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Stepping into Nell Grace is less like walking into a restaurant and more like melting into the soft, unhurried warmth of Big Mama’s embrace.

The restaurant is a hidden gem located at 111 East Church St., in downtown Jackson’s historic Farish Street District. And it is the vision of a father and son, Marc and Devan Rowe, who opened Nell Grace in January. 

Marc Rowe named the eatery in honor of his mother, Eunella “Nell” Rowe, and his daughter, Grace.

“Naming the restaurant was my way of preserving my mother’s legacy,” Marc said, his voice filled with deep admiration and reverence. “I wanted her name to live on through something that brings people together. When guests come through our doors, share a meal and feel at home, that reflects the kind of spirit she had.”

Marc moves with a determined grace, disappearing into the buzz of the kitchen to check on meal preps before emerging to visit individual tables, smiling, chatting, asking diners if they are enjoying their meals. In one section, a large group celebrating a family member’s birthday sat before a floor-to-ceiling mural of a woman frozen in song, an artistic heartbeat for the room. 

On alternating nights, the air is filled with haunting melodies from violinist Daniel Parker and the sultry, late-night smoothness of saxophonist Keith Ward.

“A lot of what people see in me today came from her,” Devan said, reflecting on the deep influence of his grandmother. “She just had this way about her. She connected with people, and she had such a natural gift for making everyone feel comfortable, special and welcome.”

He said watching her taught him how much relationships matter. “The confidence, the way I connect with people, she planted those seeds in me a long time ago.”

Nell Grace has a laid-back, cozy vibe, with customers cradling cocktails while music drifts over tables and soothing aromas waft from the kitchen. Chatter and laughter subside as forks dig into savory Catfish Atchafalaya, steaks, blackened seafood and ribbons of Cajun pasta. 

Order up a burger or a variety of shrimp dishes, traditional wings or Cajun loaded fries. Down-home southern side dishes offer a familiar taste of home cooking — bubbling, baked macaroni and cheese, earthy black-eyed peas, golden cornbread, braised southern greens and sweet yams.

As the night deepens, the Rowes encourage diners to make room for warm peach cobbler, New Orleans-style beignets dusted in a snowfall of powdered sugar, delectable cheesecake or the richness of red velvet cake.

“I spent more than 20 years in Atlanta working in entertainment, but something kept pulling me back home,” Devan Rowe said. “I felt like I had learned enough to bring something back home… learned to bring something meaningful back to Jackson.”

Together, the duo is dreaming a renaissance into existence, with plans to revitalize several historic properties in the Farish Street neighborhood, once the bustling hub of Jackson’s Black-owned businesses. Their vision weaves a tapestry of live entertainment, fine dining and cultural pilgrimages to create a destination that celebrates the district’s landmarks.

Devan said his father spent 26 years in child nutrition and the food industry.

“He understood the food and operations side, and I come from the entertainment side,” the son said. “I understood how to create an experience. Nell Grace is where those two worlds come together. To me, it is more than a name. When people walk in, I want them to feel like they’ve stepped into my grandmother’s hugs and welcoming home, not a restaurant.”

Nell Grace hours

Monday-Thursday: 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

Friday-Saturday: 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Sunday: 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

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.   

There may be no more powerful word in the American experiment than the simple, one-syllable pronoun we.  

It is the first word of the United States Constitution: “We the People of the United States….” Before government is described, before powers are delegated, before rights are protected, before any ethnicity is proclaimed, there is an act of collective imagination. The Constitution begins not with a king, a ruler or an army, but with a people. It assumes that a nation can be built upon a shared identity rather than shared blood, tribe, language or religion.  

Yet the genius — and the burden — of that first word is that it has never been fully settled.  

Who exactly is “we”?  

America’s story has been, in many respects, the ongoing argument over that single word.  

The Declaration of Independence had already planted the nation’s moral seed 11 years earlier by proclaiming that “all men are created equal” and endowed with unalienable rights. Those words represented humanity at its highest aspirations. Yet at the very moment those ideals were proclaimed, slavery remained woven into the fabric of the colonies. Women possessed few political rights. Indigenous nations were excluded from the American body politic. Property ownership determined participation. The ideals were universal; however, their application was painfully selective.  

From its beginning, then, America possessed a remarkable duality.  

It was simultaneously the most radical declaration of human equality the world had ever seen and a nation unable to extend that equality to everyone living within its borders.  

This contradiction has often been described as hypocrisy. There is truth in that. But there is something even more complicated at work. America was founded not as a completed achievement but as an unfinished proposition. Its founding documents established an aspiration far larger than the society that first produced them. In doing so, they created a permanent moral tension between who Americans were and who they claimed they could become.  

