Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Sophia Paffenroth has joined the community health team at Mississippi Today.
Paffenroth, a native of New York, will report on women’s and children’s issues in Mississippi.
Earlier this year, she graduated with a master’s in journalism from Northeastern University, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Boston Scope. Her multimedia work has been recognized by the National Press Photographers Association and the New England chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
She has also worked for the global nonprofit Girl Rising and the documentary group The Disability Justice Project.
“To cover a beat I care so deeply about in a state that needs it now more than ever is a joy and an honor. I couldn’t be more excited to be making connections on the ground and settling into a community I hope to serve,” Paffenroth said. “Mississippi Today is filling in the gaps in coverage statewide on topics with profound social impact, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to join this team.”
Community Health Team Editor Kate Royals oversees the health team.
“Sophia is a talented journalist with a real passion for her beat. I am so excited for her to join our team and cover this crucial topic in a state where health indicators for women and children rank at the bottom,” Royals said. “I know she will do a great job telling the stories that need to be told.”
HERNANDO — Gov. Tate Reeves rolled up in his blacked-out SUV to a DeSoto County church earlier this month to meet with conservative voters who felt uninspired about his first term in office.
The closed-door meeting, held in a traditionally GOP stronghold county where Reeves earned 61% of the vote last election, provided some of those voters a chance to quiz the governor about his decisions the past few years and his ideas for the future. But importantly, it offered the governor an opportunity to mend relationships with members of a critical voting bloc he must win over to be reelected in November.
Reeves, in a chaotic first term in the Governor’s Mansion, has regularly drawn criticism from right-wing Republicans — voters he’ll need support from to win reelection in November. Their list of frustrations with the governor has grown quite extensive.
First, he issued mask mandates and partial business lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, a move medical experts recommended but voters in the right wing of the party thought was unnecessary and a ploy to force the government’s will on the people.
Next, after years of promises to let voters decide whether to change the state flag, the last in the nation containing the Confederate battle emblem, Reeves gave a half-hearted apology to his uber-conservative supporters before signing a bill that furled the old flag for good.
And perhaps most relevant to this bloc of voters today, Reeves mostly rode the fence in the 2023 Republican primary for lieutenant governor, when longtime conservative icon Chris McDaniel was challenging Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the Republican incumbent who many conservatives panned as a Democrat in disguise. Hosemann eventually won that bitter race, and right-wing conservatives lost their leader in McDaniel.
Reeves, first elected to statewide office in 2003, was not a product of the Tea Party movement like McDaniel, and now that the Jones County legislator isn’t appearing on the November ballot, it could give the far-right bloc a reason to stay home on Election Day. Low turnout among that base of Republican voters could spell disaster for Reeves, who faces a formidable challenge from Democrat Brandon Presley on Nov. 7.
Inside the closed-door meeting at The Summit Church on Oct. 2, a handful of conservative voters quizzed Reeves on his track record and other issues. Don Abernathy, one of the meeting’s organizers, told Mississippi Today that Reeves was there to meet with so-called “McDaniel conservatives” to energize far-right voters ahead of the November election.
“The purpose was to get some of those people in a room with the governor,” Abernathy said. “People, of course, are going to get disenfranchised a bit after going through a bitter primary like we had.”
One attendee, according to Abernathy, asked the governor a question about the former state flag at the meeting, though he said the flag was not a major component of the event and couldn’t remember how the governor responded to the question.
“The guy who asked the question said he wasn’t upset about the new flag — he was just upset about the process that replaced it,” Abernathy said.
Other discussed topics in the meeting, Abernathy said, included medical marijuana, the state income tax and how Reeves would work with the supermajority of Republicans in the House and Senate — all major priorities for the ultraconservative faction.
Clifton Carroll, a Reeves spokesman, said in a statement that the governor is traveling all over the state and meeting with a “wide range of Mississippians who are worried that Brandon Presley has sold out our state to get $10 million from out of state liberals to run his campaign.”
It’s unclear what $10 million figure Carroll is referencing, and he didn’t answer questions asking how the governor responded to the question about the state flag or if the governor felt like he had a positive relationship with the far right faction.
But with the election less than a month away — and with some polling indicating Reeves is still under the 50% mark — the governor must feel some urgency to boost enthusiasm among conservative voters.
