OurTupelo

HATTIESBURG — Sitting in Moore’s Bicycle Shop in Hattiesburg less than three weeks after his 35-year-old daughter died of an overdose, Jonathan Aultman wondered aloud what he was supposed to do next. 

It wasn’t grief that made the mourning father from Sumrall feel lost. It was the prospect of Mississippi wasting an opportunity to prevent more tragedies like his family’s. 

Chelsea Aultman Sadler struggled with addiction for most of her life, starting when she was prescribed opioid painkillers after a surgery. The pills’ manufacturers falsely told her and other Americans that their products were safe and nonaddictive, all while drug companies flooded towns with prescriptions.

Her father was frustrated by the plan – or lack thereof – his local and state elected officials put together to spend the money paid by companies for their roles in the thousands of deadly overdoses they catalyzed in Mississippi. The state is expected to receive $370 million of the nearly $50 billion in settlement funds the corporations have committed to states so far. 

While addiction researchers and the lawyers who negotiated the settlements have said it’s important for all the money to go toward preventing more drug deaths, the settlements themselves allow for up to 30% to be spent on other uses.

Attorney General Lynn Fitch and the Legislature, the decision-makers for Mississippi’s settlements, have maximized that portion. Fitch developed a contract that allows towns, cities and counties to spend about $56 million on any expense – regardless of whether it addresses the opioid epidemic. In 2021, she said in a letter to localities this was done to “free local governments up to use your funds as you see fit.”

It’s a setup that’s allowed the three local governments in the Hattiesburg area — Forrest County, Lamar County and the city of Hattiesburg — to take different approaches using their settlement shares, which public records indicate have totaled just under $750,000 as of late May. 

Some of this money went to a criminal justice diversion program and a series of sheriff’s department expenses, including pole surveillance cameras and a handheld X-ray device, a public records request revealed. Another chunk is set to go to a new local mental health facility. 

And a third portion of the shares remains unspent and without a plan.

Some local officials Mississippi Today spoke to hadn’t yet considered what to do with the money that’s been trickling in since 2022. They had a variety of justifications for their spending decisions, often citing small amounts of money they received relative to the cost to address addiction. 

That late May afternoon inside the Hardy Street bike shop, Aultman and four other Hattiesburg area parents who also lost children to drug deaths learned about the plans – and the inaction – from Mississippi Today. 

They expressed concern that elected officials hadn’t sought the voices of people in their shoes and worried these funds could be used in ways that wouldn’t prevent more deaths.

“From sitting in this chair, where do I go next?” Aultman asked, sitting next to a framed photo of his daughter. “Other than taking my pictures and going to the AG’s office and saying, ‘I’d like some accountability.’” 

“This is very, very new and very, very fresh for me, and doesn’t sound like y’all are going to be doing right by this big pot of money you just got handed to you.”

Michelle Williams, chief of staff for the Mississippi attorney general, said that while Fitch would love for all the settlement dollars to be spent on addressing the overdose epidemic, the state’s top lawyer followed the requirements of the settlement when creating the agreement.

Since James Moore, the bike shop owner, lost his son to an overdose in 2015, he’s publicly advocated for policy changes that will prevent more parents from losing their children. He raises a flag at half-staff in front of his shop every time there’s an overdose death in the Hattiesburg area. It’s purple, the color for overdose awareness.

He’s raised it at least 65 times since Mississippi local governments have been receiving opioid settlement checks. 

Moore said he watches local news every night, and he’s never heard a word about Forrest, Lamar or Hattiesburg settlement shares. Knowing the dollars had been coming in for years as residents continued to die “really drives me crazy,” he said. 

Surveillance cameras, gun flashlights and an X-ray device

Over the next 14 years, the three Hattiesburg governments are expected to receive about $2.6 million from the national opioid settlements – about 5% of the local shares being sent to Mississippi cities and counties.

From October 2022 to May 2025, the city of Hattiesburg, Forrest County and Lamar County have received a total of $748,505, according to public records and administrators. Of that, $200,000 has been allocated.

