kitchens, Leslie King, Josiah Colemen and Robert Chamberlin did not agree and joined a dissent order.
This paves the way for the court to set Manning’s execution. Within 21 days after an entry of judgment and issue of a mandate to the trial court, the state will be able to proceed. That timeline could be delayed if there is a rehearing, which Manning’s attorneys have said they plan to pursue.
Krissy Nobile, executive director of the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, reiterated Tuesday that an execution date has not been set for her client Manning and the case will remain open until the court issues a mandate.
Last year, Lynn Fitch’s office asked the court to set execution dates for him and Robert Simon Jr., who was convicted for the murder of members of a Quitman County family in 1990. Another stay blocked execution until the court considered Manning’s petition for post-conviction relief.
The state tried to set his execution in 2013, which was blocked by a stay. The court allowed Manning to seek DNA and fingerprint testing, but after six years the results were inconclusive.
In its order, the state Supreme Court found multiple procedural bars prevented it from considering Manning’s petition.
Manning filed a petition for post-conviction relief in September 2023, and in it he maintained his innocence and raised new evidence about recanted testimony from three people and questionable firearms evidence used in his case.
The court didn’t accept arguments about newly discovered evidence, ruling his claims were already raised in previous petitions and rejected.
Attorneys presented evidence about recanted testimony from Earl Jordan, Manning’s cousin, who was in jail with him who said in court Manning confessed to killing the students.
“In the last twenty-six years, a majority of this court has never held that the evidence at trial was anything but overwhelming,” the order states. “Jordan’s recanted testimony would not have changed the verdict.”
Manning also presented a 2013 affidavit from a firearms expert that raised doubt about the scientific validity of firearms examinations and conclusions from them.
Under Brady v. Maryland, it is a violation if the state fails to provide a defendant or their defense attorneys with evidence that can be favorable or helpful to their case. The court said Manning’s claims of Brady violations through the recanted testimony have already been rejected in previous applications for post conviction relief.
In an updated version of his petition, Manning argued the court is able to make exceptions to procedural bars like it did in two other death penalty cases, which the court denied in its order.
In a four-page dissent, Kitchens wrote the court “perverts its function as an appellate court and makes factual determinations that belong squarely within the purview of the circuit court.”
If the court finds an important witness like Jordan recanted testimony and offers a reason for giving false testimony at trial, defendants are entitled to an evidentiary hearing to find whether the witness lied at trial or in an affidavit. Kitchens writes that this did not happen for Manning but has happened in other cases.
The court should remand the case to the circuit court for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether there could be a different outcome without Jordan’s testimony and the truthfulness and timeliness of his recantation, the dissent order states.
“Only then should this court consider — under the appropriate standard of review — the merits of Manning’s request for post-conviction relief,” Kitchens wrote.
In 2015, Manning was exonerated of the 1993 murders of two women in Starkville.
This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on September 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.
SOUTHAVEN, MISSISSIPPI — The training in northwest Mississippi that Cassandra Welchlin led was focused on get-out-the-vote efforts, but the longtime community organizer wanted to make space to sing.
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around …
“Come on, y’all!” Welchlin told the crowd of nearly 100, who joined in on the next verse. Turn me around …
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around. I’m gonna keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom lane …
“I am so happy to have y’all in the house,” she said at one point. “If y’all could see what I see.”
What Welchlin saw that August morning were the faces of Black women — and a lot of them. Their interests, varied and historically overlooked, are at the center of a new kind of intentional voter engagement training.
“Black women mobilize their communities,” she told The 19th. “They are the catalyst.”
Welchlin is executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, a civic engagement and policy advocacy organization whose members, all of them Black women, have traveled the state for months to host trainings called the “Power of the Sister Vote Boot Camp.”
On paper, their goal with the boot camps is an increase in voter turnout among Black women in the Mississippi counties where they visit. They also want to create a years-in-the-making pipeline to better mobilize Black women, whom Welchin views as the glue holding together democracy, especially in a state and region that continues to be impacted by policies that have historically suppressed Black voters.
“I was raised in a house of Black women — my aunties, my grandma, and then the neighborhood of elders,” she said. “I know the power of Black women taking care of Black women, and taking care of the community.”