In an interview this week with Mississippi Today, McDaniel said that he believes conservative voters are generally dissatisfied, but he chalks it up to the “strange political environment we’re in” nationally and in the state, not specifically about Reeves or any other candidate.
“I am supporting the Republican in the race, obviously,” McDaniel said of the November election. “As far as any official endorsement or anything, Gov. Reeves and I have not discussed that. The last time I talked with him was about three weeks ago.”
Less than a month from the Nov. 7 election, though, Reeves’ schedule is revealing. He’s waited weeks to announce plans to participate in a televised debate with Presley, and he waited months to unveil a plan to address financial woes with Mississippi’s hospitals.
Instead, the first-term governor has spent time trying to shore up support among a conservative base that suffered a stinging defeat during the August Republican primary.
The pressing questions now are: Will those voters turn out, and how badly could it hurt Reeves if they stay home?
“There is an overall unease about everything,” McDaniel said. “There’s some dissatisfaction out there, but not necessarily with him but just the political climate … There is a chance that could equate to lower turnout (of conservative voters). Low turnout would be trouble for everyone. Our models are usually based on having good turnout.”
Mississippi Today reporter Geoff Pender contributed to this report.
The payroll shows that the government paid for the work of those enslaved through those who enslaved them. Ben, Daniel and Peter were among the carpenters hired through James Hoban. Credit: National Archives and Records Administration
Construction began on the White House with the laying of the cornerstone.
Black Americans, those enslaved and free, did most of the work on the foundations and the main residence. They quarried and cut the rough stone that became the walls of the White House. Historians say they also played a role in the carpentry, carting, rafting, plastering, glazing and painting.
At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, First Lady Michelle Obama talked of that work, recalling “the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, Black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.”
The Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus will announce its intent to file a bill protecting Mississippians’ right to contraception at the State Capitol Friday morning.
The proposed bill will be filed in January when the state Legislature convenes, according to a press release sent out by Americans for Contraception. The group also released a television ad Thursday night encouraging Mississippians to demand Gov. Tate Reeves clarify his stance on contraception.
Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson Credit: Mississippi House
“Mississippians know what’s best for their health and their families,” Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson and chair of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, said in a press release. “Women and their partners deserve to feel confident about access to birth control – including condoms, IUDs, the pill, patches, emergency contraception, the ring – all of it. We refuse to give Republicans the opportunity to make healthcare decisions for us, and that’s why we’re announcing the intent to file a right to contraception act in Mississippi.”
The proposed Mississippi bill will be modeled after a North Carolina bill that is pending, according to an Americans for Contraception representative. The bill says the state has “no legitimate governmental interest” in limiting people’s right to use contraception to prevent pregnancy.
After the fall of Roe v. Wade in June of last year, the federal constitutional right to contraception became a topic of national discussion. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called on the Supreme Court to review Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark decision in which the court ruled that married couples have the right to access contraception.
Soon after, 195 Republican members of the U.S. Congress, including every Mississippi Republican in the House, voted against the “Right to Contraception Act,” which would have codified the right to contraception under federal law. Since then, some state legislatures have introduced bills to restrict access to contraceptives, or allowed health providers to refuse to provide or cover contraception.
The Dobbs ruling made access to contraception more critical in Mississippi, which has one of the country’s highest rates of unplanned pregnancy and maternal mortality and the highest rate of infant mortality.
The mission of Americans for Contraception is to protect Americans’ right to contraception. Since it was launched in 2022, the group has made efforts to help pass the Right to Contraception Act in states like North Carolina, Wisconsin and Arizona – where lawmakers and state senators are working to secure statewide access to contraception, including long acting reversible contraception like IUDs.
A dozen days after five Rankin County deputies known as the “Goon Squad” tortured, tased and sexually abused two Black men, the Rankin County Board of Supervisors gave Sheriff Bryan Bailey a $21,059 raise.
On Feb. 6, supervisors officially appointed him director of the Safe Room, a task he has carried out for years.
This means Bailey, a Republican incumbent unopposed in the Nov. 7 election, now earns $140,059 — what appears to be the highest pay for a Mississippi sheriff. It’s far more than the $122,160 salary Gov. Tate Reeves collects.
State Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, said she believes the bonus circumvented the will of the state Legislature, which capped sheriffs’ salaries in counties of more than 100,000 population at $119,000. “We had just given sheriffs a big raise,” she said. “It’s just not right.”
The state’s legislative watchdog told her the raise was legal, but she said she still thinks the act “takes advantage of the taxpayers. I’m shocked the board of supervisors went along with it.”
Greta Kemp Martin, the Democratic candidate for Mississippi attorney general, said Sheriff Bailey has “proven himself to be unfit for the job” and should resign.
In addition to the Goon Squad’s actions, she pointed to reporting by The New York Times and Mississippi Today, which revealed the sheriff repeatedly used grand jury subpoenas to gather the text messages and phone call logs of his married girlfriend and a man he suspected she was seeing.
Before giving Bailey the raise, Rankin County supervisors sought an attorney general’s opinion, wanting to know if the sheriff could also be paid “for overseeing the FEMA safe room,” another name for the county’s severe weather shelter.
A written opinion from the attorney general’s office, which isn’t legally binding, concluded state law limiting the sheriff’s salary “would not apply to the compensation for his or her second job.”
What Rankin County officials didn’t mention to the attorney general’s office was that the sheriff had been in charge of the Safe Room for years.
The 16,400-square-foot facility hosts far more events and parties than storm evacuations. Most of the Rankin County policies for the Safe Room, built at a cost of $2.8 million to taxpayers, center on how groups can use the room for events ($50 an hour, plus a $250 deposit).
“Event themes must be approved by the Rankin County Sheriff and-or his designee and must be consistent with promoting community culture, recreation and education,” the policies read. “The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department accepts cash, checks and purchase orders made payable to Rankin County.”
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., past chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, noted that the position over the Safe Room is usually held by a county’s emergency management director rather than a sheriff.
Brian Adam serves as emergency management director for Hancock County, which has five shelters. When those shelters open to the public, the Red Cross operates them, he said.
He doesn’t know of any sheriffs who manage shelters.
Asked why the Rankin County sheriff was getting paid now for a task he had done for years, Craig Slay, an attorney for the supervisors, responded that Bailey undertook that responsibility “voluntarily” and it “does not fall within his duties as Sheriff.”
While Bailey’s pay has skyrocketed, the number of employees at the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department is falling.
Current and former deputies say morale is plummeting, and more than two dozen people have left the office in recent months. They say they feel they lack the support of the sheriff, who said from now on, he had to “verify” their work.
After Rankin County Undersheriff Paul Holley resigned Oct. 2, Bailey sent out an email asking those in the office to “be patient during this transition. I have always tried to be a good leader but have my shortcomings. …
“I want to recover all that has been taken from us, especially our name and reputation. I cannot do it alone. I need our team to do it. If we all do our part and do our job, we can regain what was stolen from us.”
Weeks after five deputies and a Richland police officer pleaded guilty to torturing two Black men and planting a gun and drugs on them, citizens from the community appeared before the county supervisors.
“Those who are supposed to protect and serve have been serving out a brand of justice that is outside the boundaries of human dignity and decency,” resident Joe Brazeal told supervisors. “How long do you really think this has really been going on in our county?”
Someone in the audience answered, “Decades.”
Brazeal called for an investigation “going back as far back and as long ago as these officers who were carrying a badge.”
He asked the supervisors, “How many are incarcerated now or have been banished from this county because of planted evidence? This is your responsibility. Some of you were on watch.”
Supervisor Steve Gaines responded that the deputies’ crimes surprised him. “I’m sorry this happened,” he said. “I believe the sheriff is sorry this happened. Let’s respect our law enforcement and not let a few bad apples ruin everything.”
In response to those calling for Bailey’s resignation, Slay told the crowd that when people called on supervisors to remove the sheriff, those calls should go to the governor.
Mississippi law gives the governor the power to remove a county elected official if he or she receives a petition of 30 percent or more of the qualified voters.
“This board does not have the power to remove any county elected official,” Slay told the audience.
Bailey, first elected a dozen years ago, has rejected calls to resign. At a press conference following the officers’ guilty pleas, he denied having any prior knowledge of the deputies’ actions or even the existence of the Goon Squad, despite the fact that challenge coins for the Goon Squad were stamped with the seal of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department.