The word we became both promise and challenge that every generation has inherited by fate or design.  

The Civil War was, at its heart, a violent disagreement over who belonged within the American “we.” Abraham Lincoln understood this profoundly. At Gettysburg, he turned not to the Constitution but to the Declaration’s promise that all are created equal, asking whether any nation conceived upon such principles could long endure. The war was fought not merely over territory or economics but over whether the nation’s definition of “we” would forever exclude millions because of race.  

The abolition of slavery answered one question while opening countless others.  

The Reconstruction Amendments expanded citizenship. Yet segregation emerged. The Constitution said “we,” but Jim Crow screamed “not you!”  

Women organized, marched and demanded that the nation’s opening word finally include them politically. Native Americans fought for recognition as citizens within a country built upon lands that had once been theirs. Immigrants arriving from every continent sought not simply opportunity but admission into the American story itself. Labor movements insisted that economic dignity belonged inside the definition of citizenship. The Civil Rights Movement challenged a nation that celebrated liberty abroad while denying equal treatment at home.  

Again and again, the question remained remarkably consistent.  

Who belongs inside the word, the ostensible protected circle of the word, we?  

Every expansion of American democracy has been an attempt to answer that question more generously than the generation before.  

Yet, the struggle has never ended.  

Today the debates have changed their vocabulary but not their substance. Immigration, voting rights, religious liberty, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, economic inequality, disability rights, artificial intelligence, DEI, citizenship and even access to education all circle back to the same foundational question. Whose interests matter? Whose voices count? Whose future deserves protection? In other words, who belongs within “We the People”?  

Perhaps this perpetual disagreement frustrates us because we imagine unity as agreement. It is not.   

Perhaps America’s founders, knowingly or not, created something different?  

The Constitution does not define “we” with mathematical precision. It does not provide an exhaustive list of who to include. Instead, it establishes a framework through which each generation must wrestle with its own conscience. Accordingly, the ambiguity is not simply a flaw, it can also be understood as a source of extraordinary resilience.  

Because the meaning of “we” has never been frozen, America has repeatedly found ways to enlarge it.  

The nation’s greatest leaders have understood this instinctively.  

Frederick Douglass challenged America not to abandon its founding ideals but to fulfill them. Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth insisted women already belonged inside the Constitution’s promise. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of the Declaration and Constitution as a promissory note yet to be fully redeemed. Labor leaders argued that farmworkers belonged within the circle of American dignity. Barack Obama said “. . . yes WE can.” Countless others — known and unknown — have devoted their lives not to replacing America’s founding principles but to widening the embrace of the word that begins them.  

They understood that patriotism is not blind acceptance of who “we” have been. Patriotism is faithful commitment to who “we” might yet become.  

This is America’s paradox.  

The same nation capable of exclusion has also possessed an unmatched capacity for self-correction. The same Constitution once interpreted to tolerate slavery eventually became the instrument used to dismantle segregation. The same democracy that denied voting rights eventually expanded them. The same institutions that once excluded have often become vehicles for inclusion.  

Progress has never been automatic. Every enlargement of “we” required courage, sacrifice, protest, persuasion, legislation, litigation and often blood. History moves because ordinary people refuse to accept that yesterday’s definition must become tomorrow’s destiny.  

That may be the true genius of the American experiment. Our shared history necessitates a collective approach to a shared destiny defined by common ground.  

Unlike nations built primarily upon ethnicity or ancestry, America has always rested upon an idea. Ideas are powerful precisely because they can grow. They invite interpretation. They demand renewal. They challenge every generation to ask whether its practices are worthy of its principles.  

The Constitution begins with “We the People” not because the authors believed they had already perfected that community, but because they dared to imagine one. In this framing, we are all essential sparks in a grand design. The work of democracy has always been to make that imagination more real.  

Perhaps the ultimate measure of America’s greatness will never be whether it has perfectly embodied its ideals. No nation has done so. Rather, its greatness lies in whether it continues to possess the humility to ask who has been left outside the circle and the courage to bring them in.  

The first word of the Constitution remains unfinished.  

Every election, every courtroom, every classroom, every place of worship, every neighborhood, every act of citizenship quietly asks us to complete its sentence.  

“We” is not merely a description.  

It is an invitation.  

It calls every generation to widen the circle just enough that someone who once stood outside can finally say, without hesitation, qualification or presupposition, “We the People” includes me.  

B.K. Fulton is an author, Tony Award-winning Broadway producer, former CEO of Verizon’s Mid-Atlantic region and producer of films and documentaries, including PBS’ “W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause.” He is a board member for The Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation, an organization dedicated to civil rights education. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides to Jackson and attended Tougaloo College. Through this foundation, Fulton helps support micro-scholarships and educational programs for HBCU students, including those in Mississippi. Fulton lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Local and national changemakers joined Mississippi Today staff in Jackson to examine how to best build on Mississippi’s gains in education and workforce development.

