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Richard Jordan, Mississippi’s longest serving and oldest death row inmate, died by lethal injection Wednesday evening at the Mississippi State Penitentiary nearly 50 years after he kidnapped and murdered Edwina Marter. 

The 79-year-old Vietnam War veteran who experienced post-traumatic stress disorder was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. 

“First I would like to thank everyone for a humane way of doing this. I want to apologize to the victim’s family,” Jordan said, adding thanks to his wife and lawyers and asking for forgiveness. 

“I love you very much,” he said as his last words. “I will see you on the other side, all of you.”

Prison officials confirmed Jordan was unconscious after injecting a sedative before following with injection of two other injection drugs – a check ordered by a federal judge who greenlighted the execution late last week. This was part of a federal lawsuit challenging the lethal injection protocol in which Jordan was a lead plaintiff. 

In January 1976, Jordan found himself desperate for money and made a plan to kidnap the family member of a bank employee and demand funds. The Vietnam War veteran had a job lined up and had moved his family to Louisiana, only to find the position was filled, according to his clemency petition. 

He spent a few days looking for work before calling the Gulfport bank where Charles Marter worked as the commercial loan agent. Jordan found the man’s address in the phonebook and went there, posing as an electric company worker to get the banker’s wife, Edwina, to open the door at gunpoint. Her toddler son was left unharmed at home. 

Jordan had Edwina drive to the DeSoto National Forest. As she tried to run away, Jordan shot in her direction, hitting her in the head. Afterwards, he called Edwina’s husband to demand $25,000 in ransom. After two failed money drops, Jordan was arrested. 

He went to trial that year and received a death sentence, only for it to be overturned multiple times due to questions about the legality of Mississippi’s death penalty law. It wasn’t until 1998 and four trials later that the sentence stuck. Then Jordan began years of appeals. 

Eric and Kevin Marter, the now-adult sons of Edwina, and her husband Charles did not travel to Parchman to witness the execution, but Edwina’s brother planned to attend with help of his family, Kevin Marter said. 

Family members left without offering comment. 

Ahead of the execution, Eric Marter said he wanted Jordan’s sentence to be carried out sooner rather than almost 50 years later after his mother’s death. 

“I don’t want him to get what he wants,” Marter, who was 11 in 1976, said about Jordan’s efforts to fight his death sentence. 

Jordan’s wife, Marsha, witnessed the execution along with his attorney Krissy Nobile of the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel and his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Tim Murphy. Such advisers have been allowed to accompany death row inmates since a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

After the execution, Attorney General Lynn Fitch said her office has pressed for justice and was pleased to be able to provide the Marter family, friends and the community with closure. 

Leading up to the execution, Jordan petitioned the U.S Supreme Court and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to step in. The appeals court denied a stay of execution Tuesday, and the high court denied request for a stay and writ of certiorari Wednesday afternoon – about an hour before the execution. 

Tuesday evening, Gov. Tate Reeves reviewed Jordan’s clemency petition and said he would not intervene in the execution, noting circumstances of the crime, how Jordan admitted his guilt, multiple trials and appeals. 

Frank Rosenblatt, a professor at the Mississippi College School of Law, submitted the clemency petition that included letters of support from at least a dozen people, including Jordan’s wife, his sister and a pastor. 

“Richard is all of these things: a patriot; a Vietnam Veteran; a man of faith; a good son, brother, and friend; and he is an exemplary inmate who has worked to prevent this type of crime from happening ever again,” Rosenblatt wrote in Jordan’s petition. 

Organizations including Death Penalty Action and Catholic Mobilizing Network circulated petitions that called on Reeves to stop Jordan’s execution citing similar factors, including how he experienced post-traumatic stress disorder from his military service. Death Penalty Action’s petitions were delivered to the governor’s office Tuesday. 

During an afternoon news conference, Parchman Superintendent Marc McClure said Jordan seemed talkative and was telling stories about his past. He had been moved to a holding cell Sunday evening, and before the execution he visited with family, his attorneys and spiritual advisers. 