At the trainings, Welchlin and her staff dress in military fatigues — a “boot camp” theme that has manifested into the advertisement the group uses to promote the events and the T-shirts they distribute to attendees. But there is a deeper significance.
“Voting feels like a battle in Mississippi,” she explained.
Mississippi is one of just three states that does not offer early voting to all residents, and one of eight states that does not offer online voter registration. The 12-hour window that many residents have to cast a ballot on Election Day can be difficult for people with irregular work shifts, child care responsibilities and challenges to accessing transportation.
Welchlin said she knows Black women overwhelmingly run their households. They also take on the added responsibility of getting their communities to the ballot box.
“I wanted to do something a little bit more strategic and formal that would bring excitement,” Welchlin said. “I just kind of sat with the idea of, ‘What would make people want to come?’”
Cassandra Welchlin, executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, emphasizes the role of Black women as catalysts for democracy and community change. Credit: Imani Khayyam for The 19th
Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and convener of the national Black Women’s Roundtable programming, credited Welchlin for designing a training theme that not only has the potential to turn out more voters, but could lead to more Black women becoming leaders who run for office. She added that Welchlin is taking their political power “to another level.”
“Having a Cassandra Welchlin in leadership, who’s doing unique things — there could be more Black elected officials in the state of Mississippi, because the demographics are there. But when you talk statewide, it’s not reached its full potential,” she said.
There are about 1.9 million registered voters in Mississippi, where the governor’s office, Senate and House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans. Welchlin’s group estimates that more than 123,000 Black women in the state did not vote in the past three election cycles. The group’s goal is to increase voter participation among these women by 10 percent this November. Black women voters in the counties the group has targeted for boot camps are among those who have voted most infrequently since 2021.
It’s part of why Allytra Perryman, deputy director of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, which has partnered to help host some boot camps, also sees such potential in mobilizing them.
“When you train a Black woman on how to do anything, you train a community,” she said.
On the morning of the boot camp, Velvet Scott seemed to be everywhere.
As director of civic engagement and voting rights for the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, she was ready to help roll out attendee tables and chairs; she was there to open boxes and hand materials to roundtable staff. She and Welchlin made sure the check-in table had updated registration lists, lunch was ordered and the child care in a nearby room was set up.
“Today we’re going to go through, of course, important information, but we’re going to have fun while doing it,” Scott told the women, many already wearing the matching boot camp T-shirts.
Their meeting space was attached to a church on a hill — New Hope Missionary Baptist Church — nestled along a road filled with so many churches it’s called Church Road. Among the permanent signage adorning the room were Biblical-themed messages of hope: “We will not fail nor be discouraged, till our mission is complete….”
“We welcome you today to be energized and to be educated,” said Pamela Helton, a leader within New Hope and the wife of the church pastor, in opening remarks.
Earlier, Welchlin seemed determined to shake the hands of every person who walked through the doors. For those she knew, she offered a hug. “So glad to see so many beautiful Black women,” she said at one point. “We comin’.”
When Welchlin helped host the first boot camp ahead of last year’ gubernatorial race, her organization did not collect data about the trainings. Anecdotal feedback showed a clear interest in organizing Black women around voter turnout, but the full scope of the programming’s reach in its pilot run is unclear.
“We realized that we had a gap,” Welchlin said. “But part of it had to do with capacity on our end to collect that data and do the follow-up.”
Scott, who joined the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable late last year, has committed to doing things differently. She honed a data mindset while first working in insurance, a job that brought her into the homes of Black and Brown people who increasingly sought her guidance about available social services. In 2018, Scott began volunteering at a youth-focused civic engagement organization and then joined the staff full time.
At the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, Scott tries to capture more information about the organization’s approach to community programming. That’s meant more of a focus on spreadsheets, more surveys and more individual follow-ups to ensure attendees have support afterward.
Velvet Scott, director of civic engagement and voting rights for the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, believes in the power of organizing and uplifting Black women in community spaces. Credit: Imani Khayyam for The 19th
Scott has tweaked the boot camps since they launched in April in order to make them more accessible. She’s made some trainings available on weeknights instead of Saturdays, when people tend to be most busy with family responsibilities. She has sometimes shortened the hours of programming to see if a tighter agenda keeps up engagement. She recently helped organize a virtual training.
