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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for a Black death row inmate from Mississippi who claims there was racial bias in the makeup of the jury that convicted him.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner.

“In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices joined with Kavanaugh.

READ MORE: A Mississippi death penalty jury was seated. With one Black juror.

There were 11 white jurors and one Black juror in a trial with similarities to that of another Black man on Mississippi’s death row, whose conviction the high court overturned seven years ago.

It’s unclear what happens next in Pitchford’s case. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who dissented, suggested the state still could argue Pitchford’s conviction should be sustained. If his conviction is overturned, the state could seek to retry him.

“Mr. Pitchford is now entitled to a fair trial in the state court,” Joseph Perkovich, who argued the case for Pitchford at the Supreme Court, wrote in an email.

Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor with a history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons, had excused four other Black people at Pitchford’s trial. Black people make up more than 37% of Mississippi’s population.

The Supreme Court ruled 40 years ago in Batson v. Kentucky that jurors could not be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors.

Pitchford’s case focused on whether his lawyers did enough to object to Judge Joseph Loper’s rulings and whether the state Supreme Court acted reasonably in ruling they had not.

Pitchford’s lawyers made the necessary arguments and the state high court acted unreasonably, Kavanaugh wrote.

In dissent, Gorsuch wrote that Pitchford had to show that no fair-minded judge could rule as the Mississippi court did and that the record in the case was crystal-clear in his favor.

“As I see things, Mr. Pitchford has failed to satisfy either of these standards,” Gorsuch wrote, joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas.

In 2019, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers, because of what Kavanaugh then described as a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.” Evans was the prosecutor in that case, and Loper presided over the final two of Flowers’ six trials.

Pitchford, now 40, was 18 when he and a friend decided to rob the Crossroads Grocery, just outside Grenada in northern Mississippi. The friend shot store owner Reuben Britt three times, fatally wounding him, but was ineligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18. Pitchford was tried for capital murder and was sentenced to death.

The case has been making its way through the court system for 20 years. In 2023, U.S District Judge Michael P. Mills overturned Pitchford’s conviction, holding that the trial judge did not give Pitchford’s lawyers enough of a chance to argue that the prosecution was improperly dismissing Black jurors.

Mills wrote that his ruling was partially motivated by Evans’ actions in prior cases. A unanimous panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling.

Evans did not respond to The Associated Press’ attempt to reach him for comment when he retired.

Update, 5/28/2026: This article has been updated with additional details, including a comment from an attorney who represented Terry Pitchford in Supreme Court arguments.

A frenzied redistricting effort ahead of the November elections has reshaped congressional voting districts for millions of Americans — and it isn’t over yet.

Since President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans to redraw U.S. House districts last year, Republicans in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee also have enacted new maps that could help the party win additional seats in the midterm elections. Louisiana is expected to join those ranks soon, and Alabama Republicans are appealing a court decision blocking a map they support.

So far, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from their redistricting efforts while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Trump hopes the unusual mid-decade redistricting can help Republicans retain control of the closely divided House, despite negative approval ratings and historical tendencies for the incumbent’s party to lose seats in the midterms.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the redistricting battle:

Louisiana House to vote on redistricting

The U.S. Supreme Court in April struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, which contains two majority-Black districts held by Democrats, as an illegal racial gerrymander. That prompted Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to postpone Louisiana’s May 16 congressional primary until later this summer to allow time for redistricting.

The state House is expected to consider a revised congressional map this week that gives Republicans a better chance of winning one of those two seats. The Senate already passed a different version of the new map. The two chambers are trying to agree on a redistricting plan before the June 1 end of their legislative session.

Alabama seeks permission for new map

Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the state to use a Republican-drawn congressional map in the midterm elections. Marshall wants to set aside a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday against the map by a federal judicial panel.

The lower court judges said the plan, which includes only one majority-Black district, “intentionally discriminated based on race.” They ordered the state to continue using a court-imposed map containing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. Both of those seats currently are held by Democrats.

