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WASHINGTON — Voting rights, the work of the civil rights movement and racial justice took center stage on the National Mall Friday, with protesters gathering ahead of midterm elections and following a wave of changes to voting laws and redistricting that some have condemned as detrimental to Black Americans.

Hundreds of people gathered near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the 2026 “Defend the Vote” March on Washington, organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, echoing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 march. The event follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark April decision in Louisiana v. Callais that reinterpreted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, allowing Southern states to redraw their congressional maps in a way that erodes equal representation in Black communities.

“We’ve been doing these marches for years, but this is probably the most important because this is the first year we are marching that the voting rights bill has been nullified by the Supreme Court,” Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Some call it a ‘very dangerous moment in American history’

Friday’s event harkened back to King Jr.’s historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, when more than 200,000 people gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. That march, an inflection point in the Civil Rights Movement, came at a fraught moment, when economic headwinds, civil unrest, political division and the Vietnam War bitterly divided Americans.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., one of dozens of speakers at the event, said that now is a “very dangerous moment in American history” and that the “dream of a more just and equitable society has never been under greater threat than it is right now.”

He placed blame on Republican President Donald Trump and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, listing attempts to purge voter rolls, obtain sensitive voter data, restrict mail-in and early voting, and redraw Congressional districts as part of threats to voting rights.

“Today, we have a president along with the Supreme Court members he appointed carrying out the most significant assault on voting rights since segregation, targeting virtually every aspect of the electoral system,” Sanders said.

Martin Luther King III told the AP that the Civil Rights movement’s work “is further eroding” in the wake of the April ruling.

He said his father would be disappointed with the state of the country, but current civil rights advocates should be undaunted.

“Had he lived, we’d be on a totally different trajectory,” the younger King said. “These would not be issues; they would have been resolved. I don’t think he would be surprised because he understands our history and understands those who are trying to retain power. But the challenge is challenging our communities to engage even more.”

King’s Drum Major Institute, a progressive think tank and community action group, co-hosted the march with Sharpton’s group.

Ray Turner, a 65-year-old Maryland retiree, sat Friday on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial. He came independently, carrying a sign that read “(Puny) Hands off our elections.”

“The lies about the 2020 election being stolen continue to be sounded, even though they’ve been disproved,” Turner said, adding, “Now they’re trying to use this to prevent people who are legal citizens, legal voters, from voting.”

Sharpton said the Trump administration’s immigration policy for Haitians and white South Africans, as well as cuts to social programs, are unifying concerns for this year’s march attendees. But redistricting efforts by Republican-led states set to reduce the number of Black lawmakers in Congress loom large.

“This march is about people who refuse to be counted out. When the courts and the legislature broke apart District 6, they did not just redraw lines,” Rep. Cleo Fields, D-La., said in a texted statement. “They told hundreds of thousands of Black families from Baton Rouge up through the Delta that their voice could be taken away at any moment.”

Fields’ district was central in the Supreme Court decision that hollowed out the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The court ruled that his district, created just one term ago to permit a second majority-Black district in a state where Blacks make up 33% of the population, was unconstitutional because it relied too heavily on race.

The court has held that maps can be redrawn for partisan reasons.

Louisiana’s legislature rushed to redraw the district after the decision, reshaping it to cluster around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana.

Fields has opted not to seek reelection to Congress and instead is pursuing a seat in the state Senate.

Embattled Black lawmakers see need for continued rights push

Rep. Shomari Figures, an Alabama Democrat whose majority-Black district was targeted by the state’s Republican-led redistricting effort, said the original voting rights fight required local movements, national figures, lots of coordination and strategy. He sees this year’s march as a continuation of that legacy.

“My district includes Montgomery, which was the birthplace of it all. It started with a bus boycott in 1955 and that, ultimately, morphed into a broader struggle for civil rights and led to a more broad Civil Rights Movement,” Figures told the AP.

Ahead of Friday, organizations participating in the march filed new claims in their federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting. The Supreme Court cleared a path Monday for possible implementation of the order, though it remains unclear how much can be put in place before the midterms.

Late Thursday, a federal judge in Boston who is hearing some of the lawsuits against that executive order put a temporary halt on the administration from moving forward with it. Time is running short to make any significant changes to voting in the midterms, with the first mail ballots scheduled to be sent out next week.

Associated Press writers Gary Fields in Washington and Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed.

With reformed policies and outside help, the Mississippi Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council will open its second annual grant application Monday for tens of millions of lawsuit dollars intended to address the state’s overdose crisis. 

The council, along with the state Legislature, oversees most of the $430 million of Mississippi funds paid by corporations accused of catalyzing hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths. Now, the council instructs organizations to apply for grants through an online portal. 

