OurTupelo

Marlena Jenkins is a public high school teacher who loves helping kids ask the right questions. 

Jenkins, 47, knows what happens when kids don’t learn that skill. At 18, Jenkins had a baby after graduating high school in Hattiesburg in 1997 with no sex education. While she counts her daughter as “one of her greatest blessings,” Jenkins said what came next was not. Two months after giving birth, Jenkins was prescribed “the birth control shot” at her local county health department. Over the next two decades, she developed diabetes and struggled to lose the 60 pounds she gained during her four-year stint on the contraceptive. 

With her first shot, Jenkins joined thousands of Mississippi women on Medicaid who receive the injectable contraception, typically administered as one shot four times a year. In 2025, Mississippi Medicaid recipients received more than 19,000 prescriptions for the drug known as depot medroxyprogesterone acetate or by its brand name “Depo-Provera,” across both generic and brand name versions. In that same year, the state accrued the highest prescription rate per Medicaid recipient in the U.S., the fourth year in a row Mississippi led the nation. 

Experts say that too often, providers don’t give Medicaid patients extensive options or engage in discussion to reach informed consent. Many times, it comes down to providers making assumptions about what might be best for low-income women, young women and people of color. 

Jenkins said thinking about birth control once every three months appealed to her. But she wishes she had been given more information. If she had, Jenkins said she might not have taken the shot. And she might not have needed gastric sleeve surgery in 2019. 

Now, Jenkins partners with Converge, a Jackson-based nonprofit program that administers Title X federal family planning funds to 91 clinics statewide. She tables events monthly and shares her experience with other women to ensure Mississippians know what informed consent around contraceptive care looks like. 

“If you’re new (to something), you don’t know what to ask,” Jenkins said. 

Brain tumors?

Some people who have taken this contraceptive say they experienced side effects more adverse than weight gain. 

Two studies published in 2024 and 2025 found that prolonged use of the shot is associated with a higher relative risk of meningiomas, a brain tumor that is not usually cancerous but can still have harmful side effects. A 2024 case-control study from France of more than 108,000 women found increased risk with more than a year of use, and a 2025 retrospective study of more than 10 million U.S. women on birth control found that the risk increased after more than four years of use.

Over 6,400 plaintiffs across the country have since filed lawsuits against the manufacturers of Depo-Provera.

One plaintiff is Ecclesiastes Patton, a 37-year-old Clinton resident who filed a lawsuit on behalf of his mother. 

For years, Victoria Patton suffered migraines. But it wasn’t until she turned 50 that she learned she had a meningioma. According to her son, by that time, the tumor had swelled to “the size of a grapefruit.” Within two weeks of being admitted to a hospital in Jackson, she couldn’t hold a glass or form sentences, he added. Doctors successfully removed the tumor, but the surgery left the elder Patton with sepsis, a life-threatening condition where the body overreacts to an infection. She was placed in a medically-induced coma for 10 days.

She recovered enough to leave the hospital, but two years later, in 2022, she died of heart complications. Her meningioma and death were due partly to the Depo-Provera shots she had taken for 25 years, the lawsuit alleges. She was 51.

“I had a lot of anger around that time,” recalled Patton, adding that many of his questions about the cause of her death remain unanswered. Since he was a child, Patton said his mother suffered migraines, and he doesn’t know why doctors didn’t take them more seriously. 

Cassandra Welchlin, executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, a nonprofit program that fights for economic justice, voting rights and reproductive health, was not surprised to hear that doctors took so long to diagnose the elder Patton. 

Along with her collaborators, Welchlin’s organization interviewed 34 Black women around the state about their experiences with contraception and the medical system. Welchlin said she couldn’t comment on the specifics of Patton’s case, but that stories of Black women being dismissed in doctor’s offices are common. 

“We always hear that they are not believed, that the pain is ignored,” she said. 

Welchlin thinks providers should have paused on dispensing the drug after scientists linked it to meningiomas, so that more information could be made available. “When they saw the risk, they should have discontinued it,
because now people are hurt by it,” she said. 

Dr. Jennifer Karlin, associate professor of family and community medicine at University of California, San Francisco and clinical director of a provider-focused reproductive healthcare hotline, emphasized that while there is a risk of meningiomas from the shot, the overall risk is still small, adding that all contraceptives have pros and cons.

“The absolute risk of it is so low, and yet, there’s an absolute risk,” said Karlin, adding that individuals need to weigh their own tolerance for that risk against the risk of pregnancy. “Part of it is telling people about these different risks.” 

Karlin also shared a draft of an upcoming article from the hotline that cited more recent, smaller studies suggesting that stopping use may reverse or stabilize meningiomas.

Patton’s lawsuit, and the thousands of others, have been consolidated into multi-district litigation, a type of lawsuit that resembles a class action but that keeps individual lawsuits distinct. In June 2026, Pfizer agreed to a settlement with about 80% of plaintiffs. The other 20% are continuing to pursue litigation to trial.

In an emailed statement Thursday, a Pfizer spokesperson told Mississippi Today that the settlement agreement “includes no admission of liability or wrongdoing and has no effect on cases pending in state courts.”

In late December, the Food and Drug Administration approved the addition of a safety warning to Pfizer’s label for Depo-Provera. “Cases of meningiomas have been reported following repeated administration of medroxyprogesterone acetate, primarily with long-term use,” the warning reads. 

The Pfizer spokesperson told Mississippi Today that “Pfizer stands behind the safety and efficacy of Depo-Provera, which has been used by millions of women worldwide and remains an important treatment option for women seeking to manage their reproductive health.”

Questions emerge about provider bias

The FDA first approved Depo-Provera in 1992. The now-defunct Upjohn Company manufactured the medication until Pfizer acquired its then-parent company in 2003. A year later, the first generic version of the medication became available. Generics now account for the overwhelming majority of Medicaid prescriptions. (The multi-district litigation only applies to brand-name Depo-Provera and “authorized generics” by a handful of manufacturers that repackage the Pfizer formulation). 