The discussions were part of Mississippi Today’s “All In On Mississippi” summit, which commemorated the publication’s 10-year anniversary. The event attracted hundreds of attendees to the state’s capital to learn more from the people behind the headlines.

Mississippi miracle? More like marathon

The state’s upward climb from the bottom of the nation when it came to fourth and eighth grade reading proficiency emerged after years of work. Beyond introducing more phonics-based instruction into classrooms, the state’s recent educational outcomes also leaned into accountability.

Rachel Canter, the founder and former executive director of Mississippi First, said many states only want to implement the “feel-good” aspects of Mississippi’s literacy plan, such as training teachers on phonics-based instruction, while doing less to hold districts accountable for poor outcomes for students.

“Change starts with honesty,” Canter,  who now directs policy for the Reinventing America’s Schools project at the Progressive Policy Institute, told a crowd at the Two Mississippi Museums. “But we all have to take responsibility for our role in the system when the system is broken. And what Mississippi did right is think about that whole agenda.”

A large part of that agenda was outlined in the Literacy Based Promotion Act, a 2013 state law that mandated that third graders who do not pass the state reading test must be held back. The act also mandated early screenings for students to identify reading challenges. The Legislature also agreed to pay for literacy coaches to train teachers on more phonics-based instruction. 

As a high school teacher in Mississippi in the early 2000s, Kymyona Burk, a policy analyst at ExcelinEd, said she noticed students were nearing graduation with gaps in their reading ability. She realized that socially promoting students set them up for failure. 

Burk later led the Literacy Based Promotion Act’s implementation as state literacy director in the Mississippi Department of Education. She found part of her job required changing the way local district employees perceived the department. In her own experience as a teacher, state employee visits were not welcome. 

“There are so many who are not a fan of the top-down approach, but that is what we had to do in Mississippi to get everyone rolling in the right direction,” said Burk. “I think now we’ve met in the middle, and we understand what we need to do as partners to get things done.”

Expanding apprenticeships to keep opportunities in Mississippi

A challenge for Mississippi is losing the investment in early education when graduates move out of state for jobs. Between 2010 and 2024, roughly 80,000 more residents left the state than moved in, continuing what many experts have labeled a brain drain. 

At 55%, Mississippi consistently records one of the lowest workforce participation rates in the country. But state-sponsored training programs have been growing, and will play a vital role in the future of economic development, speakers said during a panel on apprenticeship programs. 

In August, Gov. Tate Reeves appointed Daniel “Deano” Harrison to direct the Mississippi Office Of Apprenticeship. Reeves has said he created the office with the long-term goal of doubling the number of apprenticeships statewide to about 7,000. 

At the summit, an audience member asked Harrison if the office would launch an apprenticeship pipeline for youths coming out of juvenile detention. Harrison said no population is off-limits. 

“We need to go into every nook and cranny and grab anybody we can,” he said. 

The state’s first medical apprenticeship program started at Singing River Hospital System on the Gulf Coast. Stephanie Utesch, the system’s human resources operations director, helps run what she called an “earn-while-you-learn” campus in Ocean Springs that has graduated over 600 apprentices since it launched. 

The program started small. In 2021, Utesch recalled during the panel, she walked into an empty clinic and said: “Where’s the chairs? Where’s the tables?”

Since then, the program has grown and many of its students have thrived, Utesch said. She recalled a single mother caring for her mother and daughter while apprenticing. The single mother is on track to become a licensed practical nurse with no debt, Utesch said. Another registered nurse who is nearing retirement but doesn’t want to give up work has been taking coding classes through the program, Utesch said. Her goal is to switch to a remote schedule, she said, giving her greater flexibility while still working. 

Singing River’s apprenticeship program is a success story, Harrison said, and he encouraged employers statewide to consider starting their own programs. 

“When Mississippians leave Mississippi, we do great things,” Harrison said. “But let’s give them the opportunity to do great things in Mississippi.”

These conversations about educational outcomes and expanding apprenticeship programs folded into a broader discussion about the economic wellbeing of Mississippi during the “All In on Mississippi” summit, an event hosted by Mississippi Today featuring conversations about the forces shaping Mississippi’s future. The summit event is the second of a two-day event celebrating Mississippi Today’s first decade of reporting. 

BILOXI – Coast residents and officials filed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s hospitality center to talk about disaster preparedness as Hurricane Isaias, an expected Category 2 storm as of Thursday, approached the state’s shores. 

