OurTupelo

Editor’s note: Historian Derrion Arrington reflects on early positions taken by Robert Clark, who in 1967 became the first Black Mississippian elected to the state Legislature in the 20th century, and how those issues championed by Clark are being addressed today.

Before Robert Clark Jr. broke barriers as Mississippi’s first Black legislator since Reconstruction in 1968, he spent two decades in classrooms.

From 1953 to 1973 he taught in secondary and postsecondary schools across the state, cultivating a reputation as a principled educator before turning full-time to politics.

Clark often spoke of his ambition to lead the House Education Committee – a goal realized in 1977 when House Speaker C.B. “Buddie’ Newman appointed him after George Rogers left to join President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

But Clark’s early years in the Mississippi Legislature were marked not by influence, but by isolation.

He frequently stood as the lone dissenting vote on major legislation, a solitary figure challenging the prevailing political order. That isolation reached a defining moment in January 1970 as Mississippi braced for federally mandated school desegregation.

In his statewide address that month, Gov. John Bell Williams acknowledged the end of the segregated system but urged parents to embrace “freedom of choice” between public and private schools. His somber words reflected a region still resisting change.

The governor framed the proposal as empowering parents, but critics warned it masked efforts to preserve segregation through state-supported private academies.

Clark was blunt in his rebuttal. Williams’ plan, he argued, would “only weaken the already poor educational system we have in Mississippi” by funneling public dollars into private institutions.

On March 20, when the House overwhelmingly endorsed the governor’s proposal for freedom of choice, Clark cast the lone vote against it. “How

long are we in Mississippi going to keep on ignoring the mandates of the Constitution?” he asked, warning that the bill would only deepen public unrest.

His solitary stand highlighted the fault lines of an education system caught between progress and preservation.

In the early months of 1970, Clark was vocal in his criticism of both local and national leadership.

That January, President Richard Nixon’s domestic advisers floated the idea of forming a “blue ribbon Southern group” to address school desegregation.

Although Nixon publicly supported the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to desegregate the public schools, calling it both constitutionally and morally correct, he remained careful not to interfere with ongoing court cases. His administration drew a strategic line: address only de jure segregation, dismiss de facto concerns.

“Call it de facto and drop it,” Nixon instructed his officials, aiming to avoid broader federal enforcement of integration policies.

While Nixon’s statements gave some Black leaders reason for cautious optimism, they did little to sway Clark. He continued to push for grassroots solutions to empower the Black community.

On Jan. 11, 1970,  Clark convened a coalition of civil rights and education leaders at the Mississippi Teachers Association office in Jackson. Representing organizations like the NAACP, the National Education Association and the Freedom Democratic Party, the group laid the groundwork for the Educational Resources Center (ERC). The initiative aimed to ensure Black Mississippians could engage in a unitary school system with “dignity and integrity,” contributing meaningfully to community education.

Still, legislative battles raged on. In early February, two measures aimed at bolstering private schools passed through the Mississippi House. One reduced licensing costs for private school buses. The other bill allowed individuals aged 16 and above to take out loans for private education. Clark condemned the bills as unconstitutional, calling them indirect tax subsidies that favored segregationist academies. He predicted they would not survive judicial scrutiny.

The tension escalated further when Williams vetoed $5 million in funding for four Head Start programs, affecting roughly 4,000 children.

Clark wrote directly to President Nixon, denouncing the move as racially charged and harmful to efforts at voluntary school integration. The veto, he argued, deepened distrust and discouraged white participation in the programs.

In a rare federal intervention, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare responded to Clark’s appeal. On March 21, Secretary Robert Finch overrode the governor’s decision, approving over $2 million in grants to sustain the Head Start programs. The move highlighted the federal government’s growing role in supporting early childhood education in underserved communities.

As court-ordered integration took effect across the South, Mississippi saw a sharp rise in the establishment of private “segregation academies.” Many white families fled public schools, seeking what they framed as “quality” education. Clark remained a fierce critic of this exodus and the state’s continued financial support for private institutions, calling instead for full investment in public education.

A quarter-century later, the issue of school choice has returned to the forefront.

President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called school choice “the civil rights issue of our time,” secured a provision in his signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act creating the nation’s first federal school choice program.

The program, built on tax credit scholarships, allows taxpayers to donate up to $1,700 annually to nonprofits supporting private education, receiving a dollar-for-dollar credit in return. Unlike traditional deductions, which reduce taxable income, the program provides a full match – an unprecedented shift in education funding. In August 2025, Mississippi’s House Select Committee on Education Freedom heard testimony from two Trump administration officials, who argued the program could transform educational opportunities in the state.

Still, echoes of 1970 remain. Some lawmakers questioned whether school choice could erode public education or clash with constitutional provisions, just as Clark once argued decades earlier. Lindsey Burke, the Trump administration’s deputy chief of staff fo policy and programs, insisted the plan does not violate the Mississippi Constitution.

“The funds are not directly funding a school,” she said. “They are funding the family who then chooses a school.”

Mississippi once again finds itself at the center of debates over educational freedom.

The state has embraced modern versions of school choice—charter schools, vouchers, education savings accounts and open enrollment.

Supporters argue these programs empower parents and give children trapped in failing schools a way out. Critics warn they echo the old “freedom-of-choice” system, draining money from public schools and worsening racial and economic divides.

Legally, these programs are constitutional—for now. Courts have generally upheld vouchers and charters, even when public money flows to religious schools, as in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin.

But Mississippi’s Constitution also requires lawmakers to maintain a system of free public schools. If funding shifts too heavily toward private or religious institutions, the state could face lawsuits challenging whether it is meeting that obligation.

The real test may not be in the courtroom, but in classrooms across Mississippi. If “choice” results in further segregation or starves public schools of resources, it risks repeating history – reviving the very inequalities the courts once declared unconstitutional.

In a press release regarding the establishment of a select committee, Mississippi House Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, emphasized that “education freedom” will be the foremost priority as lawmakers prepare for the upcoming legislative session.

The committee met several more times in the following months to gather testimony from both supporters and critics. Lawmakers will use these findings to draft legislation for the 2026 session, ensuring the debate over who controls Mississipp’s classrooms—and how they receive funding—will continue to be unresolved.

Bio: Derrion Arrington is an award-winning historian from Laurel and a graduate of Tougaloo College. He currently works for the ACLU of Mississippi. Arrington is also the author of two books: “Standing Firm in the Dixie: The Freedom Struggle in Laurel, Mississippi” and the forthcoming work, “Robert Clark: The Rise of Black Politics in Mississippi.”

Tameshia Williams, a single mom of four in Jackson who works as an elder aide, was kicked off Mississippi’s food stamp program in October despite being eligible. She says she was not informed of an upcoming appointment in the mail until after the appointment passed – a reality she worries will be the new normal for many families now that the federal government mandated more red tape for the program. 

