That whooshing sound you’ll soon hear coming from High Street is no cause for alarm. It’s just all the oxygen being sucked out of the Capitol by next year’s legislative bugaboo: school choice, or private school vouchers, or “education freedom,” depending on your worldview.
A pattern has firmed up nicely with Mississippi’s Legislature under the current Republican House and Senate leadership. And so far, this pattern has tended to gum up the works and kill off many initiatives at the Capitol. This year, it resulted in the Legislature accidentally passing a flawed, sea-change tax cut bill and ending its regular session without being able to pass a state budget.
The pattern:
House Speaker Jason White and his closest adherents, months out from the coming year’s legislative session, announce their main priorities and get to work with hearings and forums, to set the market when lawmakers gavel in in January.
And these House priorities always include at least one doozy: Medicaid expansion White’s first year, then eliminating the income tax, and now, school choice.
Meanwhile Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his Senate leaders react to the House’s pre-session maneuvering with something along the lines of, “Um … yeah. We’ll take a look at all that. We’re not so sure we want to do that … but, we’ll see, maybe.”
Per the new pattern, Hosemann, usually well after White has announced the House priorities and with much less actual groundwork or public-facing hearings and such, comes out with something of a Senate priorities list.
And as the session nears, White and Hosemann don’t just appear like they’re from different political parties, but from different planes of existence.
Hosemann said he wants to focus on student absenteeism, raising teacher pay and the lack of affordable housing for first-time homebuyers (even though it’s unclear what the state, or state taxpayers, can do about that).
White said he wants an omnibus education reform package to reshape the state’s K-12 education system, with school-choice initiatives to allow public money to be spent on private schooling at the front and center of any plan.
Pender
White, by his own account, said he’s continuing to push “bold and uncomfortable” initiatives.
So far over the last few years, Hosemann has appeared to be the one most uncomfortable with White’s bold initiatives.
And whatever the opposite of bold is, that’s how the Hosemann Senate priorities and out-of-session strat-e-gery come across. They’ve mostly been playing defense, parrying the House’s thrusts. They’ve been so busy being against what the House comes up with, they’ve had trouble figuring out stuff they’re for.
One longtime senator recently asked jokingly whether White could go ahead and provide the major themes he plans for the next few sessions so they could start fighting early.
The school-choice debate promises to overshadow the entire coming legislative session or, as mentioned above, sap all the oxygen from other issues – health care, infrastructure, you name it. During the 2025 session, the House-Senate standoff over income tax elimination killed much other legislation, including the state budget.
Is school choice the most pressing, clear-and-present issue facing Mississippi? That’s a fair question, but under the new legislative paradigm, it doesn’t matter. It’s the one about to get all the focus.
And it will likely suck up the most oxygen at the Capitol in 2026.
The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees has selected a group of Jackson State University faculty and alumni to serve on a group to support its search team for a new president.
The five-member search advisory constituency, announced Thursday, is tasked with helping to vet candidates for the historically Black university’s next leader, according to the IHL board.
The board also announced plans to begin recruiting candidates to be Jackson State’s next president in December. The top job at Jackson State has been vacant since May, after Marcus Thompson resigned without explanation less than two years into his tenure. Thompson was the third president to depart in five years.
Denise Jones-Gregory, who was the provost and vice president of academic affairs, is serving as the interim president.
The constituency members “were selected for their professional insight and long-time connections with Jackson State University,” John Sewell, director of communications for the IHL board, said in an email.
The search advisory constituency group members are:
Nicholas J. Hill, dean of the College of Business
Candice L. Jackson, secretary of the faculty senate and an associate professor in the Department of English, Foreign Languages and Speech Communications
Deidre L. Wheaton, associate dean of the College of Education and Human Development
Retired Brigadier General Robert Crear, Jackson State Development Foundation advisory board member
Patrease Edwards, national alumni association president
Some alumni still question if the IHL board will allow the group full agency to properly vet candidate applications and approve of candidate finalists. Jackson State alumni and supporters have questioned the IHL board’s opaque search process, advocating for more stakeholder input into selecting the next president.
The creation of the constituency group is one way the board is acting on concerns from JSU alumni and supporters who want more input in the search process. Last month, the board voted unanimously to create the group.