The state’s Public Service Commission put on the timely “From Recovery to Resilience” summit, announced a few weeks ago, just before Isaias’ expected landfall on Friday evening. The hurricane’s path shifted east since initial forecasts earlier this week, but as of Thursday Jackson County was under a hurricane warning and all of Mississippi’s Coast was under a storm surge warning. 

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Director Stephen McCraney said MEMA will likely send National Guard members to support Alabama and Florida, where Isaias is expected to have the greatest impacts.  

But the summit attempted to shift the public’s attention from the short term to the long term: What can we do now to prepare for storms down the road? The event was the PSC’s second in a series of resilience summits, following one in Tupelo over the summer focused on lessons learned from Winter Storm Fern in January. 

Thursday’s edition, led by Southern District Public Service Commissioner Wayne Carr, homed in on hurricanes, and featured speeches from former Gov. Haley Barbour and U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell. 

Ezell, a Coast native elected to Congress in 2023, discussed efforts to improve federal disaster assistance. One bill he introduced last year, for example, would aim to reduce the reporting burden for survivors applying for federal assistance. 

“A mayor, emergency manager or family shouldn’t have to submit the same information over and over again,” he said. 

Another bill Ezell backed would increase the amount of time applicants for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency would have to appeal denials, from 60 days to 90. That bill passed out of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in September. 

“ Somebody may have lost their home, they’re dealing with insurance people, they’re replacing documents, they’re talking with contractors,” Ezell said. “All those things compounded, dealing with FEMA can be a nightmare.”

The House has not acted on either bill.

The congressman also said he’s hoping to tackle rising insurance premiums on the Coast, which have skyrocketed since Hurricane Katrina. Ezell criticized FEMA for “relying on outdated hurricane information.”

Barbour, who was in office during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, emphasized a broad approach to preparedness. In the decades before Katrina, the state had prepared for another version of Hurricane Camille in 1969. But the two storms’ impact, it turned out, was completely different, he said. While Camille had stronger winds, Katrina delivered an immense storm surge. 

CLICK HERE: Mississippi Today’s disaster guide

“I thought to myself, ‘Have we prepared for the wrong storm?’” Barbour reflected. 

The former governor also lauded Mississippi’s ability to recover quickly and the confidence it restored in residents. Schools on the Coast, for instance, were able to reopen that November, to his surprise. 

“People had a feeling we would recover,” the ex-governor said. 

The impacts of artificial intelligence are, in many ways, contingent on the decisions of a small, powerful group of tech elites, but ordinary people have a central role to play in demanding reasonable regulation of the technology, Kara Swisher told Andrew Lack on Thursday.

“We are in the new nuclear age, and you need to understand what that means,” Swisher told a crowd at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson at Mississippi Today’s 10th Anniversary Celebration. “And demand that your public officials do their job.”

Lack, a journalist and media executive, and Swisher, one of the nation’s most prominent technology journalists, delved into how AI could reshape the world. Lack is the executive chairman and founder of Mississippi Today and Deep South Today and the former chairman and CEO of NBC News. Swisher hosts the podcasts “On with Kara Swisher” and “Pivot.”

The talk came at a time when the rapid rise of AI has ignited both excitement and concern around the globe about the ripple effects of the fast-advancing technology across society. In the American news industry, outlets of every size are working to make sense of what AI will mean for the journalism they produce, their business models and their relationships with the public. 

Swisher cut her teeth covering the technology industry — for outlets such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Vox — as it came to dominate nearly every aspect of American life. During that time, she developed relationships with many of the world’s most powerful tech titans, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Sergey Brin and Dario Amodei.

She has since fallen out with many of them, most notably Musk. The world’s richest man and President Donald Trump mega donor has called her an “asshole.” Swisher, for her part, has called Musk a “one-man wrecking ball” and a “professional adult toddler.”

Back when they were on speaking terms, Swisher said on Thursday, Musk was an early figure to raise the alarm about the potential risks of AI.

But he has since pivoted to join the AI arms race and, along with his competitors, has thrown caution to the wind, Swisher said. That is why it’s important to remember that AI is not yet a technology with a life of its own, but one with humans at the helm.

“The tool is not the problem, and one of the ways it’s being pushed by tech people is, you know, there’s a 10% chance AI will kill the human race,” Swisher said. “Actually, it’s not AI that will kill the human race. It’s the people making AI that will kill the human race, and so we take the technology and blame the technology instead of blaming the person.”

In Mississippi and nearby states, the proliferation of data centers, including those pushed by Musk, has stirred a wave of private investment and public backlash.