The history of the injectable contraceptive known as “the shot” has dark beginnings. Decades before Depo-Provera was approved by the FDA, the largest study of its use was conducted in the 1960s and 1970s at the Grady Memorial Hospital Family Planning Clinic in Atlanta. According to “Contraceptive Risk,” a book by political scientist and historian William Green, more than 11,400 women were administered the drug. Most were Black and on Medicaid. Later, an FDA audit would conclude that these women had signed consent forms without knowing the drug was not yet FDA approved. 

In 1987, a congressional hearing examined the drug’s use by the Indian Health Service, which had administered it to more than 150 Native American women, even though the FDA had declined to approve the drug in 1978 for contraceptive use, due to early concerns of breast tumors from animal studies.

Millions of women have taken the drug at least once in their lifetime, many of them through Medicaid. Among contraceptive users, Depo-Provera and its generic are more popular among Medicaid recipients than those with private insurance, according to a KFF analysis of nationwide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. A Center for Mississippi Health Policy analysis of 2016 data from more than 26,900 reproductive-age Mississippi women found that 58% of Medicaid users used an injectable contraceptive compared to 45% of privately-insured women.

Across the country, Black sexually-experienced women are more than twice as likely as white sexually-experienced women to have ever been prescribed an injectable contraceptive, according to the CDC. It was also three times more common in women without a high school diploma than those who had a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the same report.

Women aren’t necessarily taking Depo-Provera because they prefer it to other forms of contraception, said Danielle Lampton, co-founder and co-executive director of Converge, the Jackson-based nonprofit program that administers Title X federal family planning funds to 91 clinics statewide. 

Contraceptive use is greatly influenced by provider bias, Lampton continued. For example, providers might make assumptions that the convenience of not having to take a pill every day will outweigh potential side effects for patients. Most of the time, she said, providers have good intentions. 

“Bias often is not located in a nefarious plot to harm someone,” Lampton said. “It’s often located in believing that you know what’s best for them.”

Mississippi is not the only state where exam rooms hold little discussion or women are dismissed. Studies show that across the U.S., asymmetrical power dynamics between providers and patients are starker when it comes to patients who are young, low-income and people of color. 

Years of stagnant research has left many people feeling disillusioned about their available birth control options, said Mary Ziegler, a professor and reproductive health expert at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. 

Among sexually active women not using contraception, 1 in 5 don’t use birth control because they dislike or worry about the side effects, according to a 2024 KFF analysis. Improving birth control methods demands deeper investment in research, said Ziegler, but that’s unlikely to happen if the issue remains politically polarized. 

Conservatives often discourage research on birth control because they fear contraceptives verge on being abortion-causing substances, Ziegler said. But progressives worry that saying anything negative about the existing options paves the way to restrict abortion and contraception. 

“What’s looming over everything involving reproductive health is the abortion debate, and it kind of twists everything else,” Ziegler said. 

‘…then she ended up pregnant’

In September, Sen. Kamesha Mumford, a Democrat from Jackson, got a call from one of her constituents. The woman she spoke to, Mumford said, had received a letter in the mail about the multi-district litigation for Depo-Provera and didn’t know what to do. 

That was the first time Mumford heard about the issue, and she said it has reignited concerns for her about health disparities for vulnerable women in rural areas. Mumford said her constituent turned to Depo-Provera because it meant skipping a monthly trip to the pharmacy.

“She talked to me about a family member of hers who tried to go the pill route, and things would come up, she couldn’t get a ride, she ended up missing a week here or there, and then she ended up pregnant,” Mumford said. 

Mumford has advocated for women’s healthcare and the right to contraception throughout her first year in the Mississippi Legislature. She said she intends to introduce legislation next session that expands access to healthcare through telehealth and transportation. Mumford said she hopes that will allow more women to choose the option best for them – and not just the only one they can access. 

Dr. Jennifer Karlin, the UCSF professor, said resource limitations might obstruct providers from counseling patients adequately. 

“Providers aren’t being malicious. They don’t care whether someone’s on depo or not,” said Karlin. “They just want to have the time to be able to counsel people so people can be on things that work for them.” 

Karlin encouraged providers to reach out to the reproductive health hotline that she is clinical director of, ReproHH, which is available to providers all around the country. “We will help you,” she said. “There are specialists sitting online right now ready to answer your questions.”

Cassandra Welchlin, the executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, agreed that better provider training is integral to addressing inequities in contraceptive access. 

In 2026, Welchlin’s team conducted several two-hour cultural sensitivity training sessions with 52 healthcare providers across Jackson, Biloxi, Mound Bayou and Laurel. They also gave those providers guides on how to use language as a tool for equity, dignity and quality care. The guide advises providers to swap phrases such as “resistant to care” for “patient expressed concerns or requested more information.”

That additional training is necessary, Welchlin said, because racism has been baked into the healthcare system. It has caused providers to make assumptions about who should give birth – and when. 

“Mississippi should not regulate when and how a woman should or should not have a baby,” Welchlin said. 

The New York Times’ Susan Beachy and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Methodology: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) State Drug Utilization Data was used to calculate the number of prescriptions for medroxyprogesterone acetate (brand name “Depo-Provera”) for each state and year. Medicaid data does not distinguish between prescriptions that were made to the same user and different users. So, the number of prescriptions is likely several times higher than the number of unique users, as the contraceptive is typically taken once every three months. Both brand-name and generic versions were included, as the vast majority of Medicaid prescriptions (more than 95% in 2025) use the generic version. Prescriptions for oral tablets/pills and high-dose formulations (400 mg/mL), typically used for palliative cancer care, were excluded. Subcutaneous (“SubQ”) formulations, which can be dispensed at a pharmacy and self-administered, make up less than 1% of Medicaid prescriptions and were excluded, though Mississippi’s ranking did not change with inclusion. CMS Medicaid & CHIP enrollment data was used to calculate the number of Medicaid enrollees for each state and year, obtained via KFF. Data analyses were restricted to 2018 onward as data from 2017 is unreliable due to state and federal Medicaid changes. (While Census data includes the number of self-reported Medicaid recipients, this tends to be an undercount.) State Drug Utilization Data is not broken down by age or sex, so all Medicaid enrollees, regardless of age or sex, were used to calculate the prescription rate among Medicaid enrollees.