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch also serves as council chair and is campaigning to be the Republican candidate for state governor. In an email, her office’s spokesperson, MaryAsa Lee, said the application portal is designed to “reduce the burden on applicants.” The office has also created an email for organizations to send questions they may have about the application process.

“If a question and its answer would be useful to other applicants, it will be added to the published FAQ on the website,” Lee said. 

The new website was designed and administered by The Steadman Group, a Colorado-based behavioral health consulting group the council contracted this year. The Mississippi Legislature passed a bill in the 2026 legislative session that instructed Fitch’s office to partner with a third-party group, one that could address opioid settlement application problems lawmakers and council members identified in the previous cycle. 

One of those issues was opportunities for council members to influence the reviews of applications that could benefit their own organizations. The portal website echoes language in the law, telling applicants that people who review their proposals have confirmed they have no conflicts of interest. 

The application will be live for six weeks, during which Steadman plans to host two webinars for groups interested in applying for Mississippi opioid money. Lee said those who cannot attend can email the new applicant support address with questions. 

At the opioid committee’s August meeting, Deputy Attorney General Doug Miracle said Steadman will do the initial review of applications before council members finalize their recommendations to the Legislature. State lawmakers will then consider those suggestions in the 2027 regular legislative session.

Steadman told Mississippi Today in June that one of its main focuses this fall will be ensuring each application is held to a consistent standard.

Like other states, Mississippi began receiving its first national opioids settlement payments in 2022. Unlike other states, Mississippi didn’t use any of the over $130 million it accumulated over its first few years until July — except for lawyers fees and dollars local governments could use for any public purpose.

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 continues to face persistent gaps in mental health service delivery, but these challenges are most noticeable in rural and underserved communities where resources remain limited or altogether nonexistent.

As a social worker, I routinely observe the consequences of these rural mental health crisis disparities. Individuals and families struggle with untreated depression, anxiety, trauma and substance use disorders not because they are unwilling to seek help, but because structural barriers make meaningful access nearly impossible.

Addressing this crisis is not only a public health priority – it is a moral imperative grounded in the core social work values of service, social justice, and respect for the inherent dignity and worth of every person.

Mississippi’s longstanding mental health workforce shortage directly affects service availability in rural counties. More than half of Mississippi is designated as a mental health professional shortage area, and some counties have no licensed clinicians at all.

Individuals may face long travel to the nearest provider, compounded by limited transportation options and financial constraints. When families must choose between attending therapy and losing a day’s wages, mental health care becomes inaccessible by design rather than by circumstance.

Financial barriers also play a substantial role. Mississippi maintains one of the nation’s highest uninsured rates. Even when services exist, cost remains an obstacle for individuals with limited income or those who fall into coverage gaps with no insurance.

Stigma further complicates access. The fear of judgment within close-knit rural communities often suppresses help-seeking behaviors. Minority populations – Hispanic families, Black residents and immigrant communities – encounter additional obstacles such as linguistic limitations, cultural mistrust of formal systems and historical inequities that have shaped their relationship with healthcare institutions.

The consequences of unmet mental health needs extend beyond individual well-being. Communities experience increased emergency room utilization, escalating suicide risk, higher rates of substance use and avoidable involvement in the criminal legal system. Schools struggle to support students dealing with untreated trauma, and employers lose productivity when workers lack access to care. These outcomes generate significant economic costs borne by taxpayers, hospitals and social service systems.

Recent data from the Mississippi Department of Mental Health demonstrates rising mental health-related emergencies, particularly in rural counties.

Without substantial intervention, these trends will continue to place strain on already overburdened systems and deepen existing disparities.

Mississippi has taken commendable steps toward strengthening community mental health. The growth of Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) and the expansion of telehealth coverage under the Division of Medicaid have increased access points for many residents. These efforts demonstrate recognition that community-based, integrated care is essential.

However, progress remains uneven. Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics are not yet available statewide. Telehealth access is limited by inadequate broadband infrastructure in rural communities. Workforce shortages continue due to insufficient recruitment incentives.

Minority populations often lack culturally responsive services, particularly bilingual providers. Ongoing federal oversight stemming from litigation addressing Mississippi’s reliance on institutional care underscores the need to expand community-based services and modernize the whole system.

Mississippi’s growing Hispanic population, particularly in agricultural and manufacturing regions, faces distinct barriers including language access limitations, insurance gaps and fear of engaging public systems due to immigration-related concerns. Black communities in the Delta and other rural regions encounter disparities rooted in historical and structural inequities that continue to shape health outcomes.

Culturally responsive, community-based interventions are essential to reducing these disparities and building trust.

Mississippi has clear, actionable strategies available. First, expanding Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics statewide would ensure consistent, comprehensive mental health services. Strengthening workforce recruitment through loan repayment programs, salary incentives and rural training pipelines is essential for filling provider shortages. Improving transportation access through voucher programs and partnerships with community organizations would reduce missed appointments. Broadband expansion is critical to making telehealth more viable. Enhancing school-based mental health programming, particularly in high-poverty districts, would support early intervention.