Tech leaders, Swisher said, are running “into a buzzsaw of anger,” necessitating more public input into how AI is regulated. But these same tech leaders have poured money into the political apparatus of Trump, who has returned the favor by vowing to avoid regulating AI, she added.

Swisher and Lack have ridden the tides of a changing media landscape over their careers, but AI might present more potential to disrupt the news industry than any technology in history.

Lack quoted an Axios report on a shadowy political polling firm that warned of the rise of an “AI-enabled flood of outright fabricated content” that is “wreaking havoc on reality, poisoning the signals that most people rely on to understand just basic politics, business and culture.”

Despite the threats and challenges posed by AI, Swisher said, it is still important to remain optimistic about the positive potential of the technology, such as in medical research, while staying clear-eyed about its risks if left unregulated.

“The deli on my corner has more regulation than a tech company,” Swisher said.

The discussion served as the keynote session at the “All In On Mississippi” summit, an event hosted by Mississippi Today featuring conversations about the forces shaping Mississippi’s future. The summit is the second event of a two-day celebration of Mississippi Today’s first decade of reporting. 

Bright yellow signs papered windows two months ago at a west Jackson apartment complex, condemning the Grand Chateau as uninhabitable and warning trespassers they could be fined. 

Despite the city’s efforts, several squatters remain in the dilapidated building. Furniture still sits abandoned in walkways, and clothes hang from railings. 

Prompted by the city’s request, a city judge last month put the property’s owner, Ramesh Ramchandran, on notice: Fix the property or go to jail.

The Grand Chateau has become an early test of Jackson’s more aggressive approach to landlords accused of neglecting properties and contributing to blight across the city. In recent months, city attorneys have filed lawsuits against the owners of three apartment complexes in Jackson’s environmental court, including the Grand Chateau. 

Without the money to eliminate Jackson’s blight issue, the city is turning to more aggressive means to reduce stress on the city’s resources.

Jackson has more than 3,200 identified blighted properties. The majority of them are single-family homes, but the list also includes large apartment complexes and commercial properties. 

“It would cost something like $80 million to locate and clean up and or demolish all of the blighted properties in the city,” City Attorney Drew Martin said.

“That’s almost the entire city budget,” he said. “We don’t have the kind of money to do that.”

The city can only afford to demolish a few large-scale properties a year, with larger developments like apartment complexes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to demolish, Martin said. 

Jackson usually relies on liens to recoup costs on cleaning, maintaining and demolishing blighted properties. Ward 7 City Councilmember Kevin Parkinson said at a recent council meeting that the city netted $12,000 out of the nearly $900,000 spent on work this past year.

The recent environmental court filings are meant to shift costs to property owners — focusing on those the city deems to have the resources to rehabilitate or demolish properties on their own. 

The Grand Chateau is not the only property the city is targeting.

Environmental Court Judge Jeffery Reynolds found the owner and senior asset manager of Chapel Ridge apartments, another development in west Jackson, guilty of four code violations because of debris and burned structures. 

Owners of another property, Addison Place Apartments  — which shut water off to residents in July — appeared in environmental court Tuesday over various code violations. In addition to the lack of running water, the property had broken windows, mold, roof damage and unmowed grass.

While litigation has become the face of the fight against blight, Martin said the city is working to enforce more administrative action early on by better enforcing existing codes, including Mississippi’s nuisance laws.

Martin said the city will be filing similar suits with Hinds County Chancery Court to rehabilitate dilapidated properties.

The city can do more to prevent properties from falling into disrepair, Martin said, so blighted properties don’t become city responsibilities.

He pointed to House Bill 1404, which was passed during the last legislative session and signed into law, that makes it a criminal offense for landlords to receive payment for utilities from a tenant but fail to pay them to the provider — resulting in interruptions to the tenant’s utility service.

Chapel Ridge faced a $100,000 unpaid water bill with JXN Water — an issue that led to the complex rapidly becoming a blighted property. 

While the city is turning to the courts to hold property owners accountable, it can only do so when owners can be located and are willing to cooperate.

Ramchandran was served with a trial notice at his 6,000-square-foot Georgia home on Aug. 22 — just short of a month after Entergy shut power to the Jackson complex. 

Ramchandran serves as the manager of Kayram Atlanta LLC, according to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office. The Georgia-based company has owned the West Capitol Street property since 2021.

Criminal charges can help hold property owners accountable. In the event they flee, they can be arrested. Martin said there’s not much the city can do against a property owner who disappears prior to action being taken.

“We’ve got to do more to make sure people don’t feel like they can get away with that,” Martin said. 

Last month, Reynolds found Ramchandran guilty of seven environmental charges stemming from unsafe structures, illegal dumping and lack of upkeep. He called the Grand Chateau a “dangerous menace.”