The only locality to spend any of its share is Forrest County, which is responsible for most of the money. Pharmaceutical companies distributed over 85 pills per Forrest County resident each year from 2006 to 2019 – the second highest rate of any county in Mississippi, according to the Washington Post.

In November, the county’s supervisors awarded $100,000 to the local drug court, a program aimed at diverting people who’ve been arrested for nonviolent drug charges away from jail and to addiction treatment. Board meeting minutes say the funds are for court staff, addiction treatment and transportation.

In February, the supervisors considered Forrest County Sheriff Charlie Sims’ request for about $190,000 for items he said would help his department “in responding to narcotics violations.”

The county granted him $100,000, and Sims told Mississippi Today he’s prioritizing the first few items — a handheld X-ray device, a drug identification machine, pole surveillance cameras, a vehicle tracking device and weapon accessories like gun flashlights. Sims said his department has purchased the first three.

Many of the items listed may not have qualified as appropriate spending if the local government agreement had said all funds must be spent addressing addiction. But, unlike most states, Mississippi’s agreement doesn’t mandate that. 

Sims said the biggest drug problem his department focuses on is cracking down on fentanyl distribution, and these devices will help. He said he may look to use future funds for items like naloxone, an opioid overdose-reversing medication. 

Sims said his department has enough naloxone now. 

Roderick Woullard, a Forrest County supervisor, said the county recently put over $500,000 of other county funds toward a new regional crisis stabilization unit, a facility that provides short-term, urgent psychiatric care. It shows the county’s commitment to treating substance use disorder beyond the opioid settlements, he said.

Gentry Mordica, another Forrest County supervisor, said the board has public meetings and no one from the recovery community had brought ideas about how to spend these funds. Mordica said that to his knowledge, the board hasn’t publicly announced receiving the money. 

The remaining amount, about $550,000, is unallocated.

Lamar County and the city of Hattiesburg are behind Forrest County. Neither have allocated any of their settlement money.

Hattiesburg received just over $50,000 – a small portion of its over $160 million annual budget. 

In June, after Mississippi Today filed a public records request about Hattiesburg’s opioid settlements, Mayor Toby Barker contacted Moore, the Hattiesburg bike shop owner and recovery advocate. Barker asked Moore to form a committee to advise how Hattiesburg should spend the money. 

Barker said the city hasn’t spent any of its money because payments have been small and infrequent. He hopes the opioid settlement committee includes those who have recovered from substance use disorder, families who’ve lost loved ones to overdoses, addiction treatment clinicians, law enforcement officers and others.

“I want to see Hattiesburg make a focused investment on where it can do some good,” he said. 

Lamar County administrator Joseph Waits said his supervisors plan to use their settlement dollars to help build the new regional crisis stabilization unit. The county made that decision without public participation because supervisors didn’t expect it to make up a lot of the county’s annual budget of tens of millions of dollars, he said. 

Waits and Mordica, the Forrest supervisor, said that while the Mississippi Attorney General’s office has repeatedly told local governments that these funds can be spent like any other public dollar, their counties were intent on using their funds to address the opioid crisis. 

“We’re concerned about it (the crisis),” Mordica said.

‘We don’t want it to happen to you and your children’

In Moore’s Bicycle Shop, Jonathan Aultman was joined by his wife, Shelby Aultman. While the weeks since her daughter’s death have been an “emotional roller coaster,” she said, she’s spent time thinking about how much joy Chelsea brought to everyone who surrounded her, even as she suffered from addiction. 

The last public post on Chelsea’s Facebook page is a love note to her mom. At the celebration of life just a week earlier, on the Sumrall shores of the Bouie River, Shelby Aultman recalled Chelsea’s 7-year-old daughter Lily calling out to her mom as double rainbows appeared above their heads.

“Lily going, ‘I love you forever. I love you from the ocean deep. I love you from the sky high, no matter what,’” Aultman said. 

She believes her daughter always wanted to maintain longterm recovery, and additional resources, like those that could be purchased with local opioid settlement dollars, may have helped her do that. Aultman suggested ideas like therapy services for those whose addiction stems from trauma and education for parents about helping children with addiction. 

Even if local governments can spend their shares on other purposes, she thinks ending this crisis should take precedence. 