Increasing culturally and linguistically responsive services – including bilingual providers and community health workers – remains vital. Finally, strengthening Medicaid reimbursement and coverage would increase affordability for low-income families.

Mississippi’s rural mental health crisis is both urgent and solvable.

Policymakers must prioritize funding for community-based services, broadband infrastructure and workforce expansion. Community leaders and organizations must continue working to reduce stigma and create culturally responsive pathways to care. As social workers, we must persistently advocate for systems that ensure all Mississippians have access to comprehensive mental health services.

A healthier Mississippi begins with dismantling barriers and investing in solutions that uphold the dignity and worth of every person.

Kinya Johnson was born and raised in Ripley in north Mississippi. She is a Tuskegee University graduate and is  currently a licensure specialist for the Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services. Johnson is a social work professional whose career has been rooted in serving children, families and vulnerable individuals. She is currently pursuing a master of social work and is passionate about turning professional experience into advocacy, amplifying the voices of underserved communities and helping create policies that promote safety, dignity and meaningful change.

Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, has called on Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith to participate in town halls and a debate before November’s midterm election.

A Hyde-Smith campaign spokesman said she has been busy traversing the state announcing funding she’s secured for Mississippi and other accomplishments as a senator.

Colom at a Thursday press conference in downtown Jackson launched his “Where’s Cindy” tour, in which he plans to hold five town halls in five cities between Aug. 31 and Sept. 4. Colom said he wanted to organize the town halls to allow voters to ask questions before the Nov. 3 election.

“She needs to do one town hall,” Colom said. “She can pick the reddest county in the state.” 

Hyde-Smith participated in a 2018 debate during a special election runoff with opponent Mike Espy. She did not debate Espy two years later when she was running for her first full six-year term. 

Ty Pinkins is an independent candidate also running against Hyde-Smith and Colom. He has also challenged both party nominees to participate in a debate. 

When asked at the Thursday press conference if he would participate in a debate with Pinkins, Colom said he would participate in any debate “any time our junior senator shows up.”

In response to Colom’s “Where’s Cindy” question, Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Hyde-Smith has been at Delta State announcing funds secured to enhance the university’s aviation program, in Franklin County celebrating recent collaborations to keep rural hospitals open and other towns throughout the state. 

“I can tell you where she isn’t,” Monssen said. “Sen. Hyde-Smith isn’t with Scott Colom in George Soros’ apartment in NYC, promoting gender transition surgeries for children and other extreme policies of the radical left.”

Monssen’s statement is referring to Soros, a billionaire who regularly donates to Democratic candidates. Soros has donated to Colom’s campaign, though the Democratic nominee has defended that by saying hundreds of Mississippians have also donated to his campaign. 

Colom at the Thursday press conference also blasted Hyde-Smith for not doing more to oppose President Donald Trump when it comes to tariffs, agriculture policy and war with Iran, all of which have contributed to higher costs for consumers. 

READ MORE: Mississippi cattle producers and politicians lament Trump’s imported beef plan

“Listen, she totally gave away our voice on tariffs,” Colom said. “If you look at the Constitution, it’s clear that the Congress, including our senator, is supposed to be Mississippi’s voice when it comes to tariffs.” 

Hyde-Smith, Colom and Pinkins will compete in the general election on Nov. 3. Oct. 5 is the last day that people can register to vote in time for the election, and voters can vote by absentee beginning on Sept. 19.

On Saturday, the barn where Emmett Till was tortured and killed will take its first step toward becoming a public memorial.

“For the first time since his lynching, this site is no longer someone’s shed, where they kept their personal belongings, but it will be used as a reverent memorial for Till’s life and legacy,” said Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center.

Since the 2024 publishing of Wright Thompson’s best-selling book, “The Barn,” about the site, center attendance has nearly doubled from 2,000 or 3,000 a year to about 5,000 people. Another 25,000 a year are seeing the center’s traveling exhibits on Till.

Although the barn is not open to the public, several hundred people have visited it informally since the center purchased the barn in November, resulting in far more traffic than before, Weems said.

“People go out of their way to find us. We don’t advertise. It’s word of mouth.”

A mob of white men killed Till, a Black teenager visiting from Chicago, on Aug. 28, 1955. His mother, Mamie, insisted on opening his casket “so that the world could see what they did to my boy.” That act helped spark the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Saturday’s memorial service will honor the mother and son. Visitors will gather at 9 a.m. at the Mound Bayou Museum of African-American Culture & History and ride in a caravan to the barn for a wreath laying and concert by the Mississippi Mass Choir, followed by the service.