He ordered Ramchandran to pay $1,750 in fees and face 630 days in jail unless he applied within 30 days – now about two weeks left – for a permit to fix or demolish the property. 

Ramchandran was also required to post a $1.25 million secured appearance bond in case he fails to comply with the court’s order. The amount would cover the cost of razing the Grand Chateau.

Ramchandran did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

The Grand Chateau became part of the city’s fight against blight when Entergy cut power to the complex in July after signs of meter tampering. The complex was supposed to be vacant.

Ramchandran testified during his court hearing that eviction notices were sent to tenants in May 2025 to prepare the complex for renovations, which the property owner asserts were ultimately stopped because of what he described as gun violence. 

One former contractor, Kendrick Holmes, disputed that claim and asserted that renovations stopped in 2024 because of payment issues. He recounted being sent to Lowe’s weekly for renovation supplies using Ramchandran’s company card, only for it to be declined.

A previous property manager, Pierce Wiburn, corroborated Holmes’ claims about the lack of gun violence and payment issues. 

The property incurred several violations from code enforcement officers after Holmes left the project. 

Outside of legal action, city officials are exploring other avenues to lessen the city’s blight problems.

Councilmembers Vernon Hartley and Ashby Foote want to establish a blight and neighborhood recovery plan, now in the works for more than a year.

In collaboration with Jackson State University, which helped collect data for the city, Hartley said the plan creates a step-by-step guide to clear roadways, remove trash from illegal dumping sites and demolish properties.

Hartley said the city hopes to present the plan during the state’s next legislative session to get financial backing for the city’s fight, although he could not specify an amount Jackson would seek from lawmakers.

“We’re gonna have to show something first,” Hartley said. “It’s gonna require us going in and showing folks, ‘Hey we’re serious about it.’”

Hartley said there are discussions to hire an investigator to help the city identify and build cases against owners of blighted properties.

Parkinson also wants to enlist volunteers to help already strained code enforcement officers identify blighted properties. In September, the City Council approved a proposal from Ward 4 Councilmember Brian Grizzell that would partner the city with a debt collection firm to recoup costs from owners who owe the city money. 

It’s not clear if these efforts will make long-term changes to Jackson’s blight issues. There’s no tangible evidence that any of these efforts are working outside of current pending litigation, and there won’t be for several months, Martin said.

However, he said he’s confident Jacksonians will begin to see results from the continued efforts within the coming months. 

MIAMI (AP) — Isaias strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane as it barreled toward the U.S. Gulf Coast on Thursday, prompting orders for tourists to abandon beaches for safer spots inland, sending locals scurrying for gas and groceries and leading fishing crews to secure their boats before the potentially destructive storm’s arrival.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic season was forecast to intensify rapidly and cause dangerous conditions in the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and southern Mississippi when it makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday. Heavy rain and flooding were possible into the weekend as far north as Tennessee and North Carolina.

“We are expecting Isaias to be a dangerous hurricane when it makes landfall,” said Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

He added: “Today is the day to prepare and get ready and be in your safe place by tomorrow as conditions will rapidly deteriorate along the northern Gulf Coast as Isaias approaches.”

Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph), according to the hurricane center, surpassing the 96 mph (154 kph) threshold for a Category 2 storm.

Isaias was headed northeast at 12 mph (19 kph) and was centered about 325 miles (525 kilometers) south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Preparations underway

Coastal communities moved quickly to prepare, as Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey ordered non-residents to immediately evacuate Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Dauphin Island. Videos on social media showed traffic at a standstill on a highway leading out of Gulf Shores, where double-red beach flags signaled water access was closed.

At least four Florida school districts canceled late-week classes, while several counties announced mandatory evacuations for some coastal areas. The governors of Florida and Alabama declared states of emergency for dozens of counties, with Florida’s Ron DeSantis saying about 5,000 National Guard troops were expected to mobilize by Friday.

On Dauphin Island, a 15-mile (24-kilometer) barrier island off the Alabama coast, officials encouraged voluntary evacuations, particularly on its popular western section, which is vulnerable to storm surge.

Mayor Jeff Collier said he did not anticipate substantial damage, “but at the same time, these things are very fickle and a little jog here or there, or some last-minute increase in strength — we just have to be prepared for the worst.”

Water from the storm surge and high tide could reach heights of 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2 meters) in parts of Alabama and Mississippi, forecasters said. Isaias also could dump up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain on coastal areas and spawn tornadoes overnight Friday into Saturday from Alabama to the Florida Panhandle and southwestern Georgia. The hurricane is expected to quickly weaken after coming ashore.

The National Weather Service told communities from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to Gulf County, Florida, to prepare for the possibility of “long-duration power outages.”