He requested chicken tenders, French fries, strawberry ice cream and a rootbeer float for his last meal, prison officials said at the earlier news conference. 

Starting in the afternoon, demonstrators gathered outside Parchman in the Delta and the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson. Death Penalty Action also hosted a virtual vigil. 

Minutes before the execution, a group gathered outside the prison entrance and offered prayers for Edwina Marter, her family, Jordan and his family. Among them were Rev. Jeff Hood, an Arkansas-based spiritual adviser who has accompanied 11 death row inmates to the execution chamber and has spoken out against the death penalty. 

Jordan’s execution is the third in the past decade, with the most recent taking place in December 2022. 

Thirty six people remain on death row in Mississippi, and the Attorney General’s Office is seeking execution dates for three – Willie Jerome Manning, Robert Simon Jr. and Charles Ray Crawford. 

The Associated press contributed to this report

Kerlin Moreno-Orellana is facing deportation over a misdemeanor charge that usually results in a fine. He was picked up by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents on Thursday morning and transferred from the Raymond Detention Center to an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

On June 16, Jackson police arrested Moreno-Orellana, a contractor, in south Jackson along with his employer Christy Parker, who was showing him one of the old properties she worked on. Both were charged with illegal dumping, but Parker claims they did not dump anything. 

After detaining them, Jackson police called a local TV outlet, 16 WAPT News, to come shoot the scene of the arrest. Parker said they were kept in the police car for over an hour, waiting for the news crew. The WAPT newsroom explained that the Jackson police routinely asks them to  cover arrests related to illegal dumping or other high profile cases, in order to “dissuade people.”

Once at the station, the Jackson Police Department called ICE on the 35-year-old father of four, who had worker authorization documents. He was kept in jail overnight, while Parker was released hours after their arrest.

“He didn’t do anything I didn’t do,” Parker said in an interview with Mississippi Today. “But because I’m white, I’m here?”

A municipal court ordered Moreno-Orellana’s release the day after, but ICE placed a detainer on him – a formal request to keep a non-citizen in custody for 48 hours, while the agency investigates. It is not an arrest warrant. However, a state law passed in 2016 mandates that all local law enforcement comply with ICE detainers placed on undocumented immigrants. 

“What we are doing today is no different than what we’ve always operated when the detainer is sent by ICE to the jail,” said Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones. “Nothing has changed.”

While the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department has historically worked with ICE, Jackson police actively seeking out ICE to detain people is a fairly recent occurrence, said Mississippi-based immigration attorney Jeremy Litton. Jackson police did not respond to a request for comment.

ICE picked up Moreno-Orellana with hours left on his detainer, and he now faces deportation. ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams said that Moreno-Orellana violated the conditions of a past bond agreement by being arrested for a new charge. He had already spent over a month in ICE custody in 2019, after getting arrested by park rangers for speeding and driving without a license.

Still, a minor misdemeanor charge – like illegal dumping – is normally insufficient for ICE to threaten to deport someone with worker authorization paperwork. Removal of a person with documentation is usually justified if the person is deemed a threat to public safety or national security.

“This does feel like a result of the elevated focus on deporting people from the Trump administration,” said Matt Steffey, professor at the Mississippi College School of Law.

Moreno-Orellana, who is from Honduras, has three boys and a girl, the youngest of whom is less than a year old. He has lived in Mississippi for over 16 years. Colleagues describe him as a valuable worker and a good friend.

“All he ever did was work and go home,” Parker said. “He was always willing to give somebody help.”

The possibility of his deportation is leaving his family in a precarious situation. Moreno-Orellana was the sole breadwinner of the family, and his wife worries about sustaining herself and their children without him.

“I’ve always dedicated myself to taking care of my kids at home, and he’s the one who brings food to the table,” his wife said in Spanish. “I’m afraid of staying, being without my children’s father. Not so much for me, but because they need him.”