As a mother to a newly walking toddler, she tries to think about what the attendees might need. She, like Welchlin, feels strongly about onsite child care. (During the Southaven training, Scott stepped away to breastfeed her child.) She ensures that a meal is provided during the trainings, as well as a gift card. The group set aside roughly $50,000 to run the program this election cycle, according to Scott. They’ve been under budget thanks to partnerships with other civic engagement groups.
Scott believes strongly in the power of Black women organizing their communities.
“We don’t live single-issue lives,” she said. “So to uplift Black women in the room is to say, ‘Hey, I see you. We’re going to work on this together, we’re going to be in community together, and we’re going to be in fellowship together.’”
Scott also wants to find the balance in her work. She’s tried to move away from an unspoken expectation in community organizing that she must be go-go-go. She doesn’t want to burn out, and she wants to be present with her family.
“Rest is resistance,” Scott said, who referenced research on the topic. “And advocates deserve joy.”
When Jessica Orey hears Welchlin’s singing, she perks up. Orey is attending alone, and the music comforts her.
As a young adult, Orey jumped into organizing through a local NAACP chapter. Those meetings also made space for “freedom songs” used at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s why Orey was impressed by its emphasis in Southaven.
“She’s kind of bringing back the old school type-feel of it,” Orey said of Welchlin. “Like, hey, we’re going to sing our way through. This is what’s going to push us to the next level.”
Welchlin said her mentor, Hollis Watkins, the late civil rights activist who founded the voting rights organization Southern Echo, taught her the freedom songs that he once sang at mass organizing meetings.
“It’s teaching a new generation about what the meaning of song is, and what these words mean,” she said. “And so it’s a history lesson, while it’s also a spiritual blessing to our souls.”
Sheneka Bell is also in the room alone, listening along.
At 45, Bell is a longtime voter but has not been active in voter turnout efforts. But politics continues to seep into her life — from the national debate about reproductive rights, to local property rezoning. Last year, Bell joined the local county chapter of the NAACP.
“I have a responsibility to understand what’s going on in my neighborhood and beyond,” she said.
In some ways, Orey felt compelled to be at the boot camp: Her grandmother is Delores Orey, a longtime civil rights activist who worked alongside key leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
“This is all I know. This is what Big Mama taught us,” said the 36-year-old, referring to her grandmother. “This is what Big Mama pushed for. So if any injustice is around me, it’s like, ‘What would Big Mama do?’ A lot of this stuff is ingrained. It’s a part of my DNA.”
After her grandmother died in 2014, Orey stepped back from community organizing. But she wants to get involved again, and she felt like the boot camp was a first step. Orey has since signed up for roundtable updates and alerts from several civic engagement groups. She recently participated in a GOTV event in Jackson.
“I know it’s time for me as a former advocate,” she said. “I need to get my shoes back in the game. There’s work to be done.”
Since the boot camp, Bell has looked into signing up to be a poll worker. She is open to phone banking, and recently showed her nieces how to check their voter registration statuses.
“I’m new to this space,” she said. “I’ve never done any of this before.”
Welchlin cautioned against ignoring inequity around the ballot box in Mississippi, especially as Republican lawmakers advance voting restrictions around the country. They have increasingly claimed without proof that there is widespread voter fraud, and such policies often appear in states with large Black and Brown populations.
“Mississippi is part of the fabric of the struggles in the South,” Welchlin said. “We have a history, and a muscle, and a foundation in which we have built.”
As the boot camps in Mississippi wrap up this election cycle, its ripple effect is coming into focus. A state lawmaker recently expressed interest in running a boot camp. At least one organization is now trying to offer similar programming targeting Black men. And the umbrella organization’s Michigan affiliate has reached out about replicating some of boot camp programming.
“We know that their data is going to look different, but we’re giving them the template to adjust it the way they need,” she said. “It’s a model, and Michigan is going to be testing it.”
Welchin has tried to lean into the joy of the work ahead, despite the obvious obstacles. With Black women by her side, she feels empowered to find a way.
“Good things do come from the South, and we know that Black women have been a part of making that happen,” she said.
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