“And then that puts you in a position where now you have to recertify completely, and you got to turn in extra paperwork, and now you have to wait til they work your case back up, and now you’re behind on getting food,” Williams said. 

Stricter work requirements for food stamps went into effect in November, putting 33,000 Mississippians at risk of losing their benefits, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The new work requirements were signed into law by President Donald Trump over the summer, alongside a major reduction in federal funding for food assistance. The cuts will hit Mississippi harder than many states because of the state’s high poverty and hunger rates. 

Mississippi will have to pay the price for its high error rates in eligibility determinations. That rate measures how accurately each state determines if a person is eligible to receive benefits, and states with error rates over 10% will have to pay the maximum 15% in benefits. That, in addition to administrative costs, means Mississippi will have to put up about $140 million in costs previously covered by the federal government to run its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the next two years. The new costs will drastically affect the state’s priorities, experts say. 

The temporary loss of food aid from the recent government shutdown – and its immediate effect on hunger – showed the country how many Americans live paycheck to paycheck and rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, said Theresa Lau, senior policy counsel at the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

“We saw a lot of families really struggling to make ends meet,” Lau said. “What we learned is you can’t ‘food bank’ your way out of this crisis.”

About 1 in 8 Mississippians — nearly 400,000 people  — receive food assistance through SNAP. More than 67% of participants are in households with children, and about 41% are in households with older adults or adults with a disability. In four Mississippi counties, over a third of residents rely on the program to purchase food, according to a report from WLBT. 

Mississippi is one of 15 states where SNAP expenditures will rise more than 300% as a result of the new law, according to the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. Twenty-three governors signed a letter to Congressional leadership stating they may be forced to end their state SNAP programs and outlining the harm this would do to their constituents, but Gov. Tate Reeves was not one of them. 

The Mississippi Department of Human Services, responsible for implementing the state’s SNAP program, is already bracing for this change. In September, Bob Anderson, head of the department, asked the Legislature for $15 million to cover the administrative portion of the program. Meanwhile, Anderson stayed quiet on child care requests despite more than 19,000 families having lost access to vouchers that made child care affordable since pandemic-era funds dried up. 

Last year, before mounting SNAP costs created greater strain on the state’s budget, Anderson asked the Legislature for $15 million to make a dent in the growing waitlist for child care vouchers. 

“SNAP currently serves around 350,000 Mississippians while child care (serves) around 24,000,” Chief Communications Officer Mark Jones told Mississippi Today. “Unfortunately, tough decisions must be made in preparing a budget.”

Experts expect these kinds of priority equations to become more common in the coming years. 

“That’s something we’re very worried about as states try to balance their budgets and have these millions of dollars they need to put up in order to get federal SNAP dollars,” Lau said.

Do work requirements work?

Work requirements already exist for the SNAP program, but the new federal law will expand them to people previously exempt: adults aged 55 to 65 and parents of children aged 14 and older. Everyone subject to the requirements will have to prove they are working, going to school or training at least 80 hours a month, or that they qualify for one of the exemptions. 

About three-quarters of SNAP beneficiaries work or are in between jobs, and another 20% are attending school, taking care of a family member, or have a health condition or disability, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Opponents of the reporting requirements say the policy doesn’t take into consideration the barriers keeping people from steady employment, such as low pay, discrimination, and lack of paid parental leave and affordable health insurance. 

“Work requirements don’t improve job outcomes, they just take food away from people,” said Lau. “In rural areas where jobs are very limited, work reporting requirements often force people to volunteer in order to qualify and essentially what that means is they’re providing unpaid labor.”

They are also costly to implement and often cause eligible beneficiaries to be kicked off because of administrative errors – something that already happens. 

Amaya Jones, a Jackson mom of two who works full-time at Kroger, said her caseworker recently told her she would have to submit SNAP paperwork via mail rather than online, only to later be told the office never received it. Jones said she believes they do things like this “to make it harder” for people to get assistance. 

“They want you to send things by mail, they claim they don’t get it, you go in and the people give you attitude,” Jones said. “It’s the communication. One minute you have this caseworker, and the next it’s another caseworker. You don’t know if you’re going or coming.”

When Mississippi’s Medicaid office began its “unwinding” process in 2023 – reviewing its rolls for the first time since the pandemic – 75% of the dropped enrollees lost coverage due to “procedural errors.” Now, experts think Mississippians will live to see a similar trend with the state’s SNAP program. 

The added burden of red tape will be exacerbated by aging technology that fails to support these administrative overhauls, resulting in qualified people losing access to food, explained Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Tax and Income Supports Division at the Urban Institute. 

“We’re up now against the fact that a lot of states have not really been able to fully upgrade their technology in a way that helps them manage things nimbly,” Waxman explained. “Replacing your state’s administrative systems is usually not high on any legislator’s list of priorities, but we do pay the price for that later.”

Between the immediate administrative costs and the roughly $120 million Mississippi will have to pitch in for benefits next fiscal year, Waxman said the state cannot rule out the possibility of having to close the program altogether. 

“We would expect to see very high levels of hardship, higher rates of poverty and poorer health outcomes,” said Waxman. “Local stores and producers would also experience negative consequences because there would be far fewer dollars available to buy their products. And the charitable food system wouldn’t be able to fully fill the gap, even for a short time.”

Not only are food banks not equipped to take up the slack for a scenario as catastrophic as the end of a state’s SNAP program, but they also can’t offer the freedom of choice or the selection of healthy meats and produce that supermarkets do. 

Schelika Chisolm runs Tupelo’s Salvation Army branch with her husband, Michael Chisolm. She’s organized the food in a way that people can shop for what they want, because she knows it boosts morale and makes life easier for people with allergies and parents of small children. 

“It’s about being able to feel like there’s something you can control and something you can make a choice about,” Chisholm said. “You feel happy to know that what you have in your cart is something your kids will eat.”

But she said she still can’t offer the variety of fresh and healthy foods that a supermarket does. Many food pantries don’t offer people any choice, giving out pre-packed boxes for efficiency. Chisolm said she hopes the SNAP program continues to be as accessible as possible for those trapped in cycles of poverty. 

“Those that are in need already have barriers they’re trying to overcome, whether it’s transportation, working a minimum wage job, trying to provide for multiple people in your home or taking care of an elderly parent – they already have barriers,” Chisholm said. “I hope we don’t make it less possible for them to complete the process.”

What does a year look like across Mississippi? It looks like workdays, storms, wins, grief and quiet moments. This photo review brings together images by Mississippi Today photojournalists Vickie D. King and Eric J. Shelton. The photos span January through December 2025 across towns, cities and rural roads. Assignments took us to courtrooms, political debates, classrooms, fields, churches and front porches. We worked separate beats and shared the same goal. We recorded daily life as it happened.