We begin a series of podcasts with Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025, which will be inducted the first weekend in August. First up is highly successful baseball coach Scott Berry, who won big first at Meridian Community College and then at Southern Miss.

Stream all episodes here.

Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning and Jackson State University have reached a tentative agreement to settle the months-long federal lawsuit filed by a former faculty senate president who was placed on leave pending termination last fall. The settlement would give Dawn Bishop McLin her job back as a tenured professor. 

McLin’s case is the latest in a series of lawsuits against the state’s college governing board and the historically Black university. Two others have cited gender discrimination when it comes to the board’s presidential search and its selection process. 

The proposed agreement, which is still being hammered out by attorneys, would return McLin to her position as psychology professor. It would also restore the roughly $38,000 in research grants she lost after her termination, as well as $10,000 in pay for summer school courses she would have taught this semester, all totaling $48,000. 

IHL attorney Pope Mallette also requested a motion for the settlement agreement to be closed to the public, which prompted U.S. District Judge  Henry Wingate to question the move by the taxpayer-funded governing board. 

“The court does not seal public money,” Wingate said in response to Mallette’s request. 

The parties spent much of the morning in separate rooms discussing the settlement and hashing out attorney fees. 

Last year a faculty panel reviewed the university’s basis for McLin’s termination and recommended she be reinstated to her job “as a tenured faculty member fully restored,” the original court filing states. 

The exact circumstances of her termination weren’t released, but members of the faculty senate executive committee have said McLin was apparently placed on leave without any written warning and accused of harassment, malfeasance and “contumacious conduct,” a term stemming from IHL policies that means insubordination. 

Marcus Thompson, who has since resigned as Jackson State University president, did not respond to the panel’s recommendation, putting McLin in a state of limbo, ultimately forcing her to resign. 

McLin, who was elected as JSU’s faculty senate president in 2020, received support from the American Association of University Professors, a national organization that backs academic freedom, and fellow colleagues following her termination. Thompson ignored multiple letters from the professional organization. 

Editor’s note: This story was updated Tuesday afternoon to reflect Gov. Tate Reeves’ statement.

Gov. Tate Reeves says he will not block the execution of Mississippi’s oldest and longest-serving inmate, which is set for Wednesday evening.

Reeves said in a statement Tuesday that he rejected a clemency petition for Richard Jordan. The Republican governor said Jordan admitted being guilty of kidnapping Edwina Marter, at gunpoint, from her family’s home in coastal Harrison County in 1976 while her 3-year-old son was sleeping, and of forcing Marter to drive into a forest and killing her by shooting her in the back of the head.

“Following this premeditated and heinous act, Mr. Jordan demanded and was paid a $25,000 ransom prior to being apprehended by law enforcement,” Reeves said.

Jordan, 79, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

Reeves said considering clemency requests in death penalty cases is “a somber responsibility” that he takes seriously.

“Justice must be done,” he said.

The governor issued his statement hours after a prison reform advocate publicly implored him to spare Jordan’s life.

“I’m here today to ask our Christian governor to do the Christian thing and show mercy – mercy on a man that has spent 49 years in prison and has done everything he could do to atone for his crime,” Mitzi Magleby said outside the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Reeves declined to block the only two executions Mississippi has carried out since he became governor – one in 2021 and one in 2022.

Jordan was first convicted in 1976 for kidnapping and killing Marter, and it took four trials until a death sentence stuck in 1998.

One of Marter’s sons said Jordan should have been executed long ago.

“I don’t want him to get what he wants,” Eric Marter, who is 59 and lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, told Mississippi Today. “If you want to spend the rest of your life in jail, then I would rather you not get that, and if that means you get executed, you get executed.” 

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied Jordan’s request for a stay of execution. Jordan had a separate request for a stay awaiting consideration at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The appeals court wrote that Jordan has received repeated review of his claims in state and federal courts for nearly 50 years.