The hurricane formed late in the season

Isaias developed more than four months into the Atlantic hurricane season and was one day short of tying a 121-year-old record for the area’s latest-forming hurricane. That record dates to 1905, when the year’s first Atlantic hurricane formed on Oct. 8.

The Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet this year because of a strong El Niño, which disrupts storm formation over the Atlantic. Storm activity has been above average in the Pacific, where Tropical Storm Simon formed Wednesday off Mexico and was forecast to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane. Farther north, Tropical Storm Rachel was expected to reach Baja California, Mexico, and Southern California this weekend.

Isaias is expected to strike a swath of coastline that’s familiar with major hurricanes.

One of the 20th century’s worst storms, Hurricane Camille, killed more than 250 people after hitting land near Waveland, Mississippi, in 1969. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 razed neighborhoods in Mississippi, flooded New Orleans and killed nearly 1,400 people. And Hurricane Michael leveled homes and buildings near Panama City, Florida, in 2018.

Oil production and tourism are already affected

Ahead of the storm, oil and gas producers shut down a significant share of offshore production in the Gulf, which accounts for almost 15% of crude pumped annually in the U.S.

As of Thursday, about 63% of the oil production in the region had been temporarily halted, taking nearly 1.3 million barrels a day off the market, according to the Marine Minerals Administration. It said 121 of the Gulf’s 371 manned oil platforms had been evacuated.

With oil prices already high, the production cuts are steep enough to affect markets, though other Gulf hurricanes have caused larger disruptions, said Jim Burkhard, global head of crude oil market research for S&P Global Energy. More concerning, he said, is whether Isaias strikes as a powerful storm near refineries.

As it moves inland, Isaias might also disrupt Saturday’s college football showdown between rivals Georgia and Alabama, a game President Donald Trump planned to attend.

In Loxley, a small Alabama community where county officials urged voluntary evacuations, Nichole Eubanks and her husband prepared to ride out the storm on their farm, which is home to dozens of animals, including pigs, donkeys and about 20 rescued cats.

They planned to put contact information on the hooves of their goats, donkeys and pigs in case they got loose.

“It’s definitely scary, and you never really know where these storms are going to go and how bad it’s going to be until it gets there,” said Eubanks, 35.

In the Alabama fishing village of Bayou La Batre, Tony Rice and Lance Connor installed doors on their fishing boat Thursday to protect the vessel. The boat was one of many moored there, and Rice said they planned to move it to a less-crowded spot to decrease the chances of it bumping into others.

In Pensacola, Florida, officials said the airport will close to commercial flights Friday morning. Mayor D.C. Reeves urged residents to check on older adult neighbors and others who might need help.

“Obviously no need to panic at this point,” Reeves told a news conference. “This is really about preparation.”

UPDATE, Oct. 8, 2026: This story has been updated to reflect latest information.

Best-selling author John Grisham said Wednesday that journalism plays a critical role in Mississippi and the nation.

Grisham, the keynote speaker at Mississippi Today’s 10th Anniversary Celebration, told an audience of more than 200 people that the work of journalists “is important, not only to tell the truth, but to expose the corruption of the system, to make known what has happened, to try to pressure the authorities and legislators to make changes in the law.

“And as a sideline, to give people like me something to fictionalize about.”

Grisham, who grew up in Southaven and once practiced law there, has authored more than 50 consecutive No. 1 bestsellers. He has received the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction and twice won the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. All but two of his books have been novels.

He doesn’t think of himself as a journalist, but he did the work of a journalist in writing his first nonfiction book, “The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town,” about a former baseball player wrongly convicted of rape and murder. That man, Ron Williamson, spent 11 years on death row in Oklahoma before DNA and other evidence helped exonerate him in 1999.

Grisham knew nothing about the case until he read Williamson’s obituary in The New York Times. He telephoned his publisher, told him about the obit and said he was writing a book about it. The next day, Grisham took off for Oklahoma to talk with his family.

 ”I had never thought about nonfiction,” he said. “I was having way too much fun with the novels. I knew it’d be a lot of work, but I didn’t care.”

That case, he said Wednesday, “took me into the world of wrongful convictions.”

A novel usually takes Grisham about six months to write. That nonfiction book took him 18 months. 

That grind made him swear he would never write another nonfiction book. With a novel, he said he’s never worried about accuracy. He just makes things up.

“The Innocent Man” led him to meet Jim McCloskey, founder of Centurion Ministries, the first organization in the world dedicated to freeing the wrongfully convicted. While working as a prison chaplain, McCloskey learned that one man, Jorge de los Santos, was wrongfully convicted. He started Centurion, helping to free him and 70 others.