Missouri court upholds new map — again

The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a legal challenge from the NAACP that claimed no extraordinary occasion existed for Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe to call lawmakers into a special session on redistricting last year. The court ruled unanimously that the state constitution gives governors discretion in calling special sessions.

The Supreme Court already has rejected two other challenges to a new U.S. House map that gives Republicans an improved chance to win another seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district based in Kansas City. Opponents have one more possibility to stop the plan, with an initiative petition to put it to a statewide referendum.

South Carolina pulls the plug on redistricting

As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s June 9 primaries, the Republican-led state Senate ended efforts to redraw the state’s congressional districts this year. A plan previously passed by the House sought to redraw the state’s only Democratic-held district to give Republicans a better chance at winning it.

But some Republican senators said it was too late to make changes. Others expressed reservations that the plan could backfire by adding too many Democratic voters in districts held by Republicans.

Florida judge lets GOP map stand

Voting rights groups contend Florida’s new congressional districts should be struck down for violating a state ban on intentional partisan gerrymandering. But a state judge on Tuesday declined to issue a preliminary injunction against using the map in the midterm elections.

The judge said the plaintiffs hadn’t shown their claims of partisanship are likely to succeed. Voting rights groups said they would quickly appeal to a higher court and would continue pursuing the case all the way to the state Supreme Court, if necessary.

Tennessee map faces several challenges

A state court panel dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Republican-led legislature went beyond the special session agenda set by Republican Gov. Bill Lee when it passed a new congressional map. Meanwhile, a federal court on Tuesday declined to issue a temporary restraining order in a separate lawsuit contending that Tennessee’s new U.S. House districts are racially discriminatory.

The new Republican-drawn map carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis — a city where more than half the population is Black — giving Republicans an improved chance to win the state’s only Democratic-held seat. Several lawsuits are still pending in federal courts.

A rezoning hearing for a potential data center in Jackson has been postponed until June. 

The applicant, Saxum Investment Company, asked to delay the hearing until a city Planning Board meeting on June 24. Robert Ireland, an attorney with Watkins and Eager representing Saxum, said the company wants more time to engage with the community and city. 

Because the request was made less than five business days before Wednesday’s meeting, Saxum had to go before the Planning Board on Wednesday to ask for the postponement.

“The city has committed to presenting data center specific standards to address the city’s concerns about noise, emissions, utility burdens and other issues. Saxum encourages the adoption of these standards and wants to pursue a project that meets the concerns of Jackson citizens and its city leaders,” Ireland said to the board. 

Saxum is asking to rezone about 190 acres of mostly undeveloped land in northwest Jackson from residential and commercial to heavy industrial use. There is currently a horse track on the proposed site, which is close to the Presidential Hills neighborhood. 

In a packed conference room, residents from the surrounding area and across Jackson loudly voiced opposition to the project or any data center in Jackson. 

“Even if we wanted a data center here, even if we decided to do something like that as a city, this process has not been transparent,” said Matt Casteel, whose 2-acre family farm, WurmWorks, sits in the middle of the proposed site. 

Council considers data center regulations

This comes as the City Council debates a six-month moratorium on new data center projects in Jackson. Last week, the council voted to table a proposed ordinance until members have a clearer picture of the moratorium’s impact. 

According to the city attorney’s office, such a moratorium impacts city zoning ordinances, and passing it without the proper public notice process could create a due-process violation. Council President Brian Grizzell, who introduced the measure, disagreed, arguing the idea was just to study the impact of data centers ahead of time.

“This is a six-month cooling period to give us time to put our heads together, figure this out, to work with zoning, work with planning,” Grizzell said at last week’s City Council meeting. 

At the meeting, Ireland pointed out that if the data center is the size of one proposed for Clinton, it would bring in about $60 million to the city and over $80 million to the school district over 10 years. But he warned that there is a “finite window of opportunity” for Jackson to attract a data center project. 

Data centers in Mississippi

Tech companies are racing against one another to build more data centers. According to Pew Research, there are currently 3,000 operational data centers and an additional 1,500 in development in the United States. There are around 750 planned data centers in the South. 