At this point, “finality acquires an added moral dimension,” the appeals court wrote. “Only with an assurance of real finality can the State execute its moral judgment in a case. Only with real finality can the victims of crime move forward knowing the moral judgment will be carried out.”

Magleby, who has met Jordan, said he has been a model prisoner and is extremely remorseful. She said she believes life without parole would be a sufficient and humane punishment. 

“I believe that it is more of a penalty to do life without parole,” she said. “The death penalty gives you an out-date. Life without parole does not.”

She also delivered a petition asking Reeves to prevent Jordan’s execution. That petition had more than 3,000 signatures.

The news conference was put on by Magleby and Death Penalty Action, who are supporters of Jordan’s cause.

If Jordan’s execution goes forward as scheduled, supporters plan to hold protest vigils Wednesday outside Parchman and the Governor’s Mansion and online.

Human rights group Amnesty International released a statement Tuesday opposing the execution.

 “Governor Tate Reeves is the only person with the power to spare Jordan’s life,” the group said. “He must use this power to halt this execution, commute Richard Jordan’s sentence and work towards ending the death penalty in Mississippi more broadly.”

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Mississippi’s public school teachers and students keep racking up wins for our state.

A few months ago, we received terrific news regarding the latest national test scores. Our fourth-graders earned a ninth-in-the-nation overall ranking in reading and 16^th place in math. Mississippi students did similarly well on state tests, achieving the highest proficiency rates ever logged on those assessments.

The recently released Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT 2025 Data Book now ranks Mississippi 16th in the nation for education — an incredible leap from 30th in 2024 and 32nd in 2023.

National media outlets have proclaimed our students’ remarkable rise in academic proficiency to be the “Mississippi Miracle,” inspiring other states’ education leaders to ask how they can be more like us.

Without a doubt, the progress made in Mississippi’s public schools is a direct result of the tireless efforts of our public school teachers and students. Their impressive work has been bolstered by tens of thousands of parents and community leaders who have been standing in the gap for decades, fighting for better school resources and, importantly, against the billionaire-backed campaign to undermine public education through private school voucher programs.

Other states have fallen victim to the voucher lobby, swayed by the millions of dollars spent pressuring them to adopt so-called “school choice” policies. Mississippi’s legislators, however, have resisted school choice, standing with their constituents and refusing to gamble with our children’s futures, thereby avoiding the financial and academic pitfalls suffered in states that embraced voucher schemes. 

But a piece of legislation moving through Congress poses a significant threat to our state’s education progress.

The sweeping federal budget bill, HR 1 (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act), includes a dangerous provision that would impose a nationwide tax-credit voucher program, overriding the will of states like Mississippi and threatening our historic progress. 

These few paragraphs tucked into a massive federal budget bill would jeopardize the gains our students have worked so hard to achieve while adding $5 billion a year to the federal deficit.

Mississippi isn’t alone in opposing school choice schemes. Voters across the country have rejected voucher proposals every single time they’ve appeared on statewide ballots. Unfortunately, some state legislatures have ignored their constituents in favor of voucher lobbyists and donors, legislating voucher programs with devastating consequences: severe state budget shortfalls and flagging student achievement. In fact, every state named by EdChoice as a “Top 10 School Choice State” has seen academic performance decline precipitously while Mississippi’s results keep rising.

If HR 1 were to become law with the voucher provision intact, it would set Mississippi back decades and establish a dangerous precedent: allowing private interests to decide which of the country’s children will be educated with federal dollars.

The bill already has passed the House and now awaits action in the Senate where Mississippi’s own senators —  Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith — could play a critical role in removing the tax-credit voucher language from the legislation. Both senators enjoy significant influence in the U.S. Senate, influence that is heightened in this case by what is expected to be a very close vote. 