Grisham joined the board of directors of Centurion and the Innocence Project. Through that work, the author has heard many exonerees share their stories.

He now opposes the death penalty because he has concluded the way it’s applied is unfair and can result in the execution of innocent people.

In 2024, he released his second nonfiction book, “Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions,” which features stories of 23 people caught up in the criminal justice system. He co-wrote the book with McCloskey.

Under pressure to solve crimes, authorities often pick a suspect and ignore all the evidence that contradicts it, Grisham said. Since 1989, there have been more than 3,700 exonerations in the U.S.

After the release of “Framed,” Grisham swore he would never again write another nonfiction book. Now he’s working on another one. 

The subject matter of his new book? Another wrongful conviction case, this one in Texas.

“My last,” he said. “I swear.”

Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, is calling for a temporary suspension of the federal 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax as fuel prices continue to climb. 

“Mississippi families are watching their gas and grocery costs increase while their paychecks stay the same, all while healthcare becomes more expensive and inaccessible because of Cindy Hyde-Smith,” Colom said in a statement, referring to the Republican incumbent. 

Any suspension of the federal gasoline tax would require an act of Congress, and a president cannot unilaterally suspend the federal tax.

READ MORE: Reeves waives diesel tax enforcement after Trump order

Colom’s announcement comes after Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday said that Mississippi would not enforce prohibitions against using un-taxed diesel meant for farm equipment in highway transport trucks, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to try to lower the soaring cost of diesel. 

Colom also aired a new ad on Wednesday as part of a seven-figure ad campaign, highlighting rising fuel and goods costs and advocating a raise to the federal minimum wage. 

Jake Monssen, Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Colom’s latest proposal was “another gimmicky slogan from losing candidate Scott Colom.”

“If he cared about higher prices, he would have supported making the Trump tax cuts permanent, which allowed 97% of filers to keep more of their hard-earned money, including reduced taxes on seniors and on tips for service industry workers,” Monssen said.

Philanthropists Laurene Powell Jobs and Darren Walker said Wednesday night at Mississippi Today’s 10th Anniversary Celebration that they believe it’s important to invest in the people who are building sustainable community solutions, and that’s why they decided to put resources into journalism in Mississippi. 

“It’s really easy for me to be bullish on Mississippi and its future,” said Walker, the president and CEO of Anonymous Content. “And so, I hope that people here understand that this country is watching you. This country is watching this state in this moment because it is a harbinger for the future of America.” 

The conversation between Walker and Powell Jobs, who is the founder and president of Emerson Collective, was moderated by Bill Bynum, the founding CEO of HOPE Credit Union and a board member for Deep South Today, Mississippi Today’s parent company.

It was part of an evening that also included a performance by the Tougaloo College Choir, a speech by best-selling author John Grisham and remarks by Mississippi Today founders Donna Barksdale and Andrew Lack, Jackson Mayor John Horhn, Deep South Today Executive Editor and Chief Content Officer Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Emily Wagster Pettus and Deep South Today board member Tray Hairston.

Emerson Collective, an investment and philanthropic company, is a financial supporter of Mississippi Today and Deep South Today and an investor in Anonymous Content, a global media company whose films include “The Revenant” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” 

“It’s really the exquisite entrepreneurs that I ended up meeting who are building community, solutions, durable, smart public private partnerships,” Powell Jobs said. “And what I found the first time that I came, when I toured around with (Bill Bynum) over a decade ago, was all the work that’s happening at the community level already well underway.”

Walker is a former president of the Ford Foundation, another funder of Mississippi Today. He and Powell Jobs said they choose to invest in local institutions instead of coming in assuming they can bring the solution. 

“We come to learn and meet people who are actually problem solving at the community level,” said Powell Jobs, whose late husband, Steve Jobs, was the co-founder of Apple. 

One of those solutions is local journalism. Emerson Collective has helped fund almost 100 newsrooms that have formed in the last decade, including Mississippi Today.

“Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen about 3,500 local newsrooms shut down,” Powell Jobs said. “And the business model just no longer works, mainly because of local advertising dollars. And so the nonprofit newsroom for local journalism is actually a truly elegant solution.” 

“Journalism is not all bad news,” Walker said. “Journalism should also inspire and help us see what is possible and what we can believe in.”

The sold-out event at the Two Mississippi Museums was part of a two-day event celebrating the nonprofit newsroom’s first decade of reporting. The celebration continues Thursday at the museums with Mississippi Today’s second annual “All In on Mississippi” summit, where leaders in the Deep South will discuss the challenges and opportunities the state faces. 

Clarification, 10/8/2026 this article has been updated to show Laurene Powell Jobs‘ full last name as Powell Jobs.