House Speaker Jason White – or at least the poll he commissioned – does not seem to be embracing what has become known as the “Mississippi miracle” that references the state’s dramatic gains on some national education tests.

While Mississippi still has numerous hills to climb in terms of improving its education system, there is no doubt the state has made impressive strides.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and others often tout those improvements.

The governor has gone across the country touting the state’s education gains, appearing on multiple national news shows. In January 2025, Reeves said in a statement, “This is another massively historic win for education in Mississippi. Mississippi fourth graders aren’t just one of the best in reading and math gains — they’re the best in the nation.”

Did Speaker White and his Republican-leaning Cygnal pollsters not get the memo?

White, perhaps the most forceful elected official pushing to spend public money on private schools, commissioned a recent poll that seemed to dismiss those education gains. By a slim 41.1% to 39.2% margin, with 19.6% having no response, poll participants supported some form of school choice or vouchers.

Apparently not satisfied with that narrow result, the pollster asked a follow-up question: “Supporters point to other states with existing school choice programs, where student test scores have improved in both public and private schools as a result of increased options and competition. Knowing this, do you support or oppose creating a school choice program in Mississippi like the one described in the last question?”

Response to that question was 50.1% to 27.1% in favor of vouchers, with 22.8% having no opinion or not being sure.

The question might influence poll results

The question completely ignored the “Mississippi miracle” that many state education experts say is more aptly described as the “Mississippi marathon,” referring to the decades-long effort to improve the public schools.

Critics of modern polling often say the wording of the question can have a dramatic influence on the outcome of a poll.

What if the question posed by the Republican polling company for White was “in light of the fact that Mississippi has received national praise for its test score improvements that has been described by many as miraculous, should a change be made to take money away from public schools and direct it to private schools?”

What would have been the answer to that very accurate question?

Studies cite negative voucher test results

Research can be found both touting the success of vouchers in terms of student improvement and lamenting the decline in test scores in states with voucher programs. 

But multiple peer-reviewed studies indicate that vouchers harm student achievement.

Research compiled by The Parents’ Campaign, a Mississippi group that supports public education and opposes vouchers, cites multiple studies revealing numerous voucher states have struggled in recent years on test scores.

Based on the analysis of test scores in multiple states, The Parents’ Campaign concluded, “voucher students experience significant losses in achievement.”

The anti-voucher National Coalition of Public Education produced a study saying “vouchers harm student achievement as much as natural disasters.” The study cited test scores declines in multiple places with vouchers, including Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio and the District of Columbia, saying they were comparable to regressions after disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the COVID-19 pandemic.

As stated, studies can be found arguing the opposite. An EdChoice study, for instance, argues that voucher students are much more likely to pursue a college education.

But the fact remains that Mississippi has been cited for making dramatic gains on standardized tests when compared to other states, thanks to efforts in the public schools. That is happening now, even as White tries to divert money from public to private schools.

White’s poll failed to mention that.

The question is: Was that failure intentional?

Jackson’s water and sewer systems would remain outside city officials’ control under a proposal by a federally appointed manager that would establish an independent, customer-governed authority to oversee the troubled utilities.

The 36-page transition plan JXN Water released Thursday blamed Jackson leaders for “decades of failure and the ultimate collapse of the water system.”

The manager, Ted Henifin, was especially blunt: “At bottom, there is no case to be made to return governance to the City in the foreseeable future.”

Henifin’s proposal would create a separate governing entity from the Metro Jackson Water Authority state lawmakers established earlier this year. A federal judge has partially blocked the state-created authority amid a legal challenge from Jackson officials over who should control the utilities once federal oversight ends.

During his State of the City address earlier this week, Jackson Mayor John Horhn acknowledged the ongoing strife.

“Our relationship with JXN Water has been tested. We are now having serious conversations about what comes next when the current arrangement ends,” he said.

“Let me be clear: Jackson owns these water assets. Jackson carries the debt. And the people of Jackson have a legitimate interest in the future of their water system.”

Henifin, who is expected to step down by July 2028, would be replaced by a court-appointed chief executive to lead the new authority – which could be in place as soon as next year.

The proposed authority, which would need court approval, would assume responsibility for the utilities while remaining under federal oversight. That oversight could end by December 2029.

In 2022, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate placed Jackson’s struggling water system under Henifin’s control following a crisis that left much of the city without reliable running water. The following year, he placed Jackson’s sewer system under Henifin’s control, also.

Under Henifin’s plan, a federal judge would appoint the initial members of the authority’s governing board, with future members elected by ratepayers.

While Henifin considered privatizing the water and sewer systems, he concluded that doing so could prioritize profits over much-needed long-term investments.

Earlier this year, Henifin floated the idea of selling the city’s water and sewer system to an independent authority. The proceeds, he said, could help the city retire roughly $121 million in utility debt, potentially reducing the need for future rate increases.

The idea drew opposition from City Council members, some of whom argued that Jackson should not be forced to surrender ownership of its infrastructure.

Henifin’s transition plan outlines several possible scenarios for governing Jackson’s water and sewer systems.

His recommendation to establish an independent authority, he said in the report, would make it easier to get financing for infrastructure improvements and protect the system from political influence.

That influence is a key reason for his rejection of the legislative remedy adopted earlier this year. The Metro Jackson Water Authority would have board members appointed by  the governor, lieutenant governor and the mayors of Byram, Ridgeland and Jackson. Jackson’s mayor would also serve as a non-voting ex-officio member.

Dr. Richard E. Holmes, the first Black student to enroll at Mississippi State University, died Friday. He was 82. 

Holmes enrolled at the previously segregated university in Starkville on July 19, 1965, three years after James Meredith integrated the University of Mississippi amid violent opposition. 

MSU president Mark Keenum remembered Holmes as a man of courage, vision and patience who left a lasting impact on the university. 