“This has happened to us. And we don’t want it to happen to you and your children.” 

United Healthcare Medicare Advantage plans are no longer in-network at North Mississippi Health Services after the health system terminated its contract for the health insurance plans, which largely provide coverage to elderly patients, on June 1.

The decision came after over a year of negotiations between the Tupelo-based system, which operates eight hospitals and over 70 primary and specialty care clinics in North Mississippi, and United Healthcare, the nation’s most profitable health insurance company. 

About 17,000 United Healthcare Medicare Advantage members live in North Mississippi Health Services’ 24-county service area, the vast majority of whom are existing patients, according to Wally Davis, the health system’s vice president of payor strategy and partnerships.

Other United Healthcare plans, including commercial and employer-sponsored, Marketplace, Medicaid and CHIP plans, will remain in-network. The change will apply to Medicaid-required Dual Special Needs Medicare Advantage plans. 

North Mississippi Health Services alerted patients that it planned to terminate its agreement for United Healthcare Medicare Advantage plans in February, but had until the end of May to negotiate with the company and reach a final decision. 

The health care system terminated its agreement with United Healthcare because Medicare Advantage inpatient claims were frequently delayed or denied, Davis told Mississippi Today.

The problem has worsened since the health care system first raised the issue with United Healthcare last year, he said. Last month, 42% of inpatient claims at North Mississippi Medical Center-Tupelo were initially denied, up from 17% in February 2024. The hospital is the only Level II trauma center in North Mississippi.

The overturn rate, or the percentage of claims ultimately approved by the insurance company, has remained at about 85% since last year. 

“We continued conversations about the core problem, which has been the denial percentage itself, but we never really received a clearly defined response from United as to why those denials were occurring,” Davis said. 

United Healthcare proposed a range of options and solutions aimed at keeping the health system in its Medicare Advantage network, including extending the existing contract to continue negotiations, said Tracy Carr, a spokesperson for the company.

“Unfortunately, NMHS refused,” Carr said. “Our priority now is providing the people we serve with the care they need, either through continuity of care or by helping them transition to another provider, as appropriate.”

Patients with United Healthcare Group Retiree Medicare Advantage plans will be able to continue receiving services at North Mississippi Health Services locations because these plans offer out-of-network benefits. Patients’ share of the cost will be the same as if they were part of the network for some or all services, said Carr.

Medicare is the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older and with certain disabilities. Medicare Advantage is a type of Medicare plan run by private insurance companies that contract with the government. The plans often offer additional benefits, including dental, vision and prescription drug coverage, that aren’t included in traditional Medicare plans.

In Mississippi, 44% of Medicare recipients are covered by Medicare Advantage plans.

United Healthcare members who are in the middle of treatment with a North Mississippi Health Services provider for a serious or complex condition may be eligible to continue receiving covered services for a period of time, Carr said.

Davis encourages patients to contact Medicare to discuss options for changing their Medicare Advantage enrollment, including utilizing a special enrollment period.

Medicare’s open enrollment period occurs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7. There is an additional open enrollment period for people who are already enrolled in Medicare Advantage Plans from Jan. 1 to March 31. 

Thirty candidates have filed paperwork to compete in special elections for the state Legislature this year, and 10 of the 14 races will be contested.

The deadline for candidates to submit papers to political parties was 5 p.m. on Monday, and party leaders have until Friday to verify the candidates’ qualifications.

Party primaries will take place Aug. 5, and the general election will be Nov. 4.

Even though voters just participated in statewide elections in 2023, a panel of three federal judges determined that portions of the map lawmakers used in that election diluted Black voting strength. The panel ordered the state to redraw certain areas of the map.