“Preserving this barn where Emmett Till was murdered is as important as preserving the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King stood when he was shot,” said Devery Anderson, who is updating his book, “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement,” to include the memorial.

Now that the barn is in the center’s hands, he said, people can go beyond reading about this history — they can touch it.

The first time he stood there, Anderson said he thought about “the beating, screams and bloodshed that happened in that very spot, the killers crouching over Till as he took his final breath.”

Tears flowed from Anderson’s eyes. “I knew I was on sacred ground.”

In recent decades, the barn in the Mississippi Delta belonged to a local dentist. Television producer Shonda Rhimes donated $1.5 million needed to buy the property and the barn — a purchase that drew some criticism.

“Of all the Emmett Till sites, this was the hardest to decide whether to purchase it or not,” Weems said. “We landed on yes. If we’re going to tell the truth about what happened to him, you have to have the barn. It’s ground zero.”

Since its purchase in November, officials have built a privacy wall to separate the barn from the previous owner’s property. They are now working on transforming it into a place of memory, Weems said.

“We not only want to honor Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, but the witnesses who testified against the killers,” he said. “Willie Reed knew full well the consequences he would suffer for telling the truth, and he did it anyway.”

On the day Till was killed, Reed was walking down the road when he saw a truck drive past and head to the barn. There were four white men and three Black men as well as someone hunkered down in the truck.

At the 1955 murder trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, Reed testified that he heard screams and “licks like somebody was whipping somebody,” coming from the barn. He also identified Milam as the one who emerged from the barn to get a drink.

After torturing Till, who had just turned 14, the killers shot him dead and dumped his body into the Tallahatchie River, where he was found three days later.

In spite of Reed’s testimony, the all-white jury acquitted the killers, who justified their torture and murder of Till because he reportedly whistled at Bryant’s wife.

Reed fled to Chicago, changed his name and died in 2013 without fanfare.

The center has purchased adjacent property near where Reed’s home was located and plans to honor him there as well as turning the barn into a memorial space, Weems said.

The dream is to create parking spaces on the adjacent property and have visitors cross on a bridge over the cypress bayou to the barn, he said. Plans also include the restoration of the barn to the way it looked in 1955, he said. “We’re hoping to raise the resources to do that.”

Overall plans are still in progress, he said. “How do you honor Emmett Till? How do you honor Willie Reed?”

Darryl Johnson Jr., former mayor of Mound Bayou and pastor of the Walk of Faith Covenant Church, said after starting the Mound Bayou museum, he saw the importance of Mamie Till-Mobley’s courage. She wouldn’t let the injustice done to her son die with him, he said.

“People who support the justification given to kill that young man are still hiding the truth,” he said. “We have to face the truth so that we can receive the love of God, and the way we participate in his love is by loving our fellow man.”

Ashley Nelson, a writer who formerly worked for the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, visited the site for the first time in July.

“I don’t think anyone stands untouched at Auschwitz,” she said. “The same is true at the barn.”

Gloria Dickerson, who leads the Emmett Till Academy in Drew, grew up hearing her mother talk about the barn where Till was killed, but she didn’t visit it until six or seven years ago. The barn brought back memories of her mother and reminders of what “African Americans have gone through in Mississippi,” she said. “It was emotional.”

Making the barn a memorial preserves history and provides a place for reflection and healing. “We’re going to heal ourselves and move forward,” she said. “The fight is not over.”

Vonkerius Jackson, program facilitator for Carrying Our Voices, took several Indianola High School students to visit the barn. “You forget that he was barely 14, and the barn is so dark and lonely,” he said. “To hear the history of it was just, ‘Wow.’”

The hate that led to Till’s slaying, though, has never vanished, he said. “It’s crazy how quiet racism can be and how bold it can be at other times.”

He pointed to the sign memorializing Till, which was shot hundreds of times and had to be replaced with one that was bullet-proof, he said.

After visiting the barn and the center, Jackson learned how much Till loved to joke and laugh. “Nobody talks about how he brought so much joy to the world,” he said.

The visit made Till come alive, he said. “It humanizes his history and inspires me. We have to keep his history alive. The truth is, Mississippi’s history never dies; it just keeps on going in a circle.”

Ever since Catherine Cool and Heriberto Reyes-Ochoas married over a decade ago, she has worried about immigration officials detaining her husband. 

Each time Reyes, nicknamed Eddie, drove from their home in Hancock County to work at a marine construction company in Slidell, Louisiana, she felt anxious that he wouldn’t make it back home. 

That fear struck last week when Reyes got into a fender bender about 10 minutes from home in Kiln. Nobody was injured, but the Mississippi Highway Patrol trooper who responded determined Reyes, who emigrated from Mexico 20 years ago, did not have legal immigration status and took him to the local jail.