Eddie Parker stood in a courtroom facing the former Mississippi law enforcement officers who were convicted of torturing him and one of his friends. Some of the ex-officers wore red-striped outfits that identified them as the most dangerous inmates behind bars.

Parker, a 33-year-old Black man, had survived the abuse of these white officers, most of whom were part of a self-styled group called the “Goon Squad.” 

On the fateful night of Jan. 24, 2023, he heard officers kick in the door.

“I saw the devil come to me,” he told the judge in the sentencing hearing, “in my home, where I was supposed to have been safe.”

They had handcuffed him and his friend, Michael Jenkins, before they shocked them with Tasers, shoved a dildo into their mouths and poured liquids over their nostrils. 

Parker feared he would suffer the fate of his father, whose lung disease caused him to die gasping for air, he said. “I felt like I was dying and drowning at the same time.”

Not long after, a deputy jammed his gun inside Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger. The bullet missed Jenkins’ spine and shattered his jaw.

In the courtroom, Parker stared at another deputy, the one he called a “devil” because he said he had overseen the violence that night. Parker told the judge, “He shouldn’t be let loose.”

That 29-year-old former deputy sat there, numb, wondering what the judge’s words would be.

In a series of exclusive interviews through phone calls and hundreds of emails with Mississippi Today over the past year, Christian Dedmon talked about the fraternity he found in law enforcement and his descent into cruelty. “I see Michael Jenkins bleeding in my sleep sometimes,” he said. “It is a nightmare I will spend the rest of my life paying for.”

‘Mindless murderers and sadistic torturers’

As early as he can remember, Dedmon hated drugs.

He hated what they did to his parents. He hated what they did to his friends. He even refused to take pain medication after being injured.

Born in 1994, he grew up as an only child in the shadow of Mississippi’s capital in the suburban city of Pearl. He was 2 when his parents divorced, and he bounced between them, from rental home to apartment to trailer.

One night when he was 12, he helped his father repossess a car. When they began to hook the car to the tow truck, people rushed out, screaming. During the tumult, his father closed the hydraulic arm too fast, cutting off two fingers from Dedmon’s left hand.

Doctors managed to reattach his index finger but could only save half his thumb. Four other surgeries followed, and Dedmon missed most of sixth grade. A few years later, he moved out, dropped out of high school and drove tow trucks, just like his dad.

He was 16 when he heard of a horrific murder in Jackson, Mississippi. A Black man, James C. Anderson, had been beaten and run over with a truck.

Then he heard that his first cousin, Deryl Dedmon, was involved in the attack with other Rankin County residents, most of them in their early 20s.

He felt sick. How could anyone do such a thing?

To support his cousin, Christian Dedmon attended the sentencing hearing, where U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves talked about the lynchings of more than 4,700 Black Americans between 1882 and 1968.

The judge detailed how this white mob of teenagers, like marauders of the past, invaded the city of Jackson, which they called “Jafrica.” They beat Black homeless men. They beat a Black man at a service station. They beat a Black man at a golf course who begged for his life.

“Like a lynching, for these young folk going out to ‘Jafrica’ was like a carnival outing,” the judge said. “It was funny to them — an excursion which culminated in the death of innocent, African-American James Craig Anderson. On June 26, 2011, the fun ended.”

Reeves posed a question that could have been asked later of the Goon Squad officers: “How could hate, fear or whatever it was transform genteel, God-fearing, God-loving Mississippians into mindless murderers and sadistic torturers?”

Deryl Dedmon, who ran over Anderson with his truck, received 50 years in prison.

Pam Lantrip, said her grandson, Christian Dedmon, was “really upset about his cousin going to prison for what was essentially a life sentence.”

She never dreamed this grandson, the one who never got into trouble, would be next.

Law enforcement became the ‘brotherhood’

While Dedmon was still a teen, a police officer he knew from deer camp invited him to ride along. Dedmon grew up cheering Chuck Norris as he beat up the bad guys on television, and now these rides lit “a fire within me,” he recalled.

At age 19, he became a 911 dispatcher for the Pearl Police Department, finished high school and got married. Months later, he learned his wife was pregnant. They listened to the baby’s heartbeat, and the obstetrician said everything looked fine.

Days later, she began to bleed, and he rushed her to the emergency room. A sonogram revealed there was no heartbeat. They wept at the awful news, the first of three miscarriages.

On the 15th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attack, Dedmon enrolled at the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers Training Academy. He graduated weeks before Christmas in 2016. 

Two months later, he and his wife had a daughter, their miracle baby, and Dedmon vowed to be “the daddy that I did not have.”

He worked as a patrol officer for Pearl police, and law enforcement became the “brotherhood” he had never experienced.

Not long after he joined the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department in 2017, his mother was arrested for selling meth. Inside her home, officers said they also found heroin, marijuana, fentanyl and a firearm.

“I spent his entire life trying to protect him from the world and from anyone who could hurt him,” recalled his mother, Jennifer Williams, “but at the end of the day I was the one who hurt him the worst.”

Dedmon said Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey asked him if he was going to have a problem with his mother being jailed there. Dedmon replied no, but the truth was, he was devastated. He said her arrest made him even more determined to get drugs off the street.

He spent extra time stopping cars and searching them. Through that work, he met narcotics investigator Brett McAlpin. All the meth users seemed to know McAlpin’s name.

Dedmon idolized McAlpin like a big brother. He said McAlpin convinced him they had to do more than arrest those using or selling drugs. They had to make these drug abusers pay. 

McAlpin taught him how to hit people so their injuries wouldn’t show up in their jail mugshots, and he didn’t use a Taser because it recorded every time it was used, Dedmon said. Instead, McAlpin “carried a huge piece of wire on his vest that would hurt if you were hit with it,” he said.

To get people to talk, McAlpin fired his gun in the air — a tactic that often worked, Dedmon said.

The pair didn’t stop there. Together, they destroyed the property of those they believed were using or selling drugs. They smashed food into people’s faces, berated them and told them to leave Rankin County. 

To get confessions, officers sometimes shoved guns into people’s mouths, and behind office doors, investigators would hit people “with phone books and whatever,” Dedmon said. “It’s daily operations up there.”

He came to believe this approach made their community safer for children, he said. “We made people scared to sell drugs, to use drugs or to steal.”

He realizes now how wrong that was. “My job was to clean up the streets while following the Constitution,” he said, “not to be the judge and jury in place of a failed justice system.”

Those who embraced McAlpin’s ways could go on “missions” with him, Dedmon recalled. Over the years, he said, more than a dozen different deputies joined in those missions.

Some deputies, however, steered clear of McAlpin and Dedmon. Two deputies from that time said they didn’t trust the pair because they had heard stories about those missions.