The candidates who filed to run by Monday’s deadline are:

Senate District 1: DeSoto and Tate counties:

• Chris Hannah, Democrat 
• Michael McLendon, Republican (incumbent) 
• Jon Stevenson, Republican 

Senate District 2: DeSoto and Tunica counties: 

• Kelly Andress, Democrat
• Charlie Hoots, Republican
• Theresa Isom, Democrat 
• Robert Walker, Democrat 

Senate District 11: Coahoma, DeSoto, Quitman, Tate and Tunica counties: 

• Abe Hudson, Jr., Democrat 
• Reginald Jackson, Democrat (incumbent) 
• Kendall Prewett, Republican 

Senate District 19: DeSoto County: 

• Dianne Black, Democrat 
• Kevin Blackwell, Republican (incumbent) 

Senate District 34: Covington, Jasper and Jones counties: 

• Juan Barnett, Democrat (incumbent) 

Senate District 41: Covington, Lamar, Marion, Walthall counties: 

• Joey Fillingane, Republican (incumbent)

Senate District 42: Forrest, Greene, Jones and Wayne counties 

• Donald Hartness, Republican
• Randy Robinson, Republican 
• Robin Robinson, Republican (incumbent)

Senate District 44: Forrest, Lamar and Perry counties   

• Chris Johnson, Republican (incumbent)
• Christopher Lott, Republican 
• Shakita Taylor, Democrat 

Senate District 45: Forrest and Lamar counties 

• Johnny DuPree, Democrat 
• Anna Rush, Republican 

House District 16: Chickasaw, Lee, Monroe and Pontotoc counties: 

• Brady Davis, Democrat 
• Rep. Rickey Thompson, Democrat (incumbent) 

House District 22: Chickasaw, Clay and Monroe counties 

• Justin Crosby, Democrat 
• Jon Lancaster, Republican (incumbent)

House District 36: Clay, Lowndes, Monroe, and Oktibbeha counties: 

• Karl Gibbs, Democrat (incumbent) 

House District 39: Lowndes and Monroe counties: 

• Dana McLean, Republican (incumbent)

House District 41: Lowndes County: 

• Pierre Beard, Sr., Democrat 
• Kabir Karriem, Democrat (incumbent)

A new report ranks Mississippi’s K-12 education at 16th in the nation, the state’s highest ranking ever.

The state’s Kids Count score has steadily risen from 48th in 2014 to 30th last year — though other measures have stagnated. 

The 2025 KIDS COUNT Data Book, published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, puts Mississippi at 48th for overall child well-being, 47th for economic well-being, 50th for health and 48th for family and community. 

The education rating is based on how many young children are in school, reading proficiency by fourth grade, math proficiency by eighth grade and high school graduation rates. Mississippi just barely bests the national averages in all categories except math proficiency. 

A press release from the Mississippi Department of Education points out the state’s graduation rate has risen from 75% to 89.2% over the past decade. 

“Mississippi’s momentum in education is the result of strong policies and dedicated, effective educators,” said state superintendent Lance Evans in the release. “Our students’ achievements have made the state a national leader in improving academic outcomes.

“Mississippi students have proven once again that there is no limit to what they can accomplish with the strong support of Mississippi educators.”

Linda Southward, executive director of the Children’s Foundation of Mississippi, said that the gains were largely due to improved graduation rates. Her organization helps create a “Factbook” for the data each year.

She also noted that rankings are impacted by what’s happening in other states.

“When we look at education, Mississippi’s ranking has held steady and increased in some areas, while other states’ performances may have worsened during the pandemic,” she said. “This is a testament to the importance of dedicated teachers, students and parents who are all part of the educational experience.”

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Marshall Ramsey gets a behind the scenes look at the making of Jackson’s late night show from comedian Rita Brent.

For more videos, subscribe to Mississippi Today’s YouTube channel.

A coalition of civil rights and legal organizations filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Mississippi’s education boards challenging diversity, equity and inclusion policies imposed by the Legislature at public schools, colleges and universities.

The complaint was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and partner legal groups against the Institutions of Higher Learning, Mississippi Community College Board, Mississippi State Department of Education and Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board in the Southern District Federal Court on Monday. According to an ACLU press release, the lawsuit was prompted by concerned teachers, parents, students and organizations.

The lawsuit alleges that House Bill 1193, which was passed by the Legislature in April and is part of a national trend of anti-DEI legislative efforts, violates the First and Fourteenth amendments — which respectively constitutionally protect free speech and equal protection under the law — by imposing the government’s views on race, gender and sexuality on students and educators. 