He blamed his deputies for lying to him. “The only thing I’m guilty of is trusting grown men that swore an oath to do their job correctly,” he said. “I’m guilty of that.”
Instead, he blamed others at his office. “The complaint has to come in,” he said. “The reports have to come in. Something has to come in that I’ve been notified. That’s what I’ve got supervisors for.”
In response to questions about the crimes carried out by his deputies, the sheriff told reporters, “The system works.”
He said investigators for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation “came in. They saw the red flags. Today, we have five former deputies in jail because they [MBI] came in and did their job.”
Greta Kemp Martin, whose father serves as police chief for the town of Tishomingo, said if Bailey had taken full responsibility for what happened, she might feel differently.
“Kicking the can to his supervisors is cowardly,” she said. “This was more than roughing up someone. This was torture.”
Martin, whose grandfathers also worked in law enforcement, said what the Goon Squad did “puts good cops at risk, because it deflates the public trust.”
Ilyssa Daly examines the power of sheriffs’ offices in Mississippi as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship. Jerry Mitchell, co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting that’s now part of Mississippi Today, is an investigative reporter who has examined civil rights-era cold murder cases in the state for more than 30 years.
A group of Ocean Springs residents, a business owner and a church all filed a lawsuit in federal court against the city on Thursday over an urban renewal plan that labeled certain properties as “slums” or “blighted.”
In April, the city gave that designation to over 100 properties around Ocean Springs. By doing so, the city paved the way to invoke a state law that allows the acquisition of such properties — with or without the owners’ permission — in order to remove “economic and social liability.” While many of the properties listed in the urban renewal plan are vacant lots, they also include occupied homes, businesses and the parking lot of a church in a historic Black neighborhood.
But residents say they didn’t find out about the plan until the city shared it on social media before a board meeting in August. The state law, according to Thursday’s lawsuit, allows just 10 days for residents to contest a “blighted” designation, meaning that Ocean Springs property owners missed their chance to do so because they only found out about the plan months later.
The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm from Virginia that specializes in eminent domain cases, is representing the plaintiffs. The lawsuit is not just going after the city of Ocean Springs, but Mississippi’s laws around urban renewal in general.
Ocean Springs residents listen as other residents express their concerns with the city’s proposed Urban Renewal Plan during a public hearing at the Ocean Springs Civic Center on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
“Mississippi law says you have to challenge the ‘blight’ designation in 10 days,” said IJ attorney Dana Berliner. “And people were contacting us (about the urban renewal plan) long after that. That is a violation of due process.”
Specifically, the complaint asks for judgments declaring the city violated the property owners’ rights to due process, that the city’s urban renewal plan is invalid, and that the state’s laws around urban renewal are unconstitutional.
After pushback following the August city board meeting, Mayor Kenny Holloway has repeatedly stated that the city won’t forcibly acquire anyone’s property. Holloway, who according to his city bio owns a real estate and development company, said last week at a public comment session that the city could’ve done a better job of communicating the intentions of the urban renewal plan. He added that the idea was to use federal grants to help make improvements around Ocean Springs.
Ocean Springs Mayor Kenny Holloway, left, responds to a speaker after concerns were expressed about the city’s proposed Urban Renewal Plan during a public hearing at the Ocean Springs Civic Center on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
It’s unclear what the city’s next steps are now that it’s facing a federal lawsuit. Holloway told the Sun Herald after last week’s meeting: “We’re not going to stop the plan. We’re going to try to find some common ground and move forward.”
But even if the city doesn’t use the plan to acquire residents’ home, or even if the city scraps the plan altogether, harm has already been done to those property owners, Berliner explained.
“Even if the current administration does nothing like that, (the ‘blight’ label) is going to be there 20 years later,” she said.
According to the state law, she said, the owners have no way of removing the label after the 10-day period, which means a future administration could still acquire the “blighted” properties under a new urban renewal plan.
Ocean Springs residents whose properties have belonged to their families for generations argue that their homes and land don’t meet the criteria for “blighted” areas.