The 34-year-old spent the weekend there before paying bond to leave Monday, only for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take him into custody the next day. By Thursday, Reyes was at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez facing deportation proceedings. 

“This is like a nightmare come true,” Cool, who is 35 and an American citizen, told Mississippi Today. “But we’re going to do what we can.”

The couple celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary last weekend while Reyes was in jail. She is pregnant with their first child, who is due in January. 

‘He’s here doing the right thing’

In the mid-2000s, when Reyes was a teenager, he and an uncle traveled through Texas and made their way to Mississippi. When his uncle left, Reyes lived with an older woman and her family until he was able to be on his own, Cool said. 

The couple met as teenagers working at a Mexican restaurant in Bay St. Louis. They have been together since 2010 and married four years later. 

Reyes has taken steps to secure permanent residency, starting with a petition by an American sponsor which had been approved years ago. Because he did not have lawful entry into the U.S., Reyes has had to seek a green card through consular processing, said Delaney Mecham, Reyes’ attorney.

The last step in that process is an interview with the consulate in Mexico. But, his attorney said there are some challenges to that. The U.S. Department of State has paused the visa application process and interviews while Reyes was waiting for one. Any adult who entered the country without authorization and then leaves is subject to a 10-year bar from reentering. Although a waiver has been filed to enable Reyes to go to a consulate interview, Mecham said there is the possibility he wouldn’t be able to return to the U.S.

“We’re not trying to hide the way he came in,” Cool said. “We’re doing what we’re supposed to do through relief given to people like him through the government, and it still doesn’t seem to help.” 

Reyes does not have a criminal record, according to his wife.

Cool’s sister, Savannah Corbitt, shared Reyes’ story on Facebook Wednesday morning and it has been shared over 500 times. The post directs people to call U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell’s office and the offices of U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith. People sharing and responding to the post have also suggested contacting Gulf Coast state lawmakers. 

In the post, Corbitt wrote that Reyes has been part of the family for years. They’ve known each other since they were teenagers. He’s held her children when they were young and has shown up for birthdays, family dinners, holidays and other ordinary days, she said.

“If you know Eddie, you know exactly what kind of man he is,” Corbitt wrote. “He is the person who will do anything he can for anyone who needs him. And right now, he needs us.”

Corbitt also started a petition calling for Reyes’ release from detention while his immigration proceedings continue.

What happened?

The day of the minor accident, the trooper told Reyes he had an immigration warrant against him and detained him. They were confused about the warrant because, Cool said, Reyes’ only contact with immigration officials has been through a petition and waiver filed on his behalf through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

Reyes’ detention by the trooper was possible through the 287(g) program, which allows local and state law enforcement to work with ICE. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety signed an agreement last year giving the Highway Patrol and several other divisions authority to enforce federal immigration laws during routine policing. 

Mecham said local and state law enforcement’s willingness to work with ICE has led to children being separated from their parents and two-parent households turning into single-parent ones. 

He said he sees the partnerships as more of a political talking point than a practical benefit for communities. Mecham said a better use of resources would be for local law enforcement to address violent crime and local policing rather than civil immigration matters. The federal government has the resources to address its immigration laws, he said. 

“At a community level, these rules will cause more harm for our community,” Mecham said. 

Once in ICE custody, officers interviewed Reyes at their office in Gulfport and determined he would be detained, his wife said. 

Mecham said he requested ICE release Reyes on personal recognizance or on parole, but that did not happen. 

ICE will likely not grant the bond, Mecham said, even though there is nothing in the record to indicate Reyes is a flight risk or a danger to the community. Reyes has strong incentives to appear in immigration court, Mecham said. He noted that his client is near the end of a lengthy process to obtain a green card, and the life Reyes has built with Cool on the Gulf Coast is another incentive. 

‘He’s willing to fight it’

Cool works in Mecham’s immigration office, and she said she has seen the impact of immigration enforcement and detention on people. Now she is experiencing it.

For the past seven years, Cool has worked in the immigration field and is pursuing a career in immigration law. She graduated from Loyola University New Orleans in May and plans to take the bar exam in February.

Cool visited Reyes when he was still at the jail, but on Wednesday he was transferred from Hancock County. She and family thought he would be taken to a detention center in Louisiana, but on Thursday he called her from the Adams County facility to say he was there. 

He seems upset and doesn’t understand the situation, Cool said. 

His attorney will consider other ways to secure his release, such filing a habeas corpus petition in federal court. 

“He said he’s willing to fight it to try and get out,” Cool said. 

Mississippi State University campus police detained a student Wednesday after an employee reported that he had threatened to blow up the financial aid office, an allegation the student and his attorney deny. 

Zayden Leonard, 21, a junior majoring in biological sciences, was trying to resolve an issue with his financial aid. 