It also claims that the vagueness of the law allows officials to enforce it “in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion,” and that it doesn’t provide a clear process for rectifying violations.

Rob McDuff, a Mississippi Center for Justice attorney on the case, said the legislation will force a complete revamp of various K-12, college and law-school courses, including Mississippi history, biology and English literature. 

“It’s one of the most ridiculous things to come out of the Legislature in a long time, and that’s saying something,” he said. “It’s really going to alter education as we know it in Mississippi.”

READ MORE: Mississippi Legislature approves DEI ban after heated debate

A spokesperson for IHL said the board is reviewing the lawsuit and could not comment. A spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Education directed questions to the Mississippi attorney general’s office. 

Sen. Nicole Boyd R-Oxford, one of the bill’s authors, declined to comment on the lawsuit when reached by Mississippi Today.

Jarvis Dortch, director of the ACLU of Mississippi said in a press release, “Members of the Mississippi Legislature may very well be incapable of having productive discussions on race, gender, or our state’s history. That doesn’t mean our educators and students aren’t up to handling difficult conversations.

“The First Amendment protects the right to share ideas, including teachers’ and students’ right to receive and exchange knowledge,” Dortch said. “Open and honest dialogue benefits all students and, if given a try, it would benefit the Mississippi Legislature.”

Mississippi’s most successful collegiate athletic program in the 2024-25 school year? It’s not close.

That honor goes to the Ole Miss men’s golf team, and the story could get even better at this week’s U.S. Open.

Start with National Coach of the Year. Chris Malloy, a former Rebel golfer himself, who earned that honor (bestowed by Golfweek Magazine). Malloy has enjoyed much success in Oxford, but his 12th season at the helm was his best. The Rebels were ranked No. 1 for much of the season and advanced to the semifinals of the NCAA Championships before being edged 3-2 by eventual national champion Oklahoma State.

Most impressively, Michael LaSasso, a Raleigh, North Carolina, junior, claimed the NCAA individual national championship with a two-shot victory at Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California, near San Diego. LaSasso shot 11-under par for 72 holes to lead the Rebels into an eight-team match play championship tournament. 

But it doesn’t end there. When the U.S. Open begins Thursday morning at famed Oakmont Country Club, near Pittsburgh, two current Ole Miss Rebels will be in the field. LaSasso qualified by winning the NCAA Championship. Cameron Tankersley, another junior from Dickson, Tennessee, qualified the hard way, by shooting 8-under-par during a 36-hole qualifier at Bent Tree in Dallas, beating out many PGA Tour pros and international players to earn the Open berth.

Just qualifying for the U.S. Open Championship is a feat. More than 10,000 elite golfers from around the globe attempted to qualify. The final field consists of 156.

Reached via cellphone Monday morning, Malloy was driving from Oxford to the Memphis airport, via a three-hour stopover in Senatobia. Senatobia, you ask? “Yeah, I just finished caddying for my 10-year-old son Cash in a junior tournament,” Malloy answered, chuckling. “These last couple weeks have been a whirlwind. That was something I needed and wanted to do.”

Malloy was to arrive in Pittsburgh later Monday, then spend Tuesday and Wednesday at Oakmont helping prepare LaSasso and Tankersley for what will be the most difficult task they have faced in their young golfing lives.

Oakmont is a brute. The late Henry C. Fownes, the founder and designer of Oakmont Country Club, famously said in 1904, “A shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost.” At Oakmont, all these 121 years later, those words ring true. The course offers a 293-yard par 3, a 515-yard par-4 and a 663-yard par-5. But the length of the course is by no means what makes it so challenging. The rough – a thick mix of rye, fescue and bluegrass – will be five to six inches high. If not for for caddies, golfers would almost have to step on their golf balls to find them.

What’s more, the Oakmont greens are devilishly sloped and remarkably fast. Golf legend Slammin’ Sammy Snead once said, “At Oakmont once, I put a dime down to mark my ball and the dime slid away.”

“I’ve not seen it yet, except on TV, but that’s all everybody talks about is how difficult it is,” Malloy said of the greens. “Our guys pride themselves on being tough, handing difficult situations. Golf is way more about how you handle your bad shots and tough situations than it is anything else. But this will be a real challenge.”