IHL board policies allow for the creation of an advisory group of up to 15 members. It’s not clear why they selected only five. Sewell did not directly respond to a question from Mississippi Today about the rationale for the group size.
The IHL board has not used an advisory group to assist with Jackson State’s president searches since 2017. That search resulted in IHL hiring William Bynum, who was unpopular among alumni and constituents — but Bynum wasn’t on the list of finalists the constituency group recommended.
The board ultimately rejected the group’s input and named Bynum president of the university. Bynum resigned in 2020 after he was arrested in a prostitution bust that ended his presidential term.
In 2022, the IHL board revised its policies to provide for a search advisory constituency.
The advisory group should have a meaningful stake in the selection of Jackson State’s next president, said Mark Dawson, chairman of Thee 1877 Project, an alumni-led group advocating for transparency in the selection process. The number of alumni selected for the advisory group is disappointing, he said, and the individuals the IHL board selected for the advisory group doesn’t represent a breadth of alumni voices.
“Members should have the full ability to reject and approve candidates. As constituents, we should also know who the potential finalists are for university president,” Dawson told Mississippi Today. “Our group will continue to advocate for a fair, transparent search and the opportunity for all constituents and stakeholders voices to be heard and involved in the university’s president search.”
Sen. Sollie Norwood, a Democrat from Jackson, said he would want more representation of students and community in the group, but ultimately, those chosen will have the best interest of the university at heart.
“My hope is that after all this we will have a leader in place. We’re missing out on a lot of opportunities, and we all need to galvanize and work together to take Jackson State to a place where it should rightfully be,” Norwood said.
Since August, the IHL board has gathered constituent feedback to shape the role before it starts to seek potential applicants. The job profile will provide an overview of Jackson State as well as information on issues and challenges stakeholders presented during campus listening sessions in October.
More than 100 pieces of DNA evidence integral to a rape and manslaughter appeal in Washington County are likely missing, attorneys allege in a recent court filing. The evidence, ranging from a sexual assault kit to fingernail scrapings and strips of masking tape, is tied to the 2002 killing of a 6-year-old girl in Greenville.
If the evidence is lost, attorneys Jacob Howard and Adnan Sultan argue, their client King Young Brown Jr. should have his charges dismissed and his convictions vacated.
Brown is incarcerated in the Marshall County Correctional Facility and serving two consecutive sentences — 30 years for rape and 20 for manslaughter. He was convicted in 2005 of raping and killing the child whom the attorneys refer to as R.W. in their motion.
It was a day Gloria Brown, King Brown Jr.’s mother, remembers well. She said her life before that day was different. Her son was 15, and had never been arrested before. He will turn 39 in prison next month.
“I may not be behind bars, but I feel like I’m doing the time with him,” Gloria Brown told Mississippi Today.
For many years after the little girl’s death, the family of R.W. held a block party in her honor at H.T. Crosby Park, where she was last seen alive. Addie Cannon, R.W.’s aunt, misses her niece.
Cannon believes the state has the right man behind bars.
“She was just a little shy child,” Cannon recalled. “I will always remember the way she said, ‘Hey auntie, come give me a hug.’”
H.T. Crosby Park in Greenville, at the intersection of Legion Drive and Dublin Street, on Nov. 21, 2025. Beneath the sign for the park is a memorial for a 6-year-old girl who was last seen at the park in 2002 before she was later found dead nearby. Credit: Leonardo Bevilacqua / Mississippi Today
Brown Jr.’s attorneys are appealing his convictions and hope a new analysis of the evidence will help to clear their client’s name. They write that as recently as Aug. 29, 2023, the Washington County Circuit Clerk’s Office in Greenville had the evidence.
On Sept. 16, Washington County Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Smith ordered Circuit Clerk Barbara Esters-Parker to ship the evidence within 30 days to Bode Technology, a Virginia-based company that provides forensic DNA analysis, including newer methods such as Touch DNA and Y-STR testing. Smith’s order also required Esters-Parker to email a copy of the shipping receipt.
But in a Nov. 6 court filing, Howard and Sultan allege that Esters-Parker can’t account for the evidence or the other exhibits.
“More than thirty (30) days have passed since the Court issued its Order and the Clerk has failed to ship the specified biological evidence to Bode Technology,” the attorneys wrote.