“Dr. Holmes cast a long, productive and impactful shadow over this institution, a shadow that also leaned forward,” Keenum said in a statement. “I will miss his company and his counsel.” 

Holmes, a Starkville native, earned a liberal arts degree from MSU in 1969 and a master’s degree in microbiology in 1973. He earned his medical degree from Michigan State University in 1977 and later worked as an emergency room physician in Birmingham, Alabama. 

Holmes returned to Mississippi and joined MSU’s Longest Student Health Center in 2003, where he served as a staff physician. 

The university named its cultural diversity center in his honor in 1991 and recognized him in 2006 as its first Black National Alumnus of the Year. Holmes and his wife, Judie, also established an endowed scholarship supporting minority students. 

Most recently, on Aug. 21, MSU dedicated the Dr. Richard E. Holmes Plaza in recognition of his contributions to the university. 

For generations of Black alumni, Holmes’ legacy extended beyond the university honors he received. 

Edward Sanders, co-founder of Mississippi State University Black Alumni Weekend, recalled bringing Holmes and Meredith together during the event’s inaugural gala in 2016. Hearing the two men reflect on their experiences integrating Mississippi’s universities left a lasting impression, he said.  

“Both were full of wisdom and advice and it was one of the few times we got to see them interact together,” Sanders, a 2006 MSU graduate, said. “His passing will leave a huge void, but there are others from his time and era at Mississippi State that will continue to hold a torch.” 

Judy Alsobrooks Meredith, James Meredith’s wife and herself a 2007 MSU graduate, said Holmes’ courage opened doors for generations of Black students. 

“He did it,” Alsobrooks Meredith said. “And it allowed me to do it. For that, I’m grateful for him and his legacy.” 

Camille Scales Young, who became the MSU National Alumni Association’s first Black president in 2012, said Holmes’ legacy also inspired her own leadership. 

Alumni named a tailgating tent “Marvelously Maroon 1965” to commemorate Holmes’ historic enrollment. When she told Holmes about the tribute, Young recalled, he was honored and pleased. 

“All graduates have a responsibility of carrying on his legacy and dedication to the school he loved so much,” Scales Young said. 

Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, raised almost twice as much money as his Republican opponent over the last three months, according to federal campaign finance reports.

But Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith still far outpaces him in cash on hand. Federal Election Commission reports show that Colom raised $1.3 million and has $991,802 in cash on hand. Hyde-Smith raised $642,988 last reporting cycle and has $2.4 million on hand.

READ MORE: Mississippi midterms: Colom trying to capitalize on economic discontent. Hyde-Smith trying to tie him to far left

“We are on track to win because Mississippians are paying attention, and they’re tired of a senator who works for the special interests instead of them,” Colom said in a news release. 

As national Democratic figures, including Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, visit Mississippi to campaign with Colom, the Democratic nominee hopes the national attention will energize support in the Nov. 3 election and flip Mississippi’s Senate seat, long thought to be a safe Republican seat. 

Hyde-Smith has used the influx of out-of-state Democrats to tie Colom to the national Democratic Party to label him as out-of-touch with Mississippi’s conservative voters. 

Nathan Calvert, Hyde-Smith’s communications director, said in a statement that the Hyde-Smith campaign is not surprised “DC extremists are pouring money into Scott Colom’s campaign.”

“We planned for Colom to have plenty of resources,” Calvert said. “We are executing our own campaign plan with that in mind. We have a strong grassroots network statewide, and we believe we will once again win a majority of votes on November 3.”

Colom and Hyde-Smith are competing in the general election on Nov. 3. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins is also on the ballot. He reported raising $6,269 last cycle with $4,862 in cash on hand.

Here are the latest campaign finance reports from Mississippi’s congressional candidates:

U.S. Senate

• Scott Colom, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $1,315,816
  • Cash on hand: $991,802
• Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $642,988
  • Cash on hand: $2,425,284 
• Ty Pinkins, independent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $7,812
  • Cash on hand:  $5,351

U.S. House of Representatives – District 1

• Cliff Johnson, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $257,244
  • Cash on hand: $185,568 
• Trent Kelly, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $255,670
  • Cash on hand: $1,009,305

U.S. House of Representatives – District 2

• Ron Eller, Republican
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $16,847
  • Cash on hand: $37,761
• Bennie G. Thompson, Democratic incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $155,910
  • Cash on hand:  $1,358,478

U.S. House of Representatives – District 3

• Michael A. Chiaradio, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $40,101
  • Cash on hand: $32,435
• Michael Guest, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $192,995
  • Cash on hand: $1,051,609

U.S. House of Representatives – District 4:

• Mike Ezell, Republican incumbent
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $102,547
  • Cash on hand: $165,686
• Jeffrey Hulum III, Democrat
  • Money raised 4th quarter: $25,020 
  • Cash on hand: $10,553

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful ideas to be shared 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.  

At first it might appear that modern-day Mississippi has nothing in common with the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic of 1952. Red-state free-market conservatism versus a dictatorship of the proletariat? Tate Reeves versus Stalinist fellow-travelers? But metaphor and human sociopolitical behavior being what they are, there’s a connection. Let me explain. 

In February of 1948, the Czechoslovakian Communist Party seized power in a coup-d’etat. On Feb. 21, the party chairman, Klement Gottwald, addressed a celebratory crowd in Prague’s Old-Town Square. To his right stood another high-ranking Communist official, Vladimír Clementis. It was bitterly cold and Clementis thoughtfully placed his fur hat on comrade Gottwald’s bare head. Photographs of the occasion were distributed by the state, with the dour Communist power couple gazing out on the citizens and bright future of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. 

Gottwald became Prime Minister, while Clementis was appointed minister of foreign affairs. But authoritarian power dynamics being what they are, Clementis’ position and gracious gesture toward Gottwald did not guarantee his safety. (Are you listening, Marco Rubio?)