He went to the university’s financial aid office to get his questions answered in person, and while waiting for help, six campus police officers approached him, handcuffed him and took him into custody, said civil rights attorney Harry Daniels, who is representing Leonard.  

Campus police detained Leonard for less than an hour, and officers later told him an employee in the financial aid office had reported that he threatened to blow up the office, Daniels said. If true, conviction for that crime could result in up to 10 years in federal prison. 

Leonard was not charged, university spokesman Sid Salter said in an email. 

The university has a responsibility to maintain a safe environment for students, faculty, staff and visitors, Salter said. When concerns are reported involving potential threats to campus personnel or operations, the university follows safety and reporting procedures, he said. 

“The university cooperates with appropriate law enforcement authorities while also ensuring that students have access to applicable university resources and support services,” Salter said. 

Daniels said the incident was dangerous and unjustified. 

“People who weaponize law enforcement to show power should be held accountable for their actions,” Daniels said. “The situation could have ended up deadly.” 

Daniels said Leonard and his family are “shell-shocked” and considering legal action. 

MSU declined to provide additional details, citing ongoing legal and student disciplinary processes. Salter reiterated that Leonard has not been charged. Campus law enforcement said it is directing questions about the incident and investigation to the university’s communications department. 

Days before Brad McCullouch would be appointed the Hinds County district attorney in July, he sat down in a tan Shaquille O’Neal executive chair in a mostly empty corner office on the fifth floor of the Hinds County Courthouse. 

Prompted by a public records request from Mississippi Today, McCullouch decided to look for financial and payroll records. He tried to find invoices, accounting software, usernames and passwords for the office’s bank accounts, and audits. 

What he found instead, he said, was a black three-ring binder of checks that date back to January 2026. 

The apparent lack of recordkeeping was one reason McCullouch said he asked the state auditor’s office to review the Hinds DA’s finances under former Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, who pleaded guilty in June to a federal corruption charge and left office soon after.

“I’m realizing that it’s basically one person who is paying all the bills, and I’m thinking, ‘We need somebody to look at all this,’” McCullouch said.

Patchwork of financial oversight

The siloed documentation persisted due in part to a system of patchwork financial oversight for district attorney offices in Mississippi. Regulatory agencies that are supposed to receive financial reports complain of a lack of enforcement power, and accountability depends on the initiative of a particular district attorney.

Once completed, McCullouch’s requested review will be the first audit of the Hinds DA’s office the auditor’s office has recorded since at least 2013, according to Jacob Walters, a spokesperson for the auditor. 

District attorneys in Mississippi also face no penalties if they do not notify the state treasury of the existence of bank accounts holding public money, even though state law says district attorneys should file an annual report with this information. 

The Hinds DA’s office has not filed such a report to the state treasurer’s office since 2017, according to a treasury spokesperson. 

Along with audits, these filings are among the few mechanisms that exist in Mississippi to hold district attorneys accountable for how they spend self-generated funds, such as drug seizure money or fees from pre-trial intervention programs. 

These reports also would have been useful to McCullouch. In his role as Owens’ second-in-command, the Madison attorney said he knew of a few bank accounts the office had at Trustmark, because he was a co-signor. 

After taking the reins, McCullouch went to Trustmark with an assistant district attorney, who suggested he ask the bank for all the DA’s accounts. 

That’s how he learned the DA’s office had seven accounts at Trustmark, some of which McCullouch didn’t know about. 

McCullouch said he hopes to have an independent audit of the office completed by the time he leaves his post after the Nov. 3 special election. 

In a text message to Mississippi Today, Owens wrote that he paid for an independent audit of his office so he could provide a copy to the Mississippi State Health Department as part of a grant application. Mississippi Today has not retrieved that audit from MSDH by press time. 

“To my knowledge there was no independent audits done in our office in the four years before I was elected,” Owens wrote. 

The missing audits and treasurer reports for the Hinds DA’s office span the terms of two district attorneys in Hinds County, Owens and his predecessor, the late Robert Shuler Smith. 

Smith, who served as Hinds DA from 2008 to 2019, also drew legal scrutiny during his controversial tenure. The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office unsuccessfully pursued various criminal charges against Smith for years, notably accusing him of illegally advising criminal defendants.  

But office paperwork was disorganized under Smith, some former prosecutors told Mississippi Today. Paper files routinely went missing. When Owens was elected in 2019, he implemented an online case management system. 

Records from 2021 and 2024 show that Owens followed reporting requirements for state funding for prosecutor salary supplements by responding to emails from a Department of Finance and Administration employee who was checking which offices were receiving the extra pay. 

Dearth of documents

It is difficult to say how much money is under the purview of the Hinds DA’s office, because of the complexity of the funding for district attorney offices in Mississippi and the dearth of documents. That’s one reason why an audit could be so useful in understanding the finances of one of the most powerful institutions in public life, said Amanda Beck, an accounting professor at Georgia State University who specializes in government auditing. 