Data centers vary in size but the advent of artificial intelligence has accelerated the need for large data centers, called hyperscalers. These centers, such as Amazon in Madison and xAI in Southaven, can meet the large computational power needed to train and run AI models. 

In Mississippi, there are seven confirmed data centers in various stages of development. While some have welcomed the data centers and their historic investment, others have pushed back against them citing their high energy usage and concerns over water consumption and noise and air pollution.

There will be a public hearing at 6 p.m. on June 22 in City Council chambers to discuss data centers and a zoning ordinance. Members of the crowd on Wednesday promised that they’d be there.

This history-making Mississippi State softball team already has written a fascinating story, lifting an often largely ignored sport in the Magnolia State’s headlines. Win or lose at the Women’s College World Series, which begins Thursday in Oklahoma City, that story is about to get all the more intriguing. At this point, State is playing with house money. Nobody expected this.

Problem is, Texas Tech, the Bulldogs’ first opponent, is playing with real money – West Texas oil money. Millions. We’ll get to that.

First, what the Bulldog softballers have achieved: State, which entered the NCAA Tournament with a 38-18 record (just 9-15 in the murderous SEC), traveled cross-continent to Eugene, Oregon, and swept through an NCAA Regional there, winning three straight games while allowing only two runs. The Bulldogs blanked host Oregon, the nation’s 12th ranked team, 4-0 behind pitcher Alyssa Faircloth’s no-hit, 10-strikeout performance, They were just getting started.

Next, State traveled to Norman, Oklahoma, to take on the second ranked Oklahoma Sooners in a best-of-three Super Regional. It appeared a mismatch: No. 2 vs. unranked, 20-4 in the SEC vs. 9-15. Furthermore, Oklahoma has tradition as a softball powerhouse, having played in the previous nine Women’s College World Series. This will be State’s first.

It gets better. State trailed the Sooners 5-1 early in the opener before storming back for nine runs over the last two innings for an 11-9 victory. It was Oklahoma’s first Super Regional loss since 2015.

Understand: The Sooners play in a softball Super Regional every year. After dropping a 7-1 decision in Game Two, the Bulldogs shocked the Sooners and their packed stadium of 4,250 fans by winning Game Three 6-0 on Delaney Everett’s three-hit shutout. Get this: It was the first time proud Oklahoma had been shut out in 399 games.

You want some added spice? State coach Samantha Ricketts is a former Oklahoma softball All American and graduate assistant coach. Nobody knows better than she what her team had achieved winning a Super Regional at Norman. 

Now then, let’s jump ahead to what the Bulldogs face Thursday at Oklahoma City. This is where a good story becomes captivating. State plays Texas Tech in the eight-team, double elimination tournament’s first game at 11 a.m.

And I know what many non-softball fans are thinking: Hmmm, Texas Tech softball, where have I heard about them before?

Well, it was probably on July 24, 2024, when Texas Tech made front page news, the lead story on ESPN Sportscenter, signing former Stanford pitching star NiJaree Canady to a $1 million contract to switch schools and lead Tech to college softball’s promised land.

Canady, a phenomenal talent, had led Stanford to two straight Women’s College World Series as a dominating pitcher. She had achieved a 41-10 overall record, a 0.66 earned run average, 555 strikeouts and 9 saves in her freshman and sophomore seasons. But she also wanted to hit. She wanted to become softball’s Shohei Ohtani. That was Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco’s recruiting pitch to her – that she could play first base and hit when she wasn’t pitching if she came to Tech. Glasco also enlisted Patrick Mahomes, the NFL superstar and Tech alum, in the recruitment of Canady, a native Kansan and a devoted Kansas City Chiefs fan.

And, oh yes, there was the NIL deal, and this is where West Texas oil money comes into play. Tech offered a one-year, $1,050,024 contract (a million for Canady, $50,000 for living expenses, $24 for her jersey number). She apparently is a smart young lady. She took it. Who pays a cool million for a softball player, you ask? Billionaire couple John and Tracy Sellers, both former Texas Tech athletes, that’s who. John played football. Tracy played softball. They have donated millions upon millions to Tech, including to Canady’s NIL deal.