No doubt about that. It also will provide valuable experience for two guys expected to return to Oxford and make Ole Miss almost surely the No. 1 team in college golf polls to begin the 2025-26 school year. The Rebels lose only one player from a deep roster and have two highly rated recruits coming in.

Asked what would be considered a successful U.S. Open for the two Ole Miss players, Malloy paused for a couple seconds before answering. “The obvious answer would be for them to make the (36-hole) cut,” he said. “And that would be an unbelievable accomplishment, competing on that golf course against the best players in the world. But I don’t want to sell either of them short. If one of them gets on a roll, plays to the best of his ability, they could be a factor. These guys can really play. They’ve shown that.”

Mississippi Today is pleased to announce an expansion of its newsroom and a series of leadership promotions, reflecting the nonprofit newsroom’s deepening commitment to providing public interest journalism in Mississippi.

The largest newsroom in the state, Mississippi Today will be home to at least 35 full-time journalists by the end of this summer. It will have five fully-staffed teams of editors and reporters covering health, justice, education, politics, and the city of Jackson. The newsroom’s reporters will also be supported by two photojournalists, a multimedia director and a new video team, which will put reporting in front of a broader audience.

“We’re proud to have the opportunity to grow our newsroom and do more of what we do best: provide the highest quality accountability, investigative journalism to Mississippians,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “As ever, we feel a deep responsibility to deliver the best reporting we can. Through strategic alignment of our newsroom’s talent, we know we can meet this moment.”

Among the leadership changes:

• Kate Royals has been promoted to Managing Editor, where she will lead Mississippi Today’s editorial team leaders and newsroom-wide collaborations. Royals, one of the organization’s longest-serving journalists, built the newsroom’s Health Team from scratch and has led some of the newsroom’s most impactful reporting.
• Michael Guidry is our Editorial Director of Multimedia, a role in which he will focus on growing Mississippi Today’s audio storytelling. In this new role, Guidry will manage relationships with national newsroom partners, lead new editorial efforts across podcast and video platforms and be the point person for creative projects.
• Richard Lake is stepping into the new role of Video Editor, overseeing the launch of Mississippi Today’s first full video team. Lake’s work in vertical video has already helped the newsroom dramatically expand its audience and reach, and he will lead a new team focused on accelerating the output of our video content. 
• Alyssa Bass returns to the Mississippi Today team to take over social media and newsletter strategy. She will work closely with the Deep South Today team to continue growing the organization’s audience and impact, and deepening our relationship with readers. Mississippi Today is part of Deep South Today, a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that also includes Verite News in New Orleans.

To support this growth, the newsroom is hiring for several new positions:

• A Health Editor to lead the Health Team.
• A Video Producer to join the new video team.
• An Education Editor and an additional Education Reporter to form Mississippi Today’s new Education Team, which will include the newsroom’s two current education reporters.

This strategic growth follows an unprecedented period of support and investment in the newsroom’s mission.

“Mississippi Today journalists show up everyday with passion, energy and dedication to serving Mississippians with top-notch reporting on the most important issues facing our state,” said Mary Margaret White, Mississippi Today’s CEO & Executive Director. “We are grateful to our readers and supporters who recognize the impact of our reporting and stand with us through their financial contributions to ensure a vibrant, growing press in Mississippi. It is an honor and privilege to continue serving our readers with this expansion, which is made possible only through the generous support of our community.” 

For more information about open roles at Mississippi Today, visit mississippitoday.org/jobs.

To learn more about our entire staff, visit mississippitoday.org/staff. 

For the next few weeks, Robert Gibbs’ job won’t be unlike that of a journalist. 

As the chair of Mayor-elect John Horhn’s transition team, Gibbs, a downtown Jackson attorney and developer, will be seeking to learn as much as he can about how City Hall works. His goal is to help Horhn, who handily won Jackson’s general election last week, hit the ground running on July 1. 

“We want to learn as much about the city and the city operations as possible,” Gibbs said. “We want the mayor-elect to go into the office fully aware of all of the administrative departments, of the budget, the personnel, and so we’re trying to gather as much information as we can so it will be a smooth transition.” 