Some of them warned Dedmon about hanging out with McAlpin, who had a reputation for excessive force. “He wouldn’t listen,” recalled one former deputy, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. 

In January, Sheriff Bailey testified in a lawsuit that he knew nothing about the violence carried out by Dedmon, McAlpin and the others. 

Dedmon responded that “people being mistreated was no secret to anyone.” As long as he filled out a use-of-force report, the sheriff “didn’t give a shit what I did,” Dedmon said. “That took care of it.”

Mississippi Today and The New York Times corroborated at least 17 incidents involving 22 victims, based on witness interviews, medical records, photographs of injuries and other documents. Allegations in these incidents include everything from melting metal onto a bare leg to using a Taser to shock people in their genitals.

Dedmon estimates he arrested hundreds of people a year. Those included many cases where he said officers raided homes without warrants, beat people to get information and illegally seized evidence that helped convict people of drug crimes.

Despite this evidence of possible wrongful convictions, the state of Mississippi has yet to conduct a review of all the cases involving Dedmon and other officers now in prison.

Sheriff became the father he never had

In 2019, Dedmon was involved in three deadly shootings, firing the fatal shot in one of them. Each time, he saw a therapist, who signed the paper for him to return to work. Each time, he was back on the street in a few days.

Afterward, Sheriff Bailey bragged about his young deputy, who became Rankin County’s “Top Cop” for the year. “When we would go to political functions, he would say I was the ‘deadliest motherf—er in Rankin County’ to his friends and people around, being funny,” Dedmon recalled. “I never found it very funny.”

In fall 2019, McAlpin became the department’s top investigator. Former deputies said he became the sheriff’s right-hand man.

When the question arose about who would replace the veteran investigator, few doubted it would be Dedmon. Former deputies said they admired Dedmon’s hard work but bristled at his arrogance.

The new job was a dream come true for the 25-year-old Dedmon. He began to arrest as many people as he could, including his own father for meth possession.

Bailey became the father he never had. And like a son, Dedmon wanted to please his father. He said he did everything the sheriff asked him to do, including working with jail inmates to muck out the chicken houses of the sheriff’s mother.

In return, Dedmon and his wife said Bailey bought them an elegant dinner on Valentine’s Day. Other gifts followed. Dedmon said the sheriff made him executor for his will, promising him $50,000, a half-dozen guns and a flatbed Dodge truck. Family members and friends recalled Dedmon telling them this.

Dedmon said the sheriff had him handle cases involving personal or political connections. For instance, although he worked as a narcotics investigator, he said Bailey assigned him to investigate a near-fatal attack in 2019, carried out by the brother of Bailey’s girlfriend.

Clint Pennington slashed his wife so badly that doctors had to put more than 80 stitches in her back. “I am in constant fear — fear that he will somehow try to hurt me again,” his then-wife, Amanda, wrote. “I never feel safe.”

After Pennington pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic violence, the judge sentenced him to five years in prison. Pennington served his time instead at the Simpson County Jail, where he became a trusty. He walked free on Sept. 6, 2024, after spending three years and four months behind bars.

Dedmon said by doing such favors for the sheriff, he received “the power to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, but it came with a price.”

His wife filed for divorce in 2020. “He was married to his job,” she said, asking not to be named for fear of retribution. “If he heard on the radio that somebody’s house was burning, he was out the door. If a child was missing, he was out the door. If a storm left a road blocked, he was out the door with a chainsaw.”

After a heated argument with Dedmon, she said she complained to McAlpin, who chastised her, “We are alpha males, and you can’t treat us like this.”

That moment made her realize she would receive no sympathy from this brotherhood, she said. “That was Christian’s family.”

The fateful ‘mission’

On the evening of Jan. 24, 2023, thunder rumbled as Dedmon prepared to fry venison for him and Josh Hartfield, a narcotics investigator for Richland Police Department, who had come by to chat. 

Dedmon’s cellphone rang. It was McAlpin. The chief investigator fumed about the home near where he lived in Braxton. A neighbor had seen “suspicious” Black men at the house owned by a white woman.

Dedmon knew the home well. In recent years, several narcotics arrests had taken place there, and two years earlier, he had worked a drug homicide inside the home.

He said McAlpin told him to look out for cameras, lock up everyone there and make sure there were no bad mugshots.

The deputy asked Hartfield if he wanted to go. He did.

Dedmon texted fellow deputies and asked if they could go on a mission. Lt. Jeffrey Middleton, whose shift was called the “Goon Squad,” replied yes. So did patrol deputies Hunter Elward and Daniel Opdyke.

After they arrived, Dedmon and others kicked in the carport door. Harfield kicked open the back door.

For the two Black men inside, Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins, the nightmare had just begun.

For an hour and a half, officers tortured the two men. After Jenkins continued to deny he knew anything about drugs, Elward jammed his pistol inside Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger. 

Click.

The gun didn’t fire because the deputy had unloaded the chamber.

He racked the slide again, and when Jenkins repeated that he knew nothing, Elward pulled the trigger again. This time, a bullet smashed through Jenkins’ tongue and shattered his jaw.

As Jenkins lay bleeding, the officers dashed outside. Dedmon recalled McAlpin yelling, “Let me think, let me think.”

The officers planted drugs, disposed of evidence of their crimes and created a cover story. McAlpin and Middleton warned officers that if they failed to stick to this story, “they could find us all dead together,” Dedmon recalled.

When the two supervisors later saw Dedmon texting on his cellphone, they demanded to know who he was talking to, he recalled. He said they glared at him when he told them he was letting his girlfriend know he would be late.

Dedmon called for an ambulance, and when the sheriff arrived, the officers shared their concocted story of seizing the two men’s drugs and shooting Jenkins in self-defense. Bailey seemed satisfied.

When the sheriff saw that two deputies had turned off their body cameras, he became upset. He expected them to be turned on, but, as he later testified, he didn’t realize there was an exception for narcotics operations.

This wasn’t the only thing Bailey was upset about, according to two deputies present. They said Bailey mentioned the deadline to file for running for sheriff was Feb. 1, eight days from then.

Dedmon said Bailey called it “a bad time for him to have drama that close to an election qualification” because “someone else could put their name in the hat to run for election.”

Opdyke, another deputy there, said Bailey “was upset because it would bring bad publicity — as if we would’ve waited until after he was elected again, he would’ve swept it under the rug and we would’ve all been fine.”

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which investigates every officer-involved shooting, issued a press release: “Rankin County Sheriff’s Department deputies were conducting a narcotics investigation when they encountered a subject that displayed a gun towards the deputies. The subject was transported to a nearby hospital.”

The next day, Dedmon said the sheriff texted him, saying his Taser use would have the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department on the national news. His Taser had been fired four times and Elward’s, eight times.

Hartfield had denied using his Taser, but an internal investigation at the Richland Police Department determined he had fired it five times. The department demoted him, suspended him for two weeks without pay and placed him on administrative leave with pay.