In 1952 Clementis was arrested and charged with being a “bourgeois nationalist,” which in Stalin’s world was usually fatal. During the requisite show trial, Clementis confessed to his “crimes” and was later hanged. Because Clementis had become a persona non grata, the state propaganda apparatus removed his face from the 1948 photograph with Gottwald, shifting most of Clementis’ head to hidden behind a microphone. The only identifiable part of Clementis that remained was his fur hat, still perched atop Gottwald’s head.

On the left, the original photograph from Feb. 21, 1948. Klement Gottwald is on the right, while Vladimír Clementis is to the left, partially obscured by the microphone. In the retouched photograph on the right, Clementis’ head is hidden by the microphone, while his fur hat remains atop Gottwald’s head.

The Czech novelist Milan Kundera describes this scenario in the opening of “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting,” before a protagonist observes that the “struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” For Kundera, Clementis’ fur hat was both a symbol and photographic relic of how Czechoslovakia’s authoritarian regime distorted history.

In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, history in the form of Vladimír Clementis was inconvenient and he was eliminated from the 1948 photograph, less his fur hat. Of course, Clementis’ disappearance is just one example of a broader antagonistic response to history by ideologues and authoritarians. History makes them uncomfortable, sad, angry and embarrassed because it argues against entrenched narratives, precious origin myths and stories about perceived victimhood.

Easier, then, for those in power to reprise their own versions of the opening scene from “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting,” symbolic fur hat of forgetting and all. But it is dangerous to ignore history, because doing so disregards a fundamental cause-effect truth described by the German writer Bernhard Schlink: “The tectonic layers of our lives (in other words, history) rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as a matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive.” 

“Absolutely present and alive”: The past lives on, despite our attempts to deny it— as in Mississippi, where the forces of forgetting that animated authoritarians in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic are alive and well. Here, many of those who hold political and economic power insist on wearing magical hats of historical amnesia, substituting an antebellum “plantation owner’s” straw hat for Clementis’ Commie fur hat. 

Kundera described the state-sponsored historical amnesia of Stalinist Europe as “organized forgetting.” But the phenomenon also occurs in Mississippi, where it works to misinterpret or ignore the state’s racial history.

In Mississippi, organized forgetting results from an interaction between attitudes embedded in the state’s cultural DNA and government policy. Here, organized forgetting means repeatedly vandalizing the plaque memorializing Emmett Till’s death, and flying “Stars and Bars” battle flags.

It means celebrating Robert E. Lee’s Birthday on the same day as Martin Luther King’s Birthday, along with state holidays honoring Jefferson Davis and Confederate Memorial Day. It means electing a governor who annually proclaims Confederate Heritage Month (ignoring the slavery part), while arguing that “There is not systemic racism in America.” It means electing a United States senator who joked about a “public hanging” in a state where roughly 580 lynchings, primarily of Black people, occurred between 1882 and 1968. It means a legislature that in 2025 passed a ban on teaching “divisive concepts” about race and prohibited DEI programs in public education. It means continuing policies that perpetuate the state’s poverty rate, which is the highest in the United States. It means a new, highly regressive tax structure that will heighten income inequality and disproportionately affect Black people. 

Organized forgetting also means that the state GOP has fast-tracked redistricting following the Callais vs. Louisiana Supreme Court decision to diminish Black voting power, as in the Jim Crow era.

“Back to the Future,” circa 1890, when the president of Mississippi’s constitutional convention, S. S. Calhoon, stated that the constitution was being rewritten to “… exclude the Negro. Nothing short of this will do.” Now, Tate Reeves and others in the GOP explain that one goal of redistricting is to eliminate Congressman Bennie Thompson’s district, with Thompson being the only Black member of Congress from the state. Reeves has argued that the Callais decision “is a win for our Constitution and a tremendous win for our republic.” 

“To secure a lie,” writes Lewis Hyde, “surround it with a moat of forgetfulness.”

Thankfully in Mississippi there are institutions working against forgetting, including the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument. But in our state there are not enough equivalents to the German “Stolpersteine,” or “stumbling stones”: about 70,000 small memorials to victims of the Holocaust, scattered across Europe. Here, there is insufficient collective resistance to forgetting, although the “tectonic events” of Mississippi’s racial history are “absolutely present and alive.” 

Of course, organized forgetting is present throughout our country, where the “Book of Forgetting” (minus the laughter) manifests itself in many of the Trump Administration’s actions: establishing the 1776 Commission as a response to the New York Times’ 1619 Project on the effects of slavery; eliminating funding for schools that teach “divisive, race-centered ideology” or “white privilege,” and attacking DEI programs. Among the institutions and organizations targeted are the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the American Women’s History Museum, the National Park Service and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Trump administration attacks historical memory that it deems “divisive” or “revisionist” because that history makes it uncomfortable and conflicts with stories about when and for whom America was “great.” 

The problem with forgetting history is that although doing so might support entrenched political and economic power, it perverts our understanding of both the past and present, and distorts our imagined futures. In Mississippi, as elsewhere, forgetting often represents an active refusal to know, which as the philosopher Karl Popper wrote, issues “from cowardice, pride or laziness of mind.” For Popper, “ignorance has an ethical dimension, and knowing is a moral obligation for human beings.” 

Actively embracing a past that never existed inhibits adaptation to the world created by our history. As the historian Timothy Snyder observes, “to abandon the search for understanding (is to) abandon history.” And to abandon history is to abandon hope of healing and positive change. Instead, we remain “victims of our own incomprehension,” bound to repeat past mistakes and make new and equally harmful ones. 

A flawed aspect of human nature is a deep-seated resistance to understanding the past, in all its uncomfortable complexity. So, although one quote widely but wrongly attributed to William Faulkner is apparently apocryphal, it remains devastatingly accurate, whether we’re talking about the United States, Communist Czechoslovakia or anywhere else on this earth: “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”

And here, the hats of forgetting are everywhere: thousands of them, worn by politicians and the economic elite, worn by people who should know better, worn by those willing to follow them into darkness. 