Esters-Parker and Deputy Clerk Cynthia Lakes declined to comment because of pending litigation.
If the evidence is not located, the attorneys argued, the court should vacate Brown Jr.’s convictions and drop the related charges, the attorneys wrote.
On April 21, 2002, R.W. was found dead in a garbage bin that belonged to her grandmother’s neighbors — Brown Jr. and his family. Brown Jr. was tried three times for the crimes. The first two trials resulted in hung juries. At the third trial, after over 13 hours of deliberation, a jury found Brown Jr. guilty of rape and manslaughter.
“We remain hopeful that Mr. Brown will have the opportunity to establish his innocence through the DNA testing ordered by the circuit court,” said Sultan, an attorney at The Innocence Project who focuses on securing DNA testing for post-conviction cases and overturning wrongful convictions. Howard, senior counsel for the Mississippi office of the MacArthur Justice Center, also focuses on wrongful convictions.
Modern DNA testing
In their motion, Howard and Sultan said, “Law enforcement collected a wealth of biological evidence in this case that has never been subjected to DNA testing or that can be re-tested using more advanced technology.”
None of the hairs collected from Brown Jr.’s home that underwent microscopic comparison were linked to Webster or her “material relatives” the attorneys wrote. “The results of this testing were never presented to a jury.”
The prosecution’s case against Brown Jr. hinged on the testimony of a hair follicle expert who compared microscopic hairs found at the Brown home to those of the victim, the court filing reads.
There is also controversy over the accuracy of microscopic hair comparison. In 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey wrote in a letter that FBI examiners made statements about the analysis that “went beyond the limits of science,” putting “more weight on a hair comparison than scientifically appropriate.”
In 1999, a Justice Department task force found that 96% of 150 cases involving microscopic hair analysis had flaws. In 2009, the National Academy of Science announced that microscopic hair analysis had “no scientific support.” After Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld asked the FBI to review cases in which microscopic hair analysis had been used in evidence, the FBI established that every member of the agency’s 28-person hair and fiber unit had given flawed testimony in the 268 convictions that were reviewed.
“In several cases in which microscopic hair comparison evidence was introduced, defendants were later exonerated by DNA after being convicted,” Comey wrote. “We want to make sure there aren’t other innocent people in jail based on our work.”
Forensic scientist Jenn Odom operates an automated DNA extraction instrument at the Mississippi Crime Laboratory in Pearl, Miss., on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. The system uses silica-coated magnetic particles to capture DNA, followed by a series of washing steps to purify it, processing up to 24 samples in about 17 minutes. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
In R.W.’s case, the state did not submit for modern DNA analysis of any of the DNA evidence nor did prosecutors present it to a jury.
The analyst who inspected the fingernail scrapings from R.W.’s killing in 2005 conceded it was difficult then to make an accurate identification of the perpetrator given the capabilities of technology at that time. Modern DNA testing doesn’t require as large of a DNA sample to get a result.
Some DNA testing was not used at Brown Jr.’s trial because the defense received the results too late to review them and get an expert in court, according to Howard’s and Sultan’s recent motion.
Earlier this year, on April 8, Assistant District Attorney Austin Frye responded to a motion for post-conviction DNA testing by listing evidence he said was already presented to the jury including Brown Jr.’s fingerprints on both the outer ring of the garbage bag and garbage bags at his home, and DNA analysis results that proved Brown Jr.’s hairs matched those found in the inner and outer garbage bags of where R.W. was found. He also touted the results of microscopic hair comparison, and he said further DNA testing would not exonerate Brown Jr.
Frye did not address the issue that none of the hairs the state submitted from Brown Jr.’s home matched the victim or any of her material relatives. Frye could not be reached for comment by the time of publication.
Sultan and Howard explained that it would make logical sense that Brown Jr.’s hairs and fingerprints would be found in a garbage bin he along with his family used regularly.
A “wealth” of biological evidence suitable for modern DNA testing became available after Brown Jr.’s 2005 trial, said Huma Nasir, an expert the defense team retained who is a director at a private DNA analysis lab in Oklahoma City.
Howard and Sultan’s Nov. 6 motion asks the Washington County Circuit Court for a hearing to determine the chain of custody of the evidence and to have the circuit clerk and deputy clerk testify under oath.