“We’re proud of our neighborhood, and while we may not have a lot of money to put in our homes, we keep them well,” homeowner Cynthia Fisher said. “What the city did, labeling our neighborhood as a slum without telling us, was wrong.”
Fisher is a plaintiff in the case along with homeowners Esther Payton and Edward Williams. Robert Zellner, who owns an auto repair store in the designated “blighted” area, and the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, which owns the aforementioned parking lot, are also plaintiffs. A link to the full complaint can be found here.
Mississippi Today is working on ongoing coverage of this story.
A new TV ad says that Mississippians “can count on Tate Reeves” to solve complicated problems like the state’s health crisis.
However, it’s not clear how large of a role the first-term governor who is running for reelection this year has actually played in many of the policy measures proposed over the last year to curb the crisis.
Though hospitals have been forced to close departments and lay off staff to stay open over the past several years, Reeves’ first major health care policy announcement came just a few weeks ago, just 47 days before the November election — after Reeves’ opponent, Democrat Brandon Presley, made the hospital crisis a cornerstone of his 2023 campaign.
During the September press conference, Reeves took credit for a handful of other health care policies passed by the Legislature this session, several of which were touted by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann as part of his plan to help the state’s hospitals.
Up until this month, Reeves had been largely silent about the health care crisis, aside from doubling down on his opposition to Medicaid expansion, the policy measure experts agree would help the most. When Mississippi Today previously asked Reeves about the hospital crisis, he brushed the concerns off, saying the solution was getting more people in the workforce and on private insurance.
Mississippi Today analyzed the accuracy of recent claims made by Reeves and his campaign staff about his role in stemming the state’s health care crisis. Here’s what we found.
Leadership during pandemic
Reeves’ communications director, Hunter Estes, wrote on social media in September that the governor “led the state through COVID.”
Though Reeves has indeed been governor of Mississippi since the pandemic began in January 2020, the state hasn’t fared all that well.
The pandemic pushed already-struggling hospitals to the brink in Mississippi. Already thin hospital budget margins were made thinner during the pandemic, with both staffing shortages and costs of care increasing over a period of several months. One report now puts nearly half of rural hospitals at risk of closure in Mississippi.
At one point during the pandemic, Mississippi led the nation in COVID-19 deaths, and at various other points, the state’s COVID-19 caseload also ranked among the worst in the world. This came after Reeves loosened mask mandates and restrictions on non-essential gatherings — and his decisions often directly countered recommendations by the state’s health leaders.
In two studies from the Council of Foreign Relations and the Commonwealth Fund that judged how well states performed and protected their residents during the pandemic, Mississippi’s COVID-19 performance was at the bottom of the list.
The Council of Foreign Relations analysis, which was largely based on states’ cumulative COVID-19 deaths and infections, ranked Mississippi second to last in health performance during the pandemic.
The Commonwealth Fund analysis, which judged health care access, quality, spending, health outcomes and equity, put Mississippi dead last.
Health care experts in Mississippi had long implored state leaders to pass postpartum Medicaid extension, which extended health care coverage for new mothers on Medicaid from 60 days to one year. Mississippi leads the nation in infant mortality, and has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation.
For two years, the Senate tried to pass the legislation, only to be repeatedly thwarted by House leadership. House Speaker Phillip Gunn maintained that he wouldn’t support extending postpartum Medicaid coverage until Mississippi Medicaid’s director Drew Snyder, a Reeves appointee, recommended it.
Snyder, who had along with his boss refused to take a stance on the legislation, finally wrote a letter in February encouraging its passage. With that letter in hand, Gunn stepped aside and allowed the bill to move through the legislative process.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann discusses legislative strategies to save hospitals and rectify staffing shortages during a press conference at the State Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Nurse loan repayment plan and health care worker training
The student loan repayment plan for nurses claimed by Reeves at his press conference was introduced by Hosemann as part of his plan to help hospitals during the Legislative session.
Aside from signing the bills into law after they went through the legislative process, it’s not clear what other involvement Reeves had.
Hosemann announced Senate Bill 2373 at a January press conference. Reeves was not present.
The bill is aimed at incentivizing nurses to stay in Mississippi and pays up to $6,000 per year for up to three years for nurses paying off student loans after graduation.