Gibbs, who had been working behind the scenes for years to secure a new mayor, will be joined on the transition team by fellow Horhn campaign supporters and staffers. Willie Bozeman, a lobbyist and former state representative who worked as Horhn’s campaign manager, will serve as Horhn’s interim chief of staff, according to a press release. 

Kane Ditto, a former mayor of Jackson who leads a real estate development company and was recently involved in efforts to raise money to revitalize the city’s planetarium, will serve as a co-chair of the transition team, along with Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr. of New Horizon Church International.

But like journalists, whether or not Gibbs and company will succeed depends largely on access — in this case, to outgoing Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s administration. 

“We will be requesting information, but we realize we are not privy to that without the permission of the current administration,” he said. “We are hoping and expecting that they will cooperate but we realize they don’t have to, so we are gonna utilize our good will and our ability to communicate to try to get as much as we can.”

At a candidate forum earlier this year, Lumumba said that if he lost reelection, he would work with whoever went on to be mayor. He cited as an example the time he stood with former mayor Tony Yarber, who beat him in 2014, to defend the city’s ownership of its airport.

The transition team does not yet have specific tasks, Gibbs said, so he doesn’t know if they will be asked to help Horhn hire department heads or recommend members of his administrative team.

“We’re just getting started with our work, and I don’t know just how much the mayor is going to instruct us to do,” he said, “whether that’s going to be helping him put together his administrative team or will it be to just advise him on how you move into the mayor’s office with as much information as possible.” 

“Maybe we’ll find out together,” he added. 

READ MORE: ‘Horhn wins: Mayoral election supports ‘Jackson is ready’ for longtime senator to lead’

America lost a gentle giant in journalism when Stanley Nelson, who investigated some of the nation’s most notorious racially motivated slayings in Mississippi and Louisiana, died unexpectedly last week. He was 69.

CBC reporter David Ridgen, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and podcast host, worked with the reporter for years. “Stanley Nelson is the best of us,” he said. “A doer. Not a reminiscer. A teller. Not someone to leave anyone behind. A brotherly guy who you’d trust anything to.”

In 2008, Ridgen and I joined forces with Nelson and fellow journalists John Fleming, Ben Greenberg, Pete Nicks, Robert Rosenthal, Hank Klibanoff, Ronnie Agnew, Melvin Claxton, Peter Klein and others to form the Civil Rights Cold Cases Project. Our dream was to create a documentary that would capture our continuing work on these cases.

The big picture documentary never happened, but many other projects emerged for radio, print and film. Nelson never missed a beat, writing hundreds of stories for the 5,000-circulation Concordia Sentinel, where he served as editor.

In 2012, he became a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his stories on the 1964 killing of Frank Morris in Ferriday, Louisiana, by Klansmen who belonged to the violent wing, the “Silver Dollar Group.”

Best-selling author Greg Iles depicted the journalist as the character Henry Sexton in his novel, “Natchez Burning.” Nelson chuckled to me about the portrayal, saying his alter ego lived a much more adventurous life: “He is a musician, has a girlfriend and is tech savvy — that’s something I don’t know a damn thing about.”

Iles said the most important writing he’s ever done “would not exist were it not for the inspiration and selfless collaboration of Stanley Nelson. I never knew another man who always did the right thing regardless of fear or favor, not motivated by hope for profit or fame. Stanley eventually gained a wide reputation for excellence, but not because he sought it. Because he earned it. And God knows the world is a better place because he lived and worked in it.”

First case: Frank Morris

On the last day of February in 2007, Nelson heard the name of Frank Morris for the first time. He learned that the Justice Department would be taking a second look at the 1964 killing of Morris.

That surprised Nelson because he thought he knew almost everything about this small town and had never heard the name.

He reached out to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which shared about 150 pages of redacted FBI reports on the Morris case, and he wrote his first article.

He didn’t see how he could advance the story anymore until he received a call from Morris’ granddaughter, Rosa Williams, and began to learn more about the man and the killing.