“It’s public property so the public deserves to know how that money has been spent,” she said. 

District attorney’s offices in Mississippi are funded through a mix of state, county and self-generated money. Oversight exists for state and county funds: District attorneys must report how they spend this money to the state Department of Finance and Administration or to local county governments. 

But virtually no such enforceable checks and balances exist for self-generated funds, due to the loopholes in state law. Unlike other public funds, this money is solely managed and overseen by the district attorney’s office. 

Plus, little guidance exists for district attorneys in Mississippi on how to comply with state regulations. Stephanie Wood, the current president of the Mississippi Prosecutor’s Association, said the organization does not provide training to district attorneys on how to comply with state oversight laws. 

Hal Kittrell, a longtime district attorney in the 15th Circuit Court District in south Mississippi, said his office voluntarily pays for an independent audit every year. He doesn’t know why or when the audits started. He said it is just something the office has always done, ever since Kittrell was an assistant district attorney nearly 30 years ago. 

“There’s 23 DAs and 23 ways of doing things,” he said. 

The patchwork oversight for district attorneys means just one person knows the whole scope of a district attorney’s finances: The district attorney, said Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula who chairs the Senate Judiciary A Committee. 

“If you have never served (as a district attorney) you don’t know and would never know how those funds come in and what would go out,” Wiggins said. 

Audits required but not always done

Because district attorneys receive state funding, Mississippi statute requires the auditor’s office to audit district attorney’s offices. This is typically done by working with CPA firms to conduct the audits.

While state law mandates the auditor’s office to annually audit state government offices, the law does not specify a schedule for district attorney offices. The law also does not provide for a punishment if district attorney’s offices fail to obtain or file audits. 

“There’s no penalty if it’s not getting done, so it’s basically not a law,” said Walters, the auditor’s spokesperson. 

When Walters opened a filing cabinet containing audits of district attorneys’ offices in Mississippi to check for records, the folders for other offices contained multiple documents. But he said the folder for the Hinds DA’s office contained just one – a contract for a 2013 audit. 

The audit, however, was never filed with the auditor’s office. 

David Ewing, the owner of the accounting firm that signed the 2013 contract, said he couldn’t find the final copy of the report in his files, which led him to speculate the audit wasn’t submitted to the auditor’s office because it was never completed. He said his firm hasn’t attempted to audit the Hinds DA’s office since 2013. 

Without more stringent requirements, the state auditor relies on district attorneys to self-report suspected wrongdoing in their offices. Past instances of financial crimes involving district attorney employees often involve the office’s self-generated funds. 

Since fiscal year 2018, the auditor has taken enforcement action in just two cases against district attorney’s offices, according to a review of the auditor’s annual reports. Both instances involved DA employees embezzling from the office’s self-generated funds. 

Walters said some funding for district attorneys is covered by audits of county governments. But these can be out of date: The most recent audit the state auditor has on file for Hinds County was in 2022. 

All eyes on Hinds DA audit

Kittrell said he thinks district attorneys across the state will be looking for the outcome of the Hinds DA audit so they can ensure their independent audits are up to par. He noted that the elected offices are unique compared to other government entities in Mississippi, since district attorneys are not quite state offices, but not local agencies, either. 

“We’re kind of an oddity among any agency that I know,” he said. 

District attorneys are not only virtually unchecked in how they spend their self-generated funds. Mississippi’s top prosecutors are also given special powers to pick and choose crimes to prosecute in their circuit court. 

This power wasn’t lost on Owens: He frequently remarked on it to undercover FBI agents who were investigating him. At least one comment that made it into the 2024 federal indictment bore resemblance to McCullouch’s recent realization after his search for financial records turned up short. 

“I’m not trying to overemphasize this, you guys, but my ability to prosecute people… there’s only one me,” Owens was quoted saying in the indictment. 

Update 8/27/2026: This story has been updated to show that the auditor’s office often works with CPA firms to conduct audits of government bodies.

More than 100 Mississippi healthcare providers gathered Wednesday to confront a growing challenge: how to better support pregnant and postpartum mothers struggling with substance use. 

Nurses, doctors, counselors and social workers explored treatment approaches that prioritize rehabilitation, keeping mothers with their babies and replacing punitive measures with care, on Wednesday. The conference was organized by Mississippi Public Health Institute, a nonprofit that develops projects to enhance public and mental health, and CHAMP4Moms, a mental health referral service at the University of Mississippi Medical Center for providers who treat mothers. 

Following a national trend, overdose has become a leading and rapidly increasing cause of maternal death in Mississippi, one of the most dangerous states for giving birth. Mississippi is one of 16 states where people are arrested for reasons related to their pregnancy. Most of these arrests stem from substance use allegations. 