Senate Bill 2371, which allocates millions toward hospital residency and fellowship programs aimed at training and increasing the state’s health care workforce, was also introduced at Hosemann’s January press conference.
When asked how involved the Governor was, Reeves’ Deputy Chief of Staff Cory Custer did not answer with any specificity. He said that Reeves “cannot single-handedly pass and sign legislation into law,” though his office is involved throughout the legislative process.
“The lawmakers who passed the bill deserve tremendous credit,” Custer said.
When Mississippi Today asked Reeves’ office for more details about what he’s done to expand health care workers’ training opportunities, aside from signing SB 2371, Custer replied that Mississippi has invested almost $50 million in health care training programs over the last two years through AccelerateMS, a workforce development organization. Custer said Reeves — who appoints the chair of the State Workforce Investment Board, which hires the executive director of AccelerateMS — works closely with both the board and the organization.
“Expanding opportunities to train healthcare professionals has been a key priority for Governor Reeves,” Custer said in an emailed statement. “The state of Mississippi is aggressively implementing a range of initiatives that will strengthen healthcare infrastructure in Mississippi and better support healthcare professionals.”
Hosemann, a fellow Republican, would not say how involved Reeves was in the creation of the bills.
“We have visited dozens of hospitals and met with physicians, nurses, mental health experts, pharmacists, assisted living professionals, Medicaid, healthcare educators, and others in the healthcare field,” he said in a statement to Mississippi Today. “From the knowledge we have gained, we intend to continue to support legislation to secure the future of the delivery of healthcare to our citizens.”
Mississippi Hospital Sustainability Grant program
The Mississippi Hospital Sustainability Grant program, which Reeves claimed as one of the measures he’s taken to improve health care at his September press conference, has been plagued with problems since its inception earlier this year.
Similar to the bills that incentivize health care workers to stay in Mississippi, this was part of Hosemann’s proposed plan at the beginning of the session, and Reeves’ role in its exact creation is, again, unclear.
Shortly after the legislation’s passage, health care leaders realized the money granted in the program, which was meant to quickly send millions to struggling hospitals across the state, would be difficult to access. Instead of using state money, the program’s funds were sourced from federal pandemic relief funds, which most hospitals have already claimed.
As of the end of September, no hospitals have received that money, which was meant to help hospitals survive the year. Issues with the program are still being resolved.
One-time supplemental Medicaid payout
After proposed changes to the Mississippi Hospital Access Program didn’t result in large enough additional payments to hospitals, Medicaid payments were tweaked earlier this year, bringing in a one-time extra payment of $137 million. The state’s Division of Medicaid is housed under the Governor’s office, though Reeves’ direct role in this change isn’t obvious.
Dick Gregory at the Million Woman March in 1967 Credit: Wikipedia
Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory was born in St. Louis.
He belonged to a new generation of Black comics that dared to take on race. In one of his routines, he talked about eating down South in a segregated restaurant:
“Then these three white boys came up to me and said, ‘Boy, we’re giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we’re gonna do to you.’ So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, ‘Line up, boys!’”
He was the first Black comic permitted to stay and talk with “Tonight Show” host Jack Paar. When he heard that surplus food had been cut off to the impoverished in the Mississippi Delta in 1963, he chartered a plane and sent 14,000 pounds of food. He marched in Greenwood with those demanding the right to vote, only to be confronted by police with dogs. When an officer dragged the comedian away, Gregory said, “Thanks a million. Up North, people don’t escort me across the street.”
Gregory vowed the marches would continue: “We will march through your dogs, and if you get some elephants, we’ll march through them and bring on your tigers and we’ll march through them.”
He spent four days in jail with other protesters, including children: “Had you been there, as I was, walking through, listening, it was really something to be proud of, really something to be proud of. And if something ever happens and you have to do it again, don’t hesitate.”
Gregory also worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and others, using his comedy as a weapon against bigotry. At a mass meeting at a church in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a bomb came through the window, and people dashed to the door. “Where are you going?” Gregory asked. “The man who threw it is outside God’s house. The Man who’s supposed to save you lives here.”
In 2015, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and his life story became the subject of a one-man play produced by artist John Legend. The title of the play? “Turn Me Loose” — after Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers’ last words when he was fatally hot in 1968.