At the Sheriff’s Department, McAlpin and Middleton continued to supervise their divisions. Dedmon, however, was assigned desk duty. “I felt sad, scared and miserable,” he said. “No one would speak to me, so I just started staying home.”

He saw the situation as a lose-lose proposition: Say nothing and risk prison time. Or tell the truth and risk being killed.

‘I knew my life was over’

Dedmon headed for the woods dressed in camouflage. He had his .270 Remington rifle. It was still deer season, his favorite time of year. Today, he had another prey in mind: himself.

He arrived before dawn and sat in the deer stand, watching the dark sky brighten into blue. Soon, streaks of yellow appeared. Then orange and red.

When a buck wandered up, Dedmon said he stared through the scope at the antlers stretching in all directions. He took aim but couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.

After the deer disappeared, he fired the rifle. The sound spooked him, and he left.

Each morning that followed, he had a different excuse for why he shouldn’t kill himself. One day, he worried about his daughter. On another, he thought suicide seemed scarier than what he would face behind bars. On yet another, he trembled at the thought of facing God for what he had done.

“I was caught between wanting to drink myself to death, tell the truth or just end it all,” he said. “I knew my life was over.”

Middleton and McAlpin kept reaching out to make sure he stuck to the cover story, Dedmon said. McAlpin had cheered on the torture of the two men, but now he wanted “to make it look like he was never on the scene. He used me to do it and threatened to kill me if I changed my mind.”

But when MBI agents began to question that story, McAlpin grew paranoid, Dedmon said. “He started acting insane.”

Dedmon continued to spiral downward. No longer receiving overtime pay for his narcotics work, he struggled financially. He said he texted the sheriff and asked if he could work on the chicken farm for extra money.

The sheriff never texted back, but a deputy showed up with a sealed envelope, Dedmon said. After the deputy left, he tore it open and counted the cash: $1,000.

‘Policemen can’t go to jail’

On July 13, 2023, Deputy Daniel Opdyke met with FBI agents, federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials. This time, he shared the whole story of what happened that night.

McAlpin confronted Dedmon outside a gas station. “He told me he was going to talk to the feds the following day and wanted to be sure I was going to continue to lie about him not being there,” Dedmon recalled. “He said, ‘Our lives are on the line. Don’t f— it up.’”

Dedmon was the last deputy to talk with the feds, and he volunteered little. Not long after, his attorney, Michael Cory, called and told him the feds were estimating he would receive a 24-year prison sentence. If he didn’t plead guilty, he was told, the feds planned to also indict him for kidnapping.

Cory said he let Dedmon know that he wasn’t so sure about the 24-year figure, given what he estimated the range would be under the federal sentencing guidelines.

Dedmon thought about his life. The joy he felt in becoming a law enforcement officer. The joy he felt in becoming a father. And now the despair he felt about serving more than two decades in prison. 

That meant he would miss his daughter’s high school graduation. He would miss her leaving home. He might even miss walking her down the aisle at her wedding.

The night before pleading guilty, he handed his law enforcement certificate and awards over to Nick McLendon, chief of the Richland Police Department, and asked him to use these items to warn cadets at the training academy about compromising their integrity.

The next day, Dedmon pleaded guilty to federal charges in the torture of Jenkins and Parker and spent his first night in jail. When his 7-year-old daughter learned that he wouldn’t be coming home, Dedmon’s mother quoted her as saying, “What do you mean he’s in jail? Policemen can’t go to jail.”

‘If the gun had not gone off that night…’

Hours after five of his deputies pleaded guilty to federal charges on Aug. 3, 2023, Bailey held a press conference, where he apologized to the victims but never mentioned them by name. 

He placed his hand on his chest. “My moral boundary is set by my Christian faith,” Bailey said. “Do I cross that boundary? Sometimes I do. These guys were so far past that boundary, it’s unbelievable.”

Asked how he didn’t know what these deputies were doing, he replied, “That’s what I have supervisors for.” What he didn’t mention was that two of his supervisors had been among those pleading guilty.

When a reporter said some residents were calling for his resignation, the sheriff laughed. “The only thing I’m guilty of in this incident is trusting grown men that swore an oath to do their job correctly.”

Asked if he thought these deputies could have committed similar acts in the past, Bailey replied, “I’d say anything is possible right now.”

Dedmon said for the sheriff “to act as if these five guys are the only people under his nose that used unnecessary force is a lie.”

Asked about Dedmon’s allegations, the department’s attorney, Jason Dare, responded that Dedmon is “a convicted felon – convicted of falsifying evidence.”

An investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times has revealed that a loose-knit group of Rankin County deputies had carried out a campaign of terror for two decades. They barged into homes in the middle of the night and tortured people they suspected of buying or selling drugs until they shared information.

“If the gun had not gone off that night and shot one of the victims through the mouth, there is a good chance the Goon Squad would still be operating,” said Jackson lawyer Jeffrey Reynolds, who represented Opdyke.

‘He hid behind his badge and gun’

The day before his sentencing on March 24, 2024, Dedmon heard on the radio that Elward had received 20 years in prison. He figured his sentence would be close to that. Twenty-two people had written letters of support, and some planned to testify.

An hour before his sentencing, his lawyer told him the judge was going to give him 40 years. “It was like being struck by lightning,” Dedmon recalled. “He told me it would do zero good for any of my character witnesses to speak, that Judge Lee had his mind made up.”

In the courtroom, Michael Jenkins called Dedmon “the worst example of a police officer in the United States.”

In a statement, Jenkins said, “Every time I try to take a bite of food, the pain reminds me of what happened that night. All the things I used to enjoy doing in my life have been affected.”

The gunshot wound to the jaw has affected both his singing and drumming at church, he said. At night, he wakes up covered in sweat because of nightmares of the attack, he said. “I’m broken inside. I don’t ever think I will be the person that I was.”

Dedmon’s attorney told the judge the torture that took place that night was nothing new. “Everybody knew that was the culture of the department,” he said.

McAlpin, who received 27 years, put the whole attack in motion by ordering Dedmon to take care of the problem, the attorney said. “It’s an injustice to sentence Christian Dedmon to significantly more time than his supervisor, who was there, who initiated it, who didn’t stop it.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Chalk said Dedmon faced an additional charge  in an unrelated case for firing his gun to try and scare a confession out of a man he had pulled over to the side of the road. Although he was young, he knew what he was doing, she said. “He hid behind his badge and gun.”

Dedmon apologized to Parker and Jenkins, saying he would never forgive himself for what he did. “If I could take every bit of it back, I promise you I would, or if I could take it myself, I would.”

A year after the sentencings, Parker told Mississippi Today that he forgives his torturers. “I do, because they know not what they did,” he said. “That’s the way God put it on my heart.”