Softball, you see, is different than other sports. One player – one great pitcher – can make a mediocre team a national contender. In softball, a pitcher can pitch nearly every game. We saw it in Mississippi back in 1999-2000, when Courtney Blades transferred to Southern Miss from Nicholls State  and proceeded to take the Golden Eagles to two consecutive Women’s College World Series. Blades had a two-year record of 95-13 for USM. She was the national player of the year. She is the only softball player in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Alas, Blades did get not millions playing college softball. Not back then.

But this is now. Texas Tech is getting their money’s worth. Canady took Texas Tech, which had never been much good at softball, to the Women’s College World Series last season. The Red Raiders advanced to the championship game before losing to Texas in the finale. She then signed a $1.2 million contract to return to Tech in hopes of winning it all.

And now the first obstacle to Tech’s multi-million dollar dream is Mississippi State. I have no way of knowing what State’s total NIL package for softball is, but I know it probably not even 20% what one player makes at Texas Tech. 

But I also know the Bulldogs have three quality pitchers to throw at Tech, including Californian Delaney Everett, the Super Regional hero. You talk about a Cinderella story. Everett pitched a three-hit shutout in Game Three of a Super Regional in her first start of the season. And I know that, despite losing, Florida scored 34 runs against Texas Tech in last week’s three-game Super Regional, including 12 runs against Canady.

State was highly competitive in a three-game series at Florida back in early April, losing 2-0 and 5-4, sandwiched around a 9-5 victory over the Gators. What’s more, State is playing much better softball now than the Bulldogs were then. This should be fun.

These Bulldogs are surely underdogs, but they have proven they can play against top level teams winning at Oregon and at Oklahoma. Besides, money isn’t everything, although, as we’ve seen at Texas Tech, it sure does make it easier.

Softball joins baseball in the Mississippi sports spotlight this week. Mississippi State stunned proud Oklahoma to reach the College World Series for the first time. Belhaven won its Super Regional and will play in the Division III World Series. Southern Miss, State, and Ole Mis all play in NCAA Baseball Regionals this weekend. All that and lots more, including a visit from Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain who is on the NCAA Baseball Committee.

Stream all episodes here.

The family of Clifton Walker Sr. is appealing to the Wilkinson County Board of Supervisors to rename the road where the World War II veteran was gunned down in what is believed to be the first killing by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

His family wants to see the name changed from Poor House Road to Clifton Earl Walker Road. 

“This request represents more than a road name: It is an effort to honor the life, military service and memory of a man whose family and community have carried his legacy for decades,” Walker’s granddaughter, Rosabell Hall, told supervisors on Tuesday. 

After an executive session, the supervisors sent the family a statement saying they want to “hear from the residents who live on this road and would be most affected by any change of name. The Board intends to reach out to these residents over the next few weeks, and then take their views into consideration before making a final decision.”

It was nearly midnight on Feb. 28, 1964, when 37-year-old Walker turned his cream-colored 1961 Impala onto Poor House Road, six miles north of Woodville. The Black man had just finished his shift at integrated International Paper in Natchez and was headed home to his wife and five children.

Three hundred yards after he pulled onto the gravel road, a mob of Klansmen and perhaps other white men stopped his car and opened fire with their shotguns. The pellets tore Walker’s face apart. 

When he was found the next day, he was dead, all the windows had been shot out, and part of the steering wheel had been blown off.

Catherine Walker Jones was 14 when she saw her father’s body in the blood-soaked Impala with holes in the driver’s side door and holes in the passenger’s side door. “He had been dead 14 hours,” she said. “That’s a bittersweet memory in my mind.”

FBI and congressional records show the Mississippi Highway Patrol wanted to arrest then-Wilkinson County Constable Gordon “Bud” Geter and Klansman Ed Fuller, but then-District Attorney Lennox Forman refused to charge them.