Christopher Norment holds a PhD in Systematics and Ecology from the University of Kansas and is an emeritus professor of environmental science and ecology at the State University of New York–Brockport. During his career he published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and three science-related books of creative nonfiction, and received awards from the State University of New York for teaching and scholarship. He now lives in Jackson. 

Sean Tindell will step down next month after serving six years as Mississippi’s public safety commissioner and will be replaced by Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey, Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Friday.

Tindell, a Republican, is running for attorney general, and he confirmed with Mississippi Today that he is resigning to focus on his campaign. In a statement, Tindell said he is proud of his tenure at the Department of Public Safety and praised Reeves’ appointment of Luckey.

“Chief Luckey has led Capitol Police to a level that has exceeded everyone’s expectations, and I’m confident he will continue that success as the next Commissioner of Public Safety,” Tindell said. “I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together and look forward to the opportunity to serve the people of Mississippi in other capacities in the future.”

Tindell has led DPS since Reeves nominated him to the post in 2020. Tindell previously served as a judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals for three years and represented the Gulfport area in the state Senate for five years.

Tindell will remain at DPS until Nov. 30 to assist with the transition, Reeves said.

Luckey has served as chief of Capitol Police, a state-run unit that patrols parts of Jackson, since Reeves appointed him in May 2022. During that time, the Republican-controlled Legislature expanded the department’s jurisdiction, giving it more terrain to patrol in Jackson amid concerns over crime.

Capitol Police is a division of the Department of Public Safety.

Before his time as Capitol Police chief, Luckey was an investigator in the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office. He has also worked for the Brandon Police Department, Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to accept Governor Reeves’ appointment as Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety,” Luckey said in a statement. “I am grateful for his trust and the opportunity to continue serving the people of Mississippi.”

Reeves said Luckey is ready to lead DPS.

“His work has made our capital city and state safer,” Reeves said. “He has years of law enforcement experience and is the right person to lead the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. I’d like to thank Sean for admirably serving our state and wish him well in the next chapter of his career.”

PECAN ISLAND, La. – At the front of a dimly lit cafeteria, half a dozen SpaceX high-level managers sat before a photo of a rocket. 

Facing them sat the residents of Pecan Island — fishers and hunters, many of whom could trace their family’s presence here back generations.

Mark Soltys, principal launch engineer, began telling the crowd about SpaceX’s advances in aerospace technology: “Only SpaceX is demonstrating reusability,” Soltys said. With Starship, he said, “you’re actually increasing the performance, but also lowering the cost to send something to space by multiple orders of magnitude — yes, sir?”

Craig Pitre, a retired welder sitting in the front row, had raised his hand with a question.

“I don’t think too many of us are worried about the flagship rocket and recoverability,” Pitre told Soltys. “What we are all [worried about] is the ecological damage.” He continued, “All this stuff goes out and it’s going to pollute the waters. I mean, is there going to be any accountability for anything? That’s mostly what we are concerned about.”

For the next two hours, residents peppered SpaceX representatives with questions about the incoming impacts of the company’s planned spaceport. Will they be able to stay in their homes? Will it kill off the wildlife? Will it worsen flooding and endanger their lives?

SpaceX reps repeatedly tried to reassure those present that the massive project would have no negative impact on their lives whatsoever. But they also were unable to answer many of the questions the residents posed. And in at least two instances, SpaceX reps were forced to backtrack, as locals held the promises up against the sheer, unprecedented scale of the planned rocket launches. 

SpaceX announced plans this summer to build a $100 billion spaceport here on the fragile coast of Vermilion Parish. The company is planning to ramp up to 10,000 annual launches of its superheavy Starship at the Louisiana site, or 30 launches a day. The 300 or so permanent residents of this village will be the closest locals — only about six miles from the planned launch pads. 

The company’s goal, Soltys told the room, is “to make space life normal. You can go have lunch in orbit. You can go spend a weekend on the moon.”

Soltys didn’t mention that if those ambitions don’t pan out, the company can terminate its lease and agreement at any time for just $1,000, according to a copy of the PILOT lease agreement reviewed by The Lens.

Pecan Island residents were largely unmoved by the visions of lunch in orbit. After all: They live here, now, in Vermilion Parish, on Earth.

“You just explained the thrust and power,” Pitre pressed. “Well, there are consequences behind thrust and power.”

At 30 launches a day, ‘temporary means nothing’

It is difficult to square the scale of SpaceX’s promises with the reality of Vermilion Parish today. Along the single two-lane road to the school, stands of cattle graze in the sun, and smoke billows up from sugarcane fields.

SpaceX had been tightlipped about the meeting. Residents were only alerted with a phone call a day or two before, and the late notice meant some couldn’t attend.

About 150 people crowded into the room, representing around half the village’s permanent residents. Before The Lens arrived, at least two Louisiana residents had been asked to leave by the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office as they were not local to Pecan Island.

Early in the meeting, Katy Groom, SpaceX’s director of environmental regulatory affairs, told those gathered that “the actual launch infrastructure is very small.” SpaceX will be building across about one-third of their 125,000 acres — land leased from the local development board after the state acquired it from Exxon through a lawsuit. The company’s construction will still sprawl across 40,000 acres, nearly three times the size of Manhattan Island.

Soon after, questions started to arise.

“Am I still going to be able to get down there to my property?” asked “Lil Mark” Broussard, about an hour into the meeting.

“Yeah, we’re not going to deny access to property,” a SpaceX rep replied immediately.

But they were soon forced to retract that promise.

Broussard was referring to a strip of land between the shoreline and the southern border of SpaceX’s property. He runs horses and manages cattle on the land. 

“We’re right in the middle. So am I still going to be able to go over there?” 

Soltys repeated, “We are not going to deny you access to land.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

The launch sites’ exact location is not yet known, but in SpaceX renderings they are in a row along the coast, the Starships towering above the land where Broussard keeps cattle. How could SpaceX guarantee unrestricted access to property so close to the proposed launchpads? For a few minutes, the meeting dissolved into worried crosstalk.

Soltys then acknowledged, “It’s likely that there is a point where access is restricted — ”

“But do you know where that point would be?” a woman called out.