What concerns him is that other officers involved in similar conduct have yet to face charges. “They got nothing, not even a slap on the wrist,” he said. “It’s scary knowing that kind of danger is out there, walking free.”

For more than a year, Parker said he never left the house where he was tortured. After he began to leave, officers sometimes pulled him over and searched his car. He said he welcomed these searches because it gave him an opportunity to share his story.

But after Louisiana officers searched his car on Dec. 17, they arrested him. He now faces charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy. He is also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Parker had a felony in Rankin County for failing to “stop vehicle pursuant to officer’s signal” and was convicted in Alabama in 2019 for drug possession with intent to distribute.

Dedmon said he finds no joy in Parker’s arrest. “Prison is a very traumatic experience, and it would be very hard for me to wish this on anyone,” he said. “I truly wish him the best and pray that he uses this opportunity to turn his life around before he ends up with a sentence as lengthy as mine.”

‘Hell of a brotherhood, isn’t it?’

Dedmon said he entered law enforcement, “not as a devil, but to make a difference in the community.”

He doesn’t blame Jenkins and Parker for seeing him that way. “I can’t change their view of me,” he said. “I can only change the man I am from this point forward.”

He said he thanks God that Jenkins “is alive. Nothing about me matters.”

These days in prison, he sits with others battling suicidal thoughts. “I’m expected to set an example,” he said, “yet on the inside I’m dying.”

His life brightened in June when he married his longtime girlfriend. There was no ceremony. Instead, a Kansas pastor wed the pair by phone.

He is slated to be released from prison in 2057 — three years after his cousin, Deryl. By that time, Dedmon will be celebrating his 63rd birthday and eligible for Social Security.

“I’m sitting here with a life sentence while a number of those who did the same kinds of things I did have gotten promotions,” he said. “Hell of a brotherhood, isn’t it?”

A third of Mississippi school districts are behind on submitting completed annual financial audits to the state Department of Education.

Without that information, state education officials are in the dark about current finances at 47 of Mississippi’s 138 public school districts, including any pending financial emergencies.

State Education Department leaders hope to crack down on schools with late audits in the near future, agency officials said Thursday during a state Board of Education meeting. They introduced a plan that would impose stricter sanctions on delinquent districts, including withholding funds as punishment. 

Audits are how the state Education Department monitors its schools’ finances. Districts are required to hire accounting firms approved by the state auditor’s office to perform these annual audits, which it approves.

But in 2011, the state auditor’s office lost a significant number of its staff, education officials said. While the auditor’s office caught up on audit reviews, schools had up to four years to submit late audits without being docked on their state accountability scores, two more years than before. 

Districts also received extensions to complete their audits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The deadline reverted back to March during the 2022-23 school year, and many districts missed it because of the earlier due date and staff shortages at accounting firms.

The state Board of Education held districts harmless for violations that school year, but previous violations still applied and accumulated toward the districts’ records. 

So the audits have snowballed. 

“It’s just a bad situation,” State Superintendent Lance Evans told Mississippi Today this week. “We have fewer auditing firms than we had, and districts have to have the same audits done every year, and it’s just …  it’s turned into an issue. Something’s gotta be addressed.”

The pile-up can mask emergencies, such as the financial situation in Okolona that led to a state takeover last month.

In late October, Okolona Municipal Separate School District officials contacted the state Department of Education because the district did not have enough money to meet the November payroll. Education Department officials discovered that the district hadn’t had a financial audit since 2021 and had been outspending since fiscal year 2023-24. 

At an emergency meeting in November, the state Board of Education voted to take over the district, dissolve its school board and replace its superintendent. So far, the agency has loaned $1.5 million of its school district emergency fund to Okolona and dismissed 19 staff members, including teachers. The high school has absorbed the middle school. 

At the Thursday meeting, Board of Education president Matt Miller called it an “atrocious situation.”

“The adults in the room did not act like adults,” he said. “We need to make sure you’re getting your audits done. School districts cannot function without the financial piece.”

Education officials proposed a tiered process to address the situation. After the agency identifies a missing audit, the district has time to explain why it hasn’t submitted the complete information. From that point, if the district doesn’t have a sufficient response or remains noncompliant, the state Education Department would escalate sanctions. As a last resort, department officials would suspend funding to the district. 

The Commission on School Accreditation must sign off on the proposed policy changes before the state board can approve them.

Miller emphasized that the proposed policy change is a board directive, and the state Department of Education is not an “enemy” of school districts. Instead, he said, the proposed policy is an effort to avoid future takeovers because the state’s funds are limited — the school emergency relief fund is a few million dollars. 

“The department is very in tune with the fact that it’s not like districts are walking around not wanting to have their audits done,” Evans said. “We are very sensitive to the fact that it’s a shared problem … and we’re trying to help them work through it.”

Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, a 39-year old Nicaraguan man being detained by immigration authorities, has died in a Natchez, Mississippi hospital. 

In the months leading up to his death on Dec. 14, Rodriguez had been held in the Adams County Correctional Center, which is run by Core Civic Inc. 

Rodriguez is one of four immigrants who have died in ICE custody within a four-day period from Dec. 12 to Dec. 15. A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication of this story, and the warden’s office in the Adams County Correctional Center did not respond to a voicemail.

“On Dec. 4, 2025, Adams County Detention Center medical staff responded to an emergency medical call. During the emergency response, Rodriguez did not respond to staff and did not have a pulse,” a notification by Immigration and Customs Enforcement says. Rodriguez was then transferred to the Merit Health hospital in Natchez, where he died. 

An Enforcement and Removal ICE agent had arrested Rodriguez in Dillon, Colorado, on Sept. 25. 

Representatives of the Adams County Sheriff’s Department did not respond in time for publication when asked whether they are looking into Rodriguez’s death. 

Since 2018, Congress has required ICE to report all in-custody deaths within 90 days. ICE’s website shows 15 deaths until September 2025. The Washington Post reported that the total number of detainee deaths this year is 30. 

Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi, expressed concern about the recent deaths and conditions in ICE detention facilities across the country. 

“Detained individuals, the majority having no criminal record, are due humane conditions, proper medical care, and access to counsel and legal resources,” Dortch said. “This legal standard applies to federal actors as well as their partners in state and local law enforcement.” 

While the state of Mississippi and the state Legislature do not have jurisdiction over federal facilities such as the one where Rodriguez died, Rep. Robert Johnson, a Natchez Democrat, said some state lawmakers are planning to raise the issue of detention center conditions, for detainees and employees, once the next legislative session begins in January. 

“As a federal prison in a remote county, I don’t think it has the requisite amount of oversight and attention that it needs,” Johnson said about the Adams County facility. 

Among Democrats in Mississippi, Johnson said there has been “very little attention to that issue. Not because we don’t care, but we have some very serious and urgent issues that deal directly with the people that we represent right now.” 