The killing of Walker was part of a series of attacks on Black men in southwest Mississippi. Dozens of Black men had been whipped, beaten and robbed by white men wearing hoods or masks. Some injuries were so severe the Black men had to be hospitalized.

The attacks were believed to be the work of the White Knights, the most violent white supremacist group in the nation at the time. The White Knights are believed to have killed at least 10 people in Mississippi.

The FBI began to review the Walker case in 2009, thanks to the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. After a rehash of the 1964 Highway Patrol investigation, the Justice Department closed the case again in 2013, saying all known suspects were dead.

“The tragedy is no one was prosecuted,” Wright said. “That’s really a hard pill to swallow.”

The family moved to Louisiana, and their mother raised them, Jones said. “We had a strong mom who made us safe. We had a good life because of her.”

Although there were three suspects named in the killings, authorities never interviewed any of them, she said. “Are you kidding me?”

Jones said naming the road after her father “would be part of his legacy passed on to the next generation. He’s the reason I am who I am.”

Journalist Ben Greenberg, who investigated the case, said the FBI did not speak to anyone in the Walker family until an agent in 2013 delivered a letter to Jones, notifying her that the Department of Justice was closing the case. 

“During this time, I published articles with new leads that the FBI could have used,” he said, “but virtually none were explored.”

In a letter, Greenberg urged supervisors to adopt the name change and honor Walker “to help make sure that the injustice he and his family suffered is not forgotten. In 1964, a mob of Klansmen treated Mr. Walker as a disposable Black target of their racist hate.”

He told supervisors they could “transform Poor House Road from being a forgotten crime scene to a memorial to one of the county’s citizens whose life was violently taken when he was just 37 years old. … They can give Clifton Walker’s family some closure where all else has failed him.”

Authorities are investigating the crash on Tuesday afternoon of a training jet from Naval Air Station Meridian in Noxubee County.

Two pilots ejected before the crash and were being evaluated at a local medical center, according to a press release from the Naval Air Training Command in Meridian. The cause was not immediately known.

“Local emergency services and military first responders are currently on the scene to secure the site,” the statement said.

“The public is asked to avoid the area to allow emergency personnel to conduct their operations safely and preserve the site for investigators.”

The crash occurred on the border between Noxubee County and Kemper County, on private land off U.S. 45 near Shuqualak. 

The plane was a U.S. Navy T-45C Goshawk assigned to Training Air Wing One.

The crash Tuesday was the second this month for military aircraft taking off in Mississippi. 

A T-38 Talon II from Columbus Air Force Base crashed in western Alabama on May 12. The two pilots in that crash also ejected safely and the military is investigating. 

The Air Force has indefinitely paused use of its entire T-38 Talon fleet out of caution.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — President Donald Trump’s push to reshape congressional districts ahead of the November elections suffered a double setback Tuesday, as South Carolina senators declined to do so and a federal court blocked a Republican-backed map in Alabama.

As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s primaries, the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel those congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary under revised districts designed to help the GOP oust a longtime Democrat.

Some senators said it was simply too late to make a change.

“South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. And neither my conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is already underway,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said.

The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy — propelled by Trump — to redraw voting districts to the GOP’s advantage in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterm elections. Republicans have been moving quickly to try to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.

In Alabama, a three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state from using a Republican-drawn congressional map that could help the GOP win an additional seat. The court said the plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district, and it ordered the continued use of a court-imposed map that includes two districts with a significant proportion of Black residents.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.

READ MORE: ‘We’re ready to fight’: Thousands protest Mississippi redistricting and rally for voting rights

READ MORE: NAACP calls for boycott of Southern college sports programs over voting rights

READ MORE: Mississippi Democrats fear big losses in Legislature from redistricting, vow to organize

Republicans remain ahead in a national mid-decade redistricting battle. But Democrats, who have suffered their own share of setbacks, praised the turn of events in Alabama.

The “fight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymanders on top of gerrymanders to erase equal representation for communities of color,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.

Republicans also notched some victories in lower courts on Tuesday.