We urge them to consider these key points:

1. Mississippians have rejected vouchers time and again and do not want them forced on us by the federal government.
2. The tax-credit voucher plan in HR 1 would reverse years of progress in our public schools.
3. The proposed tax-credit voucher program would add $5 billion to the federal deficit annually — for a program Mississippians don’t want.

Nancy Loome is executive director of The Parents’ Campaign (msparentscampaign.org) and president of The Parents’ Campaign Research & Education Fund (tpcref.org). She and her husband Jim have three grown children, all of whom graduated from Clinton Public Schools.

Blues legend John Primer knew from a young age that he wanted to be a musician.

“When I was two or three years old, I would go around and play that thing,” Primer said. “I always wanted to be a guitar player.”

Primer, born in Mississippi, migrated to Chicago when he was 18-years-old in the early 1960s and quickly found work at local clubs, honing his guitar skills. He performed seven nights a week for seven years at Theresa’s Lounge in south Chicago alongside the Junior Wells Band. There, he sparked the interest of Vicksburg-born bluesman Willie Dixon, which ultimately led Primer to become band leader for the iconic Muddy Waters. 

“When I play with those big guys like that, they’re teaching me,” he said. “I’m in school then, because I’m learning what they’re doing, but I don’t try to be them.”

Now, he’s returning to Mississippi with The Real Deal Blues Band to play at the National Folk Festival held November 7-9 in downtown Jackson.

“Mississippi is my home, so I can’t forget about that,” he said. “It’s where I started.”

Through the years though, he said the music scene has changed around Chicago. He’s worked as a musician for more than six decades and said he’s seen it all. 

“When I got to Chicago in 1963, music was everywhere. Music was in every club in Chicago, now it’s changed. It’s not like it used to be,” he said. “It’s not many clubs like it used to be in the 60s, 70s and 80s. They’re all gone, vanished. They’re very few in Chicago now. A lot has changed.” 

But he said his love for the blues keeps him performing.

“I tell everybody, when I’m playing, I don’t work for money, but I like to get paid. I get up there and play. Thinking about the money? No. Think about the people and my love so people can know the blues, that’s why I play. They keep me going.”

Primer has a career spanning six decades and close to 100 albums. He’s been nominated for three Grammy awards, and has won countless Blues Blast and Blues Music awards. He’s performed all over the world, but he said he’s looking forward to coming home to Mississippi. Looking to the National Folk Festival, Primer said he’s going to play some fan favorites and throw in a couple songs from his recent album “Grown in Mississippi.” 

“I know what the people like, and so I’m going to try to play some of this and some of that for them. Whatever it takes to get the mood going,” he said. 

Blues to Primer is a way of living. He said blues music can help people through a tough time, and that’s why he keeps coming to the stage night after night. 

“Blues help you with your pain. Not physical pain, but if you had a bad night, you lost a loved one or some person passed away,” he said. “A lot of people come to me and say ‘I’ve been having a bad day, but I heard you tonight and I can go home and sleep good. I forgot about the bad feelings.’ Blues makes you forget about your troubles.”

For more information on the National Folk Festival, which will be held November 7-9, visit www.nationalfolkfestival.com. 

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Marshall Ramsey talks with the owners of two Jackson culinary staples; Campbells Bakery and Hal & Mals.

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

Teenagers sit in inflatable chairs in a dorm lobby, holding cups of fruit punch and trading laptops that are open to short stories and fantasy novels. Before lights out at this summer camp, students co-write haikus, poems limited to 17 syllables.

The McMullan Young Writers Workshop at Millsaps College in Jackson gives aspiring authors a chance to sharpen and share their work. 

Fifty high school and 12 middle school students participated in themed workshops taught by published authors. The students submitted short stories, poems and novel excerpts to their instructors and peers for feedback.

Courtlandt Willingham, a Jackson native and rising junior at Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven, described the workshop process as, “listen, ask questions and write.”

Willingham attended a workshop themed around folklore and mythmaking, and that provided inspiration for his poetry.