ICE crackdowns in the South have increased in recent months, and there has been a ripple effect on immigrant communities in Mississippi, leading to fear and uncertainty. Some groups in the state, such as the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, El Pueblo and the Party for Socialism and Liberation have begun to organize in response. 

“The PSL here in Mississippi is dedicated mainly at the state level, ending the collaborative processes between federal agencies and our local law enforcement,” said Terron Weaver, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “Rodriguez’s death highlights  the carelessness that our politicians and law enforcement officers have approached implementing their agenda with. It is clear they don’t care for anyone’s health, or for due process.”

Soybeans have been in the headlines a lot this year. Between a trade war with China, rising costs for farming equipment and supplies and low prices, farmers have seen a perfect storm of economic uncertainty. 

“It’s been a doozy of a year for agriculture,” said Rob Baker, a Mississippi soybean farmer and Director of the American Soybean Association. 

Soybeans are the second-largest agricultural product in Mississippi behind chickens. Valued at around $1.6 billion a year, almost all of the state’s soybeans are destined for international markets. 

China is the world’s largest importer, but in May, it stopped buying soybeans in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. China did not place its first order until October, just before Trump met with China’s President Xi Jinping. This period of uncertainty left American soybean farmers in limbo.

The White House has said that China committed to buying 12 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S., but so far it has only bought 332,000 metric tons. This has led to concerns about whether it will keep its promises, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said that China is still on track to keep up its end of the deal. 

This year’s tariffs alone didn’t cause the challenges but they did exacerbate existing problems soybean farmers were facing. In fact, farmers are still experiencing impacts of a 2018 trade war.

In May, Will Maples, an assistant professor of agricultural economics at Mississippi State University Extension Service told Mississippi Today that some of the economic challenges soybean farmers were facing were “kind of a holdover from the last 2018 trade war we had with China.”

The 2018 trade war saw some of the lowest levels in soybean purchases in the last 10 years. China has steadily invested in developing partners in other countries such as Brazil, putting further pressure on American farmers.

Even apart from global trade relations, farmers have struggled with historically high input costs for everything from seed and fertilizer to labor. On top of that, prices have dropped for soybeans and other row crops. High costs and low crop prices mean farmers face slim-to-no profit margins.  

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

Baker says the industry is looking for “more diverse uses for soy and new trading partners.” Some ideas include biodiesel, using soybeans in tires and more. 

Crop diversification presents its own challenges. Despite the challenges, soybeans are slightly better off than other row crops, such as cotton. Diversification isn’t as easy as just planting something new. It requires infrastructure to transport it and support the industry, which would take time and money to build.

While there are national and global forces at play, there are some ideas for what can be done in Mississippi. One idea that was floated at a recent state agriculture legislative committee meeting was building a processing plant in the state to create more demand and expand capabilities. 

In early December, the Trump administration announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers with funding coming from the Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program. The aid will help farmers mitigate their losses from this year and get loans to buy supplies for the next planting season. While many details haven’t been released, Baker says that the package is “a good start.” 

While 2025 has been a rough year, Baker says that he’s “starting to see a little bit of optimism” among soybean farmers who are hoping to return to profitability in 2026.

Mississippi Today health reporter Allen Siegler and health editor Laura Santhanam give an update on the state’s plan to spend its initial pot of opioid lawsuit settlement money. Siegler’s in-depth reporting has chronicled some issues and raised serious questions about how the state and local governments are spending the money, which is supposed to help address the scourge of opioid addiction, which has cost at least 10,000 lives in Mississippi since 2000.

These Mississippians faced challenges, spoke out, made art and launched innovative projects in 2025. Our reporters wrote about their experiences – whether positive or negative – as part of our commitment to elevating the voices of everyday Mississippians, holding those in power accountable and shining a light on the state’s dark places. 

Jayme Anderson

Jayme Anderson wore so many medals to his Forest Hill High School graduation that his mom, Angella, could hear him clanking as he walked across stage. At home in south Jackson, 18-year-old Anderson displayed a coffee table’s worth of awards: trophies, badges, plaques, rainbow-colored cords and a binder full of college acceptances. Anderson applied to more than 600 colleges and was admitted to 582, racking up more than $10 million in scholarship offers. He chose Pennsylvania State University. Anderson said he was driven by curiosity, free time, a desire to go out-of-state for higher education and a competitive streak. He also wanted to inspire other Jackson Public Schools students, who he said are often misunderstood and stereotyped, even by fellow Jacksonians. – By Mississippi Today Jackson Reporter Molly Minta

Stephen Brown

Stephen Brown is a hip-hop artist, producer and DJ – and the head of Briarwood Arts Center in Jackson. On any given night, the rooms of Briarwood Arts Center are filled with artists, creatives and dancers who have come to build community and hone their crafts. Before Brown moved into the neighborhood, the building had been abandoned – but he had a goal to recreate the local arts scene after several popular hangouts had closed, so he decided to lease the space. The center now offers events like line dancing classes, Kuumba (Swahili for creativity) Youth Night, GoodEDvice ACT Prep Club and Crochet Circle, and most of the events are free. His hope is that his persistence and dedication to creating safe spaces inspires others in Jackson to imagine what’s possible for their neighborhoods. – By former Mississippi Today Jackson Reporter Maya Miller

Rep. Becky Currie

State Rep. Becky Currie of Brookhaven is a conservative Republican who has become an outspoken critic of health care services in Mississippi’s prison system and of VitalCore Health Strategies, LLC, the private company with a contract to provide those services. Currie, who is a registered nurse, began touring state prisons after becoming chairwoman of the House Corrections Committee in early 2024, and she found a disturbing dearth of medical care for inmates. “We’re paying $124 million to a company for health care and they are not doing it and they are keeping the money,” said Currie, who is pushing for reform and has been a centerpiece of Mississippi Today’s investigative series on prison health care, Behind Bars, Beyond Care. Currie said Dr. Raman Singh, VitalCore’s chief medical officer, told her and State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney in a private meeting that about 5,000 Mississippi Department of Corrections prisoners and some prison workers had contracted hepatitis C. Interviews and documents obtained by Mississippi Today show that only a fraction of Mississippi inmates diagnosed with hepatitis C receive treatment, which has allowed the treatable infection to develop into a life-threatening illness. – By Mississippi Today Political Reporters Michael Goldberg and Health Reporter Gwen Dilworth

Derrick Evans

Community activist Derrick Evans is working to protect his historic Turkey Creek neighborhood in Gulfport from the damage of climate change. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Global Change Research Program published reports in recent years that link social disparities in the Southeast to a higher risk of impacts from natural disasters. Evans’ ancestors were among the freed slaves who founded  Turkey Creek after the Civil War. The area in north Gulfport now sits in the fifth most vulnerable census tract out of over 73,000 in the United States. Evans sees Mississippi as a state where people love hunting and fishing but political priorities seem detached from that very culture. “A polluted stream, an environmental vulnerability, is actually an abrogation to what we might call the Southern way of life,” he said. – By Mississippi Today Environment and Data Reporter Alex Rozier

Ann Fisher-Wirth

Mississippi poet laureate Ann Fisher-Wirth writes about seeing and listening to the world. Her poems contemplate natural scenes, such as a lone zinnia near a pond or a stag eating flowers over a raw grave. Fisher-Wirth directed the University of Mississippi’s environmental studies program and taught creative writing in its Master of Fine Arts program before she retired in 2022. She is a past president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, and is a senior fellow of the Black Earth Institute, which concentrates on social justice and environmental issues. She has written eight books of poetry. Her writing centers on place and humans’ connection to nature. – By Mississippi Today Summer Intern Maeve Rigney.