A state judge in Florida declined to block new congressional districts passed by the Republican-led Legislature from being used in the midterm elections. Republicans stand to gain as many as four seats under the new map. The judge said voting rights groups that sued hadn’t shown they were likely to succeed on their claim that the map was drawn with political intent in violation of Florida’s Constitution. The groups vowed to keep pursuing the case all the way to the state Supreme Court.

A federal judge also declined to issue a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit contending that Tennessee’s new U.S. House districts are racially discriminatory. The new Republican-drawn map carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, giving Republicans an improved chance to win the state’s only Democratic-held seat. The case is one of several brought against the map.

Redistricting battle has spanned 10 months

Voting districts typically are redrawn after a census at the start of a decade. But Trump has urged Republican-led states to redistrict ahead of the November elections to try to rebuff political headwinds, which typically result in lost congressional seats for the president’s party in midterms.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its voting districts last summer, Republicans also have enacted new House districts in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from those efforts, and perhaps 15 if they eventually win the ability to use a different map in Alabama.

Meanwhile, Democrats think they could win five additional seats from new voter-approved districts in California, plus one more from a new court-imposed map in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback earlier this month in Virginia, where the state Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win additional seats.

Redistricting discussions are ongoing in Louisiana following an April high court ruling that struck down a majority-Black congressional district as an illegal partisan gerrymander. The Louisiana House could vote later this week on a new map that could eliminate a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and improve Republicans’ chances of winning six out of the state’s seven seats.

The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts. That comes after the caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers.

Clyburn decries White House role

More than 32,000 votes had been cast in South Carolina by Tuesday afternoon on the first day of early voting for the June 9 primary after Democrats called for people against a proposed new map to turn out in force. In 2022, about 125,000 early votes were cast in the entire two weeks.

Among the first to cast an early ballot in the small city of Orangeburg was U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the Democrat whose district Republicans were trying to reshape in their quest for a clean sweep of South Carolina’s seven congressional seats. A defiant Clyburn insisted he would run for reelection, regardless of what the district looks like.

“I’m OK if it’s Trump plus 20,” Clyburn said while describing the potential Republican advantage in a reshaped district. “I would be running where I live.”

The Republican-led House already had passed a plan that would reconfigure Clyburn’s district, void the results of current congressional primaries and instead hold new U.S. House primaries in August.

Trump had lobbied for the plan, making at least two phone calls to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and also phoning in to a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this month. He also had maintained the pressure on social media.

But debate stalled in the Senate, where Democrats were staunchly opposed and some GOP lawmakers had concerns that an aggressive redistricting could backfire by making some Republican-held seats susceptible to losses because of the addition of Democratic voters.

Clyburn noted that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional districts, after the 2020 census, they spent months holding meetings across the state to gather public suggestions. Although that map resulted in a 6-1 seat advantage for Republicans over Democrats, the process was orderly and fair, he said.

“When the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said, yes, this is constitutional,” Clyburn said. But now, “this White House says, to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do what we want done.”

___

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.

Update, 5/26/2026: This article has been updated with information about court decisions in Florida and Tennessee.

BILOXI — Family and friends filed into the Mississippi Coast Coliseum for the 2026 D’Iberville High School graduation ceremony, quickly filling up the stadium bleachers. Parents took photos of their children on the jumbotron, which flashed portraits of roughly 400 seniors — female-presenting graduates posed with an elegant drape, and male ones with a sharp tuxedo. 

But when the portrait popped up of this year’s salutatorian, Jonas Hole, he was shown in a full graduation gown covering any clothing that might point to gender. On May 17, D’Iberville High School published a Facebook post that used Hole’s former name and allegedly edited his photograph to appear more feminine. Hole is a transmasculine graduate whose chosen name of Jonas differs from his legal name.

But the social media post was not the only incident in recent days where D’Iberville High students appeared to be singled out over their gender. While Hole’s case is the highest profile one, D’Iberville High School has targeted at least five other graduating seniors because they are transgender or do not follow the school’s gender presentation norms, said Tara Shay Montgomery, an LGBTQ+ advocate who has been in contact with the students, their parents and teachers. On May 15 when school staff distributed yearbooks, transgender students found their photos were missing. They have still not received an explanation for this decision, advocates say.  