He said folklore means different things depending on the person.

“Folklore, to me, is a collection of ideas about being a Mississippian — especially a Black Mississippian,” Willingham said.

The residential workshop took place June 9-13. One day, campers attended a private craft talk and keynote speech by Jack Davis, who won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for history for his book, “The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea.”

Keynote speakers in previous years included acclaimed authors Kiese Laymon, Joyce Carol Oates and Angie Thomas.

“These young people will ask keynote authors questions that are not the standard, boring questions that adults ask,” said Jamie Dickson, a workshop instructor. He said the visiting writers are not condescending to young people.

“Someone who is truly invested in literature really understands that there’s a lot of truth to the cliche: ‘This is the next generation of writers,’” Dickson said.

Students attended lectures on screenwriting techniques, the Afrofuturism genre and the connection between artmaking and political life.

They spent an afternoon touring the Eudora Welty House and Garden.

“I’ve been in the garden before,” said Hannah King, a rising freshman at Belhaven University. “I went into the garden and wrote a poem about it. I hadn’t been able to finish it. But when I went back there, I was able to finish it — because I was touring the house.”

Instructors took students to other Jackson cultural sites, including the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, the Mississippi Museum of Art, Lemuria book store and the COFO Civil Rights Education Center at Jackson State University. 

Campers at Millsaps cheered and drumrolled as their instructors went up to the podium to read in front of a handwritten poster proclaiming “Open Mic Night.”

“I think Open Mic is everyone’s favorite night,” said Syd Clay, a rising sophomore at Northwest Rankin High School. 

“It’s just fun being able to have a community that you can share things with,” Clay said. “My class this year was mainly first-years, and they were all really nervous about the Open Mic. But, at the end of the night, they all loved it.”

The majority of students receive merit-based scholarships, funded by donors including Margaret McMullan, a Mississippi native who has published novels, essays and short stories and whose family foundation is a financial supporter of Millsaps. Any student who wins a Gold Key at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards can attend the camp at no cost, and Silver Key winners and Honorable Mentions receive deeply discounted rates. The camp also gives scholarships based on financial need.

Liz Egan, who heads the Center for Writers at Millsaps, coordinates the McMullan Young Writers Workshop.

“Students who could barely look you in the eye at the beginning of the week are the ones at the stage, at the mic, telling you what they’ve been up to all week,” Egan said. “We’ve helped, but it’s really [the students]. They’ve made this program what it is.”

The Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute and Mississippi Votes Action Fund today released the full confirmed schedule for the Democracy in Action Convening, a multiday tribute marking the 100th birthday of Medgar Wiley Evers.

The event runs from Thursday through Sunday at the Jackson Convention Complex. Organizers described the event as a “once-in-a-generation celebration [that] will feature national civil rights leaders, cultural icons, veteran journalists, artists, and organizers — all honoring Evers’s legacy and building power for the next century.”

Featured participants include: Stacey Abrams, Joy Reid, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Eddie Glaude Jr., Anna Wolfe, Howard Ballou, Jerry Mitchell, Reena Evers-Everette and descendants of civil rights icons, including Kerry Kennedy, Attallah Shabazz, and Bettie Dahmer.

“My father believed in the power of everyday people to change the world — and he knew that truth, action, and training were essential to that work,” said Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute. “This convening will carry forward my father’s conviction that equality and democracy begin with preparation — with giving people the tools to lead, to speak with courage, and to act with purpose.”

“This convening isn’t just about remembering the past — it’s about shaping what comes next,” said Arekia Bennett Scott, executive director of Mississippi Votes Action Fund. “We are equipping the next generation with the tools to lead, organize, and continue the fight for justice in Mississippi and beyond.”

The convening includes a Saturday evening fundraiser concert, “A Night of Legacy and Liberation,” featuring Rita Brent, Tisha Campbell, Leela James, and Q Parker & Friends.