A 2009 Mississippi law mandates preservation of all biological evidence in criminal cases with the court instructed to “impose appropriate remedies” and “order appropriate sanctions” in the case of violation. The law was amended in 2011 to clarify that when biological evidence needed to be destroyed, the incarcerated and their attorney should be notified along with other interested parties.
“Innocent people mistakenly convicted of the serious crimes for which biological evidence is probative cannot prove their innocence if such evidence is not accessible for testing in appropriate circumstances,” read the 2009 law.
Two decades of difficult memories
When R.W.’s killing made headlines in 2002, both the victim’s family and that of the accused were thrust into the media spotlight. The two families had been next-door neighbors for more than two decades.
For Gloria Brown, King Young Brown Jr.’s mother, the news of potentially missing evidence felt like a blow. She hopes that he will win his appeal. She and his stepfather say they were with Brown Jr. the night R.W. was killed.
“I felt that it was the end for me, and didn’t feel like I’d survive it,” Gloria Brown said of her son’s trials and convictions. “But I had a lot of family support that helped me. I didn’t think I’d be able to be this strong.”
H.T. Crosby Park in Greenville on Nov. 21, 2025 Credit: Leonardo Bevilacqua / Mississippi Today
She says it was hard to watch the police search her home after the murder. Her late husband, King Brown Sr., was a well-respected city councilman in Greenville and known as a peacekeeper during contentious council meetings. She wasn’t accustomed to the scrutiny.
The recent motion about the missing evidence has also dredged up difficult memories for Cannon, R.W.’s aunt. She still remembers the mints that her sister, R.W.’s mother, would bring from Sonic Drive-In. Her niece loved them. Cannon also still remembers the scream she believes was hers on the night R.W. disappeared.
Cannon remembers the shock of identifying her niece’s body over two decades ago. She is wary of the defense’s push to vacate King Young Brown Jr.’s conviction if the evidence is not located.
“When my sister passed, that’s when it really took a big toll on me because I know that’s [the killing of R.W.] why she was sick,” Cannon said of R.W.’s other aunt. “And it’s still terrible, just the idea of him thinking that he needs to get out. You don’t need to be in the free world if you can do a child like that. You don’t need to be here.”
Correction 11/24/25: This story has been updated to reflect that attorneys for King Young Brown Jr. want the Washington County Circuit Court to dismiss the charges against him and vacate his convictions if the DNA evidence collected in the case cannot be located.
Mississippi head coach Lane Kiffin leads the team on its walk through the Grove before an NCAA college football game against Austin Peay in Oxford, Miss., Sept. 11, 2021. Credit: AP Photo/Bruce Newman
It is Monday of Egg Bowl Week, and we are in unchartered territory – even for Lane Kiffin.
Rick Cleveland
I mean this in two ways. First, his Ole Miss Rebels are 10-1 heading into the Egg Bowl, needing only a victory over 5-6 Mississippi State to either earn a bye or a first-round home game in the FBS playoffs. Ole Miss, for the first time since integration, is a legit national championship contender in late November. Secondly, 28 years into his coaching career at age 50, the immensely talented Kiffin has taken his otherwise tired act – that of narcissistic coaching diva – to a new level with his highly public flirtations with Florida and LSU.
Will Kiffin leave Ole Miss for Florida – or, more likely, LSU – or will he stay at Ole Miss and coach his team in the playoffs and beyond? It is almost as if he is a high school recruit, sitting at a press conference with three caps in front of him. Which will he choose?
I have no clue what will happen Friday in Starkville and then Saturday in Oxford when Kiffin’s decision is supposed to come, but clearly Kiffin already has worn out his welcome with a huge segment of Ole Miss faithful.
None of this is normal.
I do have a clue about this: If Kiffin chooses to leave Ole Miss and his team with it headed into the playoffs, that will be his everlasting legacy. He forever will be the coach who deserted his team at its moment of highest achievement.
Think about it, Brian Kelly was roundly criticized for leaving Notre Dame for LSU when the Irish were still under playoff consideration (not when they were already in). Kelly famously left Notre Dame because he thought LSU afforded him a better opportunity to coach a national championship team. We see how that turned out. Notre Dame, under Kelly’s successor, Marcus Freeman, has at least played for the national championship earlier this year. Meanwhile, LSU has fired Kelly, who never made the playoffs at Baton Rouge, and now the school is scheming every which way on how to not pay Kelly what’s left on his contract.