School officials addressed the students who walked the stage, including Hole, by their deadnames, or former names, when presenting them with diplomas and in the program. Other students chose not to attend the event, said two community advocates who know their identities. 

At the ceremony Saturday, D’Iberville High School Principal Cheryl Broadus, who has not provided comment to Mississippi Today after multiple requests to the school and administrative offices, introduced Hole with his deadname. 

“I would now like to introduce an outstanding young lady who has maintained a 4.404 quality point average and will deliver the salutatory address,” she said. 

In his speech, Hole first introduced himself with his former name, then added, “a lot of you know me as Jonas,” before expressing his gratitude at having the opportunity to address the crowd. 

He gave shoutouts to the school’s athletics teams and thanked ROTC leadership and fellow cadets for shaping his high school experience. Hole then talked about gathering the courage to advocate for self-expression both for himself and others. 

“Despite my own self-acceptance, others judged me without understanding me. I became my label, and it felt as if my achievements, hardships, personality, all became irrelevant for the sole fact that I present myself differently,” he said. 

According to several advocates from the Transgender Resources, Advocacy, Networking and Services Program and allies who attended the ceremony in support of transgender and LGBTQ+ seniors, the speech was both respectful of the school and acknowledged Hole’s specific challenges as a transgender student. 

“I think that he showed exactly why he was salutatorian in the way that he spoke,” Montgomery said. While the advocate and local drag queen wasn’t able to attend the ceremony, she saw the speech on Facebook and told Mississippi Today that it was a kind, “above the belt” way to address Hole’s situation.

“All the words were very, very thoughtfully chosen. They were effective. They were not judgmental or confrontational, but they were stern and swift and sincere.”

While D’Iberville High School has received the most attention for how they treated transgender students, Montgomery said similar incidents have occurred across Harrison County this year. She said she has been contacted by mothers of students from D’Iberville, Gulfport and Harrison Central high schools seeking support for their kids or their friends’ kids who were being negatively impacted by school policies. 

The first person who contacted Montgomery was Marivel Watson, the former Scout leader for one of the impacted students. Watson said she found out that several students had been excluded from the yearbook through her daughter, a graduating senior who knows several of the affected students. While Watson’s daughter was in the yearbook, she was upset that her friends weren’t.

When the students asked why this had happened, they were told that it had been Principal Broadus’ decision, Watson said. A former Scout member told Watson that Broadus had called his mother to say his photo had been removed because of his septum piercing, Watson said. Broadus cited the Harrison School District dress codes, which allow for “one small, non-distracting nose stud,” but no other facial piercings. This student wore the same piercing in his junior year portrait, and was included in the yearbook. Broadus was also school principal at the time. 

Watson said she understands the need to use a student’s legal name on legal documentation but can’t see why school officials wouldn’t address graduating students with their chosen name otherwise. 

“What harm is in calling that student by their preferred name, especially in a huge public setting like that?” she said. 

At Harrison Central High School, another parent reached out to Montgomery because her transgender daughter was forced to wear a tuxedo for her senior portrait. The student chose to take her photo with the school’s attire, but also with her hair down and a full face of makeup. 

If anything about the situation has been positive, Montgomery said, it was seeing the community rally to support the children. She pointed to the network of parents who reached out to her, organizations such as Gulf Coast Association of Pride, Gulf Coast Equality and TRANS Program working together, and teachers who risked their jobs to give her information about students they knew were struggling. 

Through this network, at least 30 people showed up to the ceremony in support of  affected students, Montgomery said. 

Small contingents of people wearing rainbow apparel or transgender-affirming T-shirts were present in the crowds outside the Coliseum, as graduates flocked to celebrate with their family and friends. 

At the ceremony, Hole ended his speech by thanking his mentors and quoting Romans 15:7, “Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”

“To everyone here today, I hope all of you at some point in your life feel that same freedom I get to feel by living every day unapologetically,” he said. “Be yourself, no matter who tries to stop you from doing so.”