Unlike many of the other states, Mississippi does not have mandated reporting laws, meaning providers don’t have to test or report women for drug use. Mississippi also does not have fetal personhood laws, so drug use during pregnancy isn’t legally considered child abuse. But that hasn’t stopped prosecutors from doling out 20-year prison sentences to Mississippi mothers who are struggling with addiction. 

Drug testing in hospitals often does not lead to safer conditions, explained Dr. Mishka Terplan, an OB-GYN board certified in addiction medicine who has helped develop federal guidelines for treating opioid use during pregnancy. Providers regularly perform these tests for moral reasons rather than clinical ones, Terplan said. Positive drug tests often result in officials separating mother and infant, which can have devastating effects, he said. 

“We have this assumption that somehow the best way for someone to achieve recovery is to do it separated from their child. And only once they’ve achieved that will we allow for reunification,” Terplan told Mississippi Today. “I think that that’s philosophically and ethically backwards.” 

For many people, motherhood can open a “window of opportunity” for behavioral change, Terplan explained. Parenthood can make something as difficult as recovery feel possible for the first time. Too often, Terplan said, babies are taken away before mothers can seize that moment. 

These separations are nothing new. In 2015, Joanne Shedd’s newborn son was taken away from her because of her methamphetamine use. At the time, she said, she grieved that loss as if he had died. Shedd later enrolled in Fairland, an addiction treatment center in Tutwiler. 

A month after arriving at the center, Shedd said, she was reunited with her son. Looking back, she counts herself as lucky. The kindness of the hospital nurses who helped deliver her son got her through that first month postpartum, she said. They took photos of her with her son during their limited time bonding, one of which she printed and kept on her bedroom mirror. 

“That was my motivation when I wanted to give up,” Shedd told Mississippi Today. 

‘We can do better’

Mothers using drugs who lose custody of their children in the U.S. are more likely to return to drug use and experience overdose and worsened mental health, research shows. Mental health conditions is the most common complication of pregnancy. Research estimates 75% of those conditions go undiagnosed, which has fatal consequences and goes against medical standards, experts say. 

A night-and-day difference exists between how providers treat patients experiencing medical emergencies versus those enduring mental health emergencies, said Utsav Nandi, associate director of research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Department of Emergency Medicine. For example, during a heart attack, a medical team works to stabilize the patient and provide continuous care until providers know the patient is safe and will remain so after leaving the hospital. 

“Yet for something like overdose, when someone overdoses and dies and is then revived, the best we can do is ‘Hey, here’s a phone number, and don’t do drugs,’” Nandi said. “We can do better.”

Stigma poses the biggest barrier to recovery facing those with substance use, experts said Wednesday. Instead, providers can educate themselves and reimagine the infant’s health as intertwined with the mother’s.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, political language has pitted the rights and health of the fetus against those of the mother, Terplan said. In reality, they exist, thrive and suffer together, Terplan said.

In 2023, UMMC launched a phone line, called CHAMP4Moms, that Mississippi healthcare providers can call for guidance on screening, diagnosing and treating a pregnant person or new mother who may have unaddressed mental health needs. Providers can get guidance in real time from reproductive psychologists and psychiatrists in and out of state. 

Keeping families together not only makes caregivers happy, speakers stressed. It also saves babies. Infants who are separated from parents often face severe lifelong health and psychological damage due to that trauma. 

Along with reducing stigma, keeping families together is among the best ways to improve outcomes for those seeking recovery, Brenda Foster, the lead nurse navigator for the Opioid and Substance Use Programs at the Mississippi State Department of Health, said during the conference. Foster has over 13 years of experience as a psychiatric nurse. 

“You’ll cause more harm to these kids by taking them away from someone who loves their kids and just needs the help that they need,” Foster said.

The National Association of Black Journalists has honored Mississippi Today, The Marshall Project and the Clarion Ledger with an NABJ Salute to Excellence Award for coverage of deaths inside Mississippi prisons.

The year-long project, which involved Mississippi Today’s senior investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell and criminal justice reporter Mina Corpuz and Justice Editor Debbie Skipper, also included the contributions of the Hattiesburg American and Mississippi Link. It chronicled dozens of killings that went unpunished. 

Over a decade, at least 42 people were killed in the state’s prisons with just six people convicted in those deaths. Often families contacted by the reporters didn’t know their loved ones’ deaths were ruled a homicide. In one case, a prosecutor forgot to serve an indictment until a reporter on the team called about the homicide. 

New evidence Mitchell uncovered offered hope to the mother of a son killed in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman five years ago that she would finally have some answers about what happened.

Faced with these facts, Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain told Mississippi Today that he would reopen investigations of the homicide cases as well as deaths ruled undetermined.