“No ma’am,” said Soltys, and soon steered the conversation elsewhere: “Without SpaceX, China is very much ahead of America” in the space race, he went on.

But another resident soon asked for specifics about access: “How big is the exclusion zone when you actually fly the rocket?” the man asked. Exclusion zones temporarily prohibit people or vehicles from access during launches.

Ben Lancaster, SpaceX’s senior manager for government affairs in Texas, said the zone would extend three to five miles from the launch site. That means the exclusion zone would reach from the launch pads, to the shoreline and then beyond, into Gulf waters.

“If you’re launching that many times a day, then ‘temporary’ means nothing,” the man pointed out. “So if you have property between the Gulf and the [launch] pad — you say you’re not going to block access, but if you can exclude, and you’re launching that many times, then access essentially is blocked. Correct?”

Soltys hesitated, then conceded: “Correct,” he said.

“Okay. Question answered. Access is blocked.”

SpaceX will ‘figure out’ bird migration

Soltys’ admission suggests that the exclusion zone will extend into fishing waters, which many depend on for their livelihoods.

“Immediately off the coast here, within a quarter mile or so, is seasonally one of the best shrimping industries in the state, as well as crabs,” said a fisherman. SpaceX’s project is “going to severely affect some of the commercial fishing industry over here.”

Vermilion Parish also sits at the base of the Mississippi River Flyway, a crucial migration route used by millions of shorebirds. After a 600-mile nonstop flight across the Gulf, this is the first land many of them see.

“What are y’all going to do about the Mississippi Flyway?” a resident asked a few minutes after Soltys’ about face on property access. “I’m not talking about planes, here, I’m talking about birds.”

“A big part of that we think is addressed through those required mitigations,” began Owen McDonough, SpaceX’s senior manager of government affairs. McDonough previously worked as an advisor for Chevron, and before that, was a director at the American Petroleum Institute.

“How you going to detour the birds?” the resident pressed.

Groom, SpaceX’s director of environmental regulatory affairs, began to explain that the buffer zone around the launch site — land that an outside biologist described as one of the best managed wetlands in Louisiana — will still be “a flourishing place for all the species.” She added, “The birds will momentarily flush, but they return.”

“How can they return in 30 [rocket] flights a day?”

Groom hesitated. “That is — that is one thing that we will have to figure out,” Groom conceded. “We don’t know what’s going to happen at 30 flights.”

Residents muttered in frustration. “BS, BS, BS,” said one man quietly.

“What happens if the birds don’t come back?” another asked.

Groom answered, “We’re going to go figure out where they are.”

Flood protection or higher risks?

Other questions revolved around water. An employee of Pecan Island Waterworks asked whether the massive spaceport would be using the same aquifer that supplies the village.

SpaceX didn’t have a clear answer for that either.

“Right now we are obviously very much in the design phase,” said Groom, though she added that SpaceX recycles most of the water it uses. Groom did not pledge to not use the aquifer, but said, “If we are, then we will figure out how it does not impact your guys’ source.”

Talk then turned to flooding. When SpaceX replaces wetlands with launch pads, marsh will no longer be there to dissipate the dangers of storm surge.

“Are y’all having any plans to make some levee system that would protect Pecan Island people?” a man asked. Or would flood protection only surround the company’s interests — thereby worsening flooding in their homes? 

A barrier to protect SpaceX would “leave the far east and the far west exposed to the water going around what you’re building,” a woman chimed in. “So the ask would be to protect the entire island, and not just divert water into one side.”

McDonough, the senior manager of government affairs, later promised that SpaceX would not jeopardize the nearby lock system.

“No, I’m not talking about that,” a resident interrupted. “I’m talking about a hurricane coming in and going over locks. I mean, y’all are going to be protected with a 20-, 30-foot wall, but [the water] can go around, hit Rollover [Bayou] and come running down the road” to Pecan Island. 

That’s what happened in 2005’s Hurricane Rita, when 12 feet of storm surge damaged most of the community’s structures. Will SpaceX surround themselves with a levee that endangers Pecan Island?

The SpaceX rep said they would be building “to those anticipated storm conditions.”

But the resident pressed again: “Are you building it for y’all? Or are you building it for us?”

“We don’t have that complete design figured out,” said Brandon Conroy, senior environmental regulatory engineer at SpaceX.

The following day, Conroy applied for a state permit, showing SpaceX’s plans to build a wharf and access road to start construction. These first steps alone would result in the loss of almost 400 acres of marsh, according to the application, which did not yet address flood protection plans.

Explosions and debris are ‘developmental growing pains’

Many were worried about how the noise and vibration from launches will damage their homes.

SpaceX candidly told the residents, yes, you’ll hear and feel the launches.

“It’s going to be loud,” acknowledged Groom. People inside their homes will feel a rumble, but they shouldn’t worry: “If somebody slams the door, your house does move, right?” she said. “So when that rumble happens from the rocket, it usually lasts like a minute, and you will hear it. And hopefully, it’s exciting to you.”

But some had already heard otherwise. About 80 people filed a federal lawsuit in April over alleged damage to their home caused by Starship launches in Texas. Reported damage includes cracked foundations, warped floors and burst water pipes. One plaintiff told Reuters that the foundation needs $100,000 worth of repairs.

SpaceX reps dismissed those concerns out of hand.

“We’ve seen no property damage whatsoever. There’s certainly lawsuits — you know, Mr. Musk has a big target on his back,” said Lancaster, referring to company founder Elon Musk. “Lots of people like to get headlines.”

Debris from launches in Texas has also been documented in marshes and wetlands. SpaceX described debris as “developmental growing pains” and pledged to pick it up. 

Ultimately, none of the promises that SpaceX reps made in the room that afternoon were binding, as one local pointed out.

“If nothing’s going to happen to our homes, why did our governor put in place that we can’t sue SpaceX for damaging our homes?” a woman asked.