This story was produced with support from the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism.

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.

Mississippi’s recent gains in reading and math have attracted national attention. A state long associated with low academic rankings is now being discussed as a model for improvement. In education circles, the turnaround has been called the “Mississippi Miracle.”

The label has helped shape the national conversation around Mississippi schools, even if it simplifies a much longer story.

Miracles are usually understood as rare, unexplained events. Mississippi’s progress in literacy was neither sudden nor mysterious. The state’s gains followed years of changes in reading instruction, teacher training and academic accountability. Those improvements came from decisions made inside classrooms, schools and intervention programs across the state.

The progress did not happen by chance.

Over the last decade, Mississippi has steadily shifted toward literacy instruction rooted in the science of reading, a research-based approach built on decades of study in cognitive science, language development and education. The framework focuses on five major components tied to reading success: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Those practices have increasingly shaped instruction in Mississippi classrooms, particularly in the early grades. When implemented consistently, they tend to produce measurable results. Mississippi’s improvement on fourth grade reading scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, reflects that broader shift toward structured literacy and evidence-based instruction.

Similar patterns are beginning to emerge outside the traditional school day, as well.

Across parts of the Mississippi Delta, after-school literacy programs are using many of the same strategies to support struggling readers. At Reading Roadmap Inc., where I serve as director of strategic partnerships, our intervention model is built around the same research base guiding classroom instruction.

Students are grouped according to specific literacy deficits identified through assessment data. Lessons are designed intentionally around those needs, and progress is monitored throughout the year rather than assumed after a few weeks of instruction.

In many cases, growth follows that structure.

Some students who begin the school year performing significantly below grade level can move from Tier 3 intervention status to grade-level proficiency within the same academic year. For families who have spent years watching a child struggle with reading, that kind of progress can feel dramatic.

Still, dramatic does not necessarily mean miraculous.

Students often improve when instruction reflects how reading development works. Teachers tend to improve when they receive consistent training and support. Intervention programs are more effective when they rely on data and evidence instead of habit or repetition.

What happened in Mississippi was not accidental. It was the result of sustained implementation over time.

At the same time, Mississippi’s literacy gains have not reached every school or community equally. In her 2024 Mississippi Today article, “Mississippi’s ‘reading miracle’ has been out of reach for some schools,” reporter Julia James noted that many high-poverty and historically underserved communities have not experienced literacy gains equally across the state. In many districts, challenges connected to staffing shortages, chronic absenteeism and limited intervention resources remain ongoing barriers.

Those disparities matter because Mississippi continues to face deep economic challenges that affect many students long before they enter a classroom.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 1 in 5 Mississippians lives in poverty. The Annie E. Casey Foundation has also ranked Mississippi near the bottom nationally in overall child well-being, considering factors such as child poverty, school access, health insurance coverage and teen births. For many students, academic struggles are tied to broader conditions that extend beyond literacy instruction alone.

That reality makes the state’s progress more impressive, but it also underscores how much work remains.

The next phase of Mississippi’s literacy progress will depend on whether evidence-based instruction becomes more consistent across schools, intervention programs and after-school settings. Sustaining those gains will require continued investment in teacher development, stronger alignment between school day and out-of-school learning and broader access to structured literacy support for students who continue to fall behind.

Research has consistently shown that high-quality after-school programs can improve academic outcomes, particularly for students in under-resourced communities. When those programs reinforce what students are learning during the school day, the impact can become even more significant.

Mississippi’s literacy growth is real and explainable.

The state made intentional choices about reading instruction. Educators adjusted their practices over time, and schools committed themselves to methods grounded in research rather than tradition alone.

Those decisions produce measurable results.

That may not fit the narrative of a miracle. Overall, though, it may prove to be something far more valuable because it means the progress can be repeated.

Taurean Morton, M.Ed., is director of strategic partnerships at Reading Roadmap Inc., where he supports literacy initiatives across Mississippi. He also serves as the senior minister of the Lincoln Garden Church of Christ in Cleveland.