On a cold December morning in 1964, the 51-year-old Morris was asleep in the back of his shoe repair store when he heard glass breaking. He bolted to the front of the store and saw one man pouring gasoline and another holding a shotgun, who yelled, “Get back in there, n—–!”

By the time Morris escaped, his feet were bleeding, and nearly all his clothing had been burned from his body. He survived long enough to tell FBI agents that he didn’t know his attackers, but friends wondered if he had been afraid to say.

‘His curiosity never waned’

In 2011, Nelson reported that family members of Arthur Leonard Spencer said he had confessed to them years earlier, but Spencer denied that claim to Nelson. A federal grand jury met on the matter, but no one was ever arrested.

Klibanoff, who works with Emory University students on civil rights cold cases and hosts the Peabody-winning podcast “Buried Truths,” helped Nelson edit those stories. “We were going over them till 9, 10 or 11 at night, because we both had full-time jobs,” he recalled. “Stanley was busy covering police juries, the city council and other things during the day.”

Nelson remained rock solid in his reporting, Klibanoff said. “I admired him immensely, and his curiosity never waned.”

The journalist moved beyond the Morris killing to document other violence by the Silver Dollar Group, depicted as the “Double Eagles” in “Natchez Burning.” The group, which included some law enforcement officers, was suspected of planting bombs in the vehicles of two NAACP leaders in Natchez, George Metcalfe and Wharlest Jackson. Metcalfe was injured in the blast, and Jackson was killed.

Nelson also reported on possible involvement of the Silver Dollar Group in the 1964 disappearance of a 21-year-old Black man, Joseph Edwards. His white and green Buick was found abandoned near a local bowling alley in Vidalia, Louisiana.

Ridgen said Nelson has been telling him for years that he believed he had found where Edwards’ body was buried.

When Ridgen worked with Nelson, he would stay with him on his Cash Bayou farm near the Tensas River. At night, they would drink together, Nelson sipping a glass of Old Charter.

“I shared and pored over thousands of pages of FBI files with him over the years. Confronted Klansmen, and visited the families so awfully affected by them,” he said. “Stanley’s passion was writing and local reporting but also investigation and uncovering the history that surrounded him and that he grew up with.”

He collected old investigative documents, FBI interviews and local police reports. “Saw them as treasures that contained just the beginnings of the actual story,” Ridgen said. “He reported all the ends of the story, all the shades of gray. Always with an eye for the restorative power of the work.”

Ridgen believes that Nelson’s work, which includes two books on the Klan, should be required reading for Americans and the rest of the world. He “will be missed dearly by the state and country,” Ridgen said. “I wish we could travel those roads together forever.”

In 2009, the Louisiana State University Cold Case Project began helping Nelson with his research, and a decade later, Nelson began sharing tips and techniques with students on how he worked on these civil rights cases.

Christopher Drew leads LSU’s Manship School’s experiential journalism curriculum, which includes the project. Under Nelson’s tutelage, “our students proved that Robert Fuller, a businessman who later became a top Klan leader, killed four of his Black workers in 1960, not in self-defense, as the local authorities had allowed him to claim, but in an ambush following a dispute over back pay,” Drew said.

In 2022, a series by LSU students on the 1972 killings of two students at Southern University in Baton Rouge won a national award from Investigative Reporters and Editors as the best investigative series by students at a large university.

“Stanley was always low-key, humble and determined to hear people out –– the model of what a reporter should be,” Drew said. “But the students were always leaning forward in their seats when he talked about how he got old Klan leaders to talk. ‘Most of them (Klansmen) lived on dirt roads at dead ends,’ he’d say, ‘with barbed wire fences and signs on the gate saying, ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot.’ Sometimes he’d send them letters saying he’d be coming at a certain date and time to mitigate those odds.

“But his heroism did not just come at those moments. It was his courage, the students could see, to dig up the dark facts in these communities for the sake of justice–and to take personal risks to hear what the suspects and perpetrators had to say–that make him such an exceptional journalist.”

LSU students plan to continue Nelson’s work on the Edwards’ case with a forensics team, Drew said. “We know where Stanley thinks the body might be, and we will continue to pursue that story.”Many of the stories written by Nelson and LSU students can be found at lsucoldcaseproject.com.