Full Schedule

THURSDAY

• 6 p.m. – VIP Reception: Daddys’ Daughters
  Featuring Attallah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X; Evers-Everette; Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy; and Bettie Dahmer, daughter of Vernon Dahmer

FRIDAY

• 9 a.m. – Breakfast + Registration
• 10 a.m. – Welcome to the 2025 DIA Convening
• 10:30 a.m. – Keynote: “The Enduring Legacy of Medgar Evers” with author Michael Vinson Williams, professor of history and director of the African American Studies Program at the University of Texas.
• 11:30 a.m. – Meet & Greet
• 12:15 p.m. – Mississippi Public Broadcasting Documentary Trailer Debut
• 12:30 p.m. – Plenary: “The Power of the Word” with Joy Reid,, who wrote a bestseller on Medgar and Myrlie Evers; Eddie Glaude Jr., author of the bestselling book, “Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own”; and Ralph Eubanks, an award-winning writer and professor of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi
• 1:30 p.m. – Q&A
• 2 p.m. – Book Signing
• 3 p.m. – Plenary: “Journalism, Truth, and Civil Rights” with Nikole Hannah-Jones, Howard University’s Knight Chair in Race and Journalism who won the Pulitzer Prize for “The 1619 Project,” Mississippi Today’s Anna Wolfe and Jerry Mitchell, and WLBT news anchor Howard Ballou
• 4 p.m. – Criminal Justice Reform – attorney Courtney Cockrell
  • Policy & Advocacy – MS Votes Action Fund
  • Philanthropy – “Seeds of Freedom”
  • Visual Storytelling – Red Squared LLC
  • The Power of Song – Dr. Flonzie Brown Wright & Cynthia Goodloe Palmer
• 5:15 p.m. – Closing + Call to Action

SATURDAY

9 AM – Breakfast + Registration

• 9 a.m. – Opening Reflections
• 10 a.m. – Family Reflections with Evers-Everette and attorneys Corrie Cockrell Carter and Courtney Cockrell, great-nieces of Medgar Evers
• 11:30 a.m. – Meet & Greet
• 12:15 p.m. – MADDRAMA Performance
• 12:30 p.m. – Plenary: “Working with Medgar” with veteran civil rights leaders
• 1:30 p.m. – Q&A
• 2 p.m. – Break
• 2:30 p.m. – Keynote: “Leadership & the Fight for Justice” with voting rights activist Stacey Abrams and Arekia Bennett-Scott
• 3:30 p.m. – Concurrent Workshops:
  • Community Organizing in the 21st Century – MS Votes Action Fund
  • The Power of AI & Technology – Nikolis Smith, founder of StratAlliance Global and former White House cyber official, and Henry Goss communications director for MS Votes 
• 4:30 p.m. – Plenary: “The Next 100: Inheriting a Legacy, Igniting a Future”
• 5:45 p.m. – Closing + Call to Action

🎤 SATURDAY NIGHT – FUNDRAISER CONCERT

A Night of Legacy and Liberation

Jackson Convention Complex | Doors Open: 6:30 p.m. | Concert: 7:30 p.m.

Tickets on sale.

• Rita Brent – Mississippi-born comedian and truth-teller
• Tisha Campbell – Actress, singer, and advocate for empowerment
• Leela James – Soulful R&B powerhouse
• Q Parker & Friends – Grammy-winning artist and philanthropist

“This evening is about honoring my father’s legacy with soul, celebration, and a shared commitment to carry his work forward,” said Evers-Everette. “Through music and unity, we are creating space for remembrance, resilience, and the rising voices of a new generation.”

Concert proceeds will support the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute’s youth leadership and civic engagement programs.

SUNDAY

• 11:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
  Medgar Evers Sunday – Interfaith Worship Service

  Featuring Pastor C.J. Rhodes, the Rev. Mark Thompson, and the Jackson Revival Center Choir
  Concludes with a community meal

View the full schedule here. For registration information, visit this link.