None of that would appear to matter to Kiffin, who seems completely oblivious to the image he portrays. That is a telling characteristic of a narcissist, a person who exhibits a grandiose sense of self-importance, a need for excessive admiration, a lack of empathy, and a sense of entitlement. A diva simply enjoys all the attention.
Many, including Kiffin’s former boss, Nick Saban, blame the current college football system for the situation Kiffin and Ole Miss find themselves in. And, yes, it is a bad system. But for my money what Kiffin is doing can’t all be blamed on the system.
Kiffin has spoken in the past about how OIe Miss and the Oxford community have been integral in his personal growth and transformation. He has gone so far as to say he needed Oxford and Ole Miss more than Oxford and Ole Miss have needed him. I would agree. But they have been good for each other. If Ole Miss wins Friday, as the Rebels are favored to do, that will make 50 victories over the past five seasons. Yes, Kiffin, an offensive genius, has been good for Oxford. Ole Miss enrollment is up nearly 17 percent over that period. Coincidence? No.
But then Ole Miss has compensated Kiffin royally for his success. He makes nearly $10 million a year, more than twice what any Ole Miss coach has made before him. The university has raised his assistants’ salary pool to a point where it is competitive with any. Ole Miss has been on the cutting edge in NIL compensation for its football athletes. Ole Miss held its nose and abided Kiffin’s well publicized dalliance with Auburn three years ago – one that ruined another promising season – and has given Kiffin almost a blank check for what he needs to compete with the nation’s football powerhouses. What’s more, Keith Carter has pledged to provide even more. And yet Kiffin’s family has made quite public visits to Gainesville and Baton Rouge to check out schools and neighborhoods. Said one of my most loyal friends, a zealous Ole Miss fan for more than six decades, “I just wish Lane wouldn’t rub our faces in it.”
Kiffin, however, is oblivious.
One person, whose opinion I highly value, tells me I am overreacting to Kiffin’s public waffling. He says the Ole Miss-Lane Kiffin situation is the new normal in college athletics. He says the coaches are mercenaries and the players are mercenaries, as well. Get used to it.
Further, he says, “The days of college coaches and athletes caring for the school as much as the fans and alumni are over, gone forever.“
The more I think about it, the more I realize he is correct. But I don’t have to like it. And I don’t.
The link between good, affordable child care and economic development is discussed by Cathy Grace of Tupelo, the early childhood program specialist with the nonprofit North Mississippi Education Consortium. She praised Gov. Tate Reeves and other Mississippi political leaders for acknowledging the need for an additional commitment to child care, but said much more of an effort by the state is needed than what is currently being proposed.
The long-hidden monument to bigotry and brutality — the Mississippi Delta barn where Emmett Till was tortured and killed in 1955 — will soon become a “sacred site” for all to see.
On Monday, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center announced that it had purchased the barn, thanks to a $1.5 million gift from TV producer Shonda Rhimes, who was moved to donate after reading about the barn, saying, “My hope is that this story never gets lost.”
FILE – In this March 4, 2018 file photo, Shonda Rhimes arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Partyin Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Dave Tell, author of “Remembering Emmett Till,” said the barn was “written out of history by the very men who committed the crime there — erased from public memory as part of a broader effort to bury the truth and protect white perpetrators. Preserving it now is an intentional act of restoration.”
About 2 a.m. on Aug. 28, 1955, J.W. Milam, his brother, Roy Bryant, and others abducted the Black Chicago 14-year-old from the home of his uncle that he was visiting and took him to the barn, where they beat and killed him.
Till’s mother, Mamie, insisted on an open casket “to let the world see what they did to my son.” Thousands streamed past his body. Some wept. Some fainted. All were moved.
Mamie Till is held by Gene Mobley, who would later marry her, while she stares at the brutalized body of her son, Emmett Till. She opened the casket, and more than 50,000 saw his body. This photo taken by David Jackson, now in public domain, appeared in both the Chicago Defender and Jet magazine.
The brothers admitted to authorities they had kidnapped Till, but claimed