Tara Gandy

Tara Gandy was among the relatives of people killed by domestic violence who witnessed Gov. Tate Reeves sign a law that establishes a board to study how to prevent such deaths. Gandy’s 24-year-old daughter, Joslin Napier, was killed in Waynesboro in 2022. At the bill signing in April, Gandy carried a photo of Napier and said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims. Gandy said the board “will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number. They will be a number with a purpose.” – By Mississippi Today Justice Reporter Mina Corpuz.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey

The family of Hilliard and Lillian Lackey of Jackson exemplifies hard work and academic success. Hilliard Lackey is a longtime professor of urban higher education and lifelong learning at Jackson State University. Several members of the family have doctoral degrees: Hilliard and Lillian Lackey; their daughters, Tahirih Lackey and Dr. Katrina Davis; the couple’s daughter-in-law, Tracy Knight Lackey; and his stepbrother and sister-in-law, Dr. Robert Long and Vanessa Rogers Long. Through the “Lackey Scholars” program, Hillard and Lillian Lackey have helped more than 500 high school students from Quitman County attend and graduate from Jackson State since 1967. – By Mississippi Today General Assignment Reporter Simeon Gates.

James Moore

James Moore of Hattiesburg translated personal tragedy into a mission to prevent other parents from enduring the loss of a child to addiction. A local bike shop owner and the father of a son who died of an overdose, Moore has long worked to stop overdoses across the Pine Belt region. But in 2025, his advocacy was elevated to a new level. He was a recurring voice in Mississippi Today’s reporting that highlighted how Mississippi was spending its opioid settlement money – including that local governments and the state had spent less than 1% of the money thus far on addressing the addiction crisis – and as a member of a state committee tasked with advising the Legislature on how to spend the remaining hundreds of millions of dollars moving forward. – By Mississippi Today Mental Health Reporter Allen Siegler. 

Stephanie Nowlin

For almost two years, Stephanie Nowlin was one of Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain’s top lieutenants. Cain hired Nowlin after she had served time in prison herself and made her his government affairs coordinator. The pair developed such a close bond that she came to view him like a grandfather. But now, she is speaking out about what she said is widespread medical neglect and mismanagement inside the agency and its facilities. Nowlin was a key source in an early  story in the Behind Bars, Beyond Care series revealing that in private, officials lamented the quality of medical services provided by Mississippi’s private medical contractor even as the company raked in hundreds of millions in public dollars. The series has also revealed that less than 6% of incarcerated people in Mississippi living with hepatitis C received treatment during a three-month time period, among other instances of alleged medical neglect in state prisons. – By Mississippi Today Politics Reporter Michael Goldberg

Jason Reid

Jason Reid, a physical education teacher in DeSoto County School District, has been teaching for 17 years. But in 2019, he also started moonlighting as a bus driver to earn extra money. Like Reid, many teachers in Mississippi often work multiple jobs – the state has the lowest teacher pay in the nation. And like many other educators, Reid said the worst part is the rising health insurance premiums – especially as a two-time cancer survivor. During his second round of treatment in 2022, his deductible was $13,000. He met the deductible early on, but still spent a huge chunk of money, he said. And as a teacher, there’s not an option to take paid medical leave. “We go on vacation … we’re not living paycheck to paycheck,” he said. “But we can’t live the lifestyle a lot of neighbors would live.” – By Mississippi Today Education Reporter Devna Bose.

Nina Rifkind

Nina Rifkind, a University of Mississippi School of Law adjunct professor, made national news standing up to President Donald Trump on behalf of her late grandfather, famed New York attorney Simon Rifkind. The New York Times and other news outlets reported on the letter Nina Rifkind and her sister sent to the law firm her grandfather founded criticizing Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison for yielding to the wishes of the president. Trump had threatened various penalties against the firm because one of its former partners had worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office that investigated Trump. The firm agreed to various conditions to avoid those penalties. She wrote that her late grandfather would not have settled a dispute where an attorney was simply doing his job.”He would have above all sought to protect the independence of the bar, not just the firm,” she and her sister, Washington, D.C., attorney Amy Rifkind, wrote in the letter. In addition to the national news coverage, Nina Rifkind also wrote an essay for Mississippi Today Ideas.

Kimberly Todd

Kimberly Todd, a northeast Mississippi mother of five, qualified for Medicaid coverage on paper but couldn’t access the program. The state had asked Todd to file for child support from her ex-boyfriend before granting her eligibility for the program – forcing her to face months of back and forth with case workers, miscommunication among state agencies, delayed medical care and the possibility of sending the father of her two youngest children to jail. While she eventually qualified for Medicaid, her plight shows the hurdles poor people face in accessing the social safety net in Mississippi – and the negative impact that the Medicaid child support requirement can have on already-struggling families. – By Mississippi Today Health Reporter Sophia Paffenroth.

Lucinda Wade-Robinson

After her 22-year-old son was killed in her front yard in 2014, Lucinda Wade-Robinson wasn’t sure she would be able to cover the $8,000 funeral bill. She applied in Hinds County for help from Mississippi’s victim compensation program, a fund that each state has to reimburse victims of crime and their families for funeral expenses, medical costs, crime scene cleanup, execution travel and counseling, among other costs. But the state attorney general’s office, which administers the program, denied her claim, alleging her son was responsible for his death, a type of denial known as contributory misconduct. Mississippi’s definition of what kind of conduct contributes to one’s death is broader than most states, and a Mississippi Today investigation found that Wade-Robinson’s denial is not unusual. Mississippi has one of the highest rates of denials attributed to “contributory misconduct” when compared to other states, with about 6% of all applicants getting denied for this reason. – By Mississippi Today Education Reporter Leo Bevilacqua

Know a Mississippian who made a difference in 2025? Tell us about them over email at info@mississippitoday.org. And sign up for our daily newsletter to hear from other Mississippians in the future.