She was referring to recent legislation in Louisiana that means SpaceX cannot be held liable for “noise, sonic booms, overflight, vibration, light, heat, exhaust, smoke, odor, visual intrusion, temporary access restrictions, or any other disturbance.” SpaceX can only be held liable for injuries caused by falling debris if it “exceeds the normal risk” that goes with space flight.

Lancaster again dismissed concerns, saying that law was meant to stop “litigious trial attorneys who really want to make a buck.”

But Hollie Girouard, who lives part-time on a road between Pecan Island and the planned spaceport, soon asked again. “Why is there no protection written in for residents?” she said. “We’re going into this trusting people that we do not know, and [you’re] saying you’re going to pinky promise me.”

“What I can’t do is speak to anything on the legislation. I don’t have any control — I just can’t answer that,” said Groom. It was in fact SpaceX that pushed for the legislation as a condition of their arrival, per reporting by the Times-Picayune.

Groom told residents they could send SpaceX an email “if you feel that there is damage caused by the rockets.”

Girouard, like some others, left the meeting discouraged.

“I don’t think anyone was satisfied hearing that there would be an online complaint form instead of protections in the first place,” she told The Lens.

“I’m still in shock and I’m angry because of the way this deal was done,” said Brooke Broussard, a distant cousin of Lil Mark. She was especially frustrated by SpaceX’s insistence that the project wouldn’t harm wildlife. “They’re delusional. They know nothing about animals or nature. Or they do, and they’re just playing dumb,” she said. “It just all felt like such a farce.”

Broussard said members of her family “are in great despair.” The wetlands here are already damaged by the oil and gas industry.

“Can we learn from our mistakes, and maybe not pump concrete into that so-sensitive marsh that is absolutely teeming with life?” she said, her voice breaking. “Teeming with life.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

BILOXI – Ole Miss, Southern Miss and Mississippi State men’s golf teams will combine to host the Fallen Oak Collegiate Invitational this weekend for what has become one of the most prestigious autumn tournaments in college golf.

Joining the three Mississippi teams at the highly acclaimed Tom Fazio-designed Fallen Oak course will be top-ranked Arkansas, No. 4 Alabama, Florida State, No. 14 Georgia, No. 12 Illinois, No. 20 Ohio State, Iowa, LSU, South Carolina, No. 9 Tennessee, Wake Forest and Wisconsin. Ole Miss coach Chris Malloy says there is a long waiting list of teams that want to get into the Fallen Oak field.

All 15 teams in the field are ranked in the top 100 in the NCAA Division I rankings. Mississippi State is No. 34, Ole Miss No. 37 and Southern Miss No. 57.

“You won’t find a better college golf field anywhere in the country this fall,” said Southern Miss golf coach Eddie Brescher, whose Golden Eagles qualified for the NCAA Tournament last spring for the first time in school history.

“This tournament just keeps growing in stature, This is a post-season quality field for a fall tournament.”

LSU and Alabama tied for the team title at Fallen Oak last fall, and LSU’s Gunnlaugur Arni Sveinsson, from Iceland, won the individual championship and returns to defend his title. Sveinsson, the world’s No. 8 ranked amateur golfer, shot rounds of 66, 70 and 67 for a 54-hole total of 13-under-par 203 for the victory, one shot better than Alabama’s William Jennings, who also will return to Fallen Oak.

Said Iowa coach Tyler Stith a year ago at Fallen Oak, “I have been coaching college golf for 15 years, and this is one of the best tournaments I’ve ever been a part of. The tournament operations and hospitality is first-class and the golf course itself is as good as any we play in college golf. This is our third year to play here, and I sure hope we get invited back.”

Championship play for the 54-hole event begins Saturday and continues through Monday. Admission is free to the public, and large-screen televisions will be strategically placed around the course so that football fans can keep up with their favorite teams on a big college football Saturday and with NFL games on Sunday.

Visit Jackson has unveiled a five-year strategy aimed at attracting more visitors to Mississippi’s capital city, but the agency acknowledged serious obstacles: inadequate lodging, poor perceptions of the city’s attractions and uncertainty over funding.

Visit Jackson, which laid out the plan during a two-hour meeting earlier this week, has operated on a $5.4 million budget since October 2024 — but officials said $1.8 million of that came from federal pandemic relief funds that are no longer available.

To fill that gap, Visit Jackson hopes voters approve a financing measure on the Nov. 3 ballot that would increase taxes on restaurants by 0.5% and lodging by 1%.

Jackson saw over 1 million travelers in fiscal year 2025 and increased its overnight retention by 4% from 2024, according to Visit Jackson data. The city also brought in $80 million in tourism-driven revenue. 

The report highlights many positives, such as Jackson’s most popular attraction being the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

But a chief concern is Jackson’s lack of lodging. 

The city of Jackson has 3,775 units within the city limits — including hotels and Airbnb rentals.

Tourism officials note that 60% of the city’s accommodations are motels and other budget-style facilities similar to Super 8 and OYO brands.

Other concerns voiced a large lack of knowledge about the city and its offerings. In a pool of 220 respondents who had not visited the city, 47% said they were disinclined to visit because of the lack of resources available to learn about the city’s recreational offerings.

“Our success will not be measured solely by how many people we bring to our city, but also by what their presence makes possible for the people who live here,” Visit Jackson spokesperson Yolanda Clay-Moore said. 

Nichols Tourism Group and Destination Consultancy Group drafted the five-year blueprint that reflected information from surveys and tourism data. 

The focus of the strategy is a five-step revitalization plan that advocates refer to as “RESET” –  refine, enhance, strengthen, expand and thrive.

The proposal calls for the formation of a new tourism council, strengthening marketing strategies and working toward improving city facilities.

During the plan unveiling, Mayor John Horhn again floated the potential for a convention center hotel.

The idea is not new. The long-discussed hotel project was at the center of a federal corruption case that ensnared former Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who is now awaiting sentencing along with two others after pleading guilty to a bribery charge.

Visit Jackson CEO Ricky Thigpen acknowledged that details were still being developed. A more comprehensive plan, which he jokingly said was contained in a thick three-ring binder, includes monthly goals, meetings and regular check-ins to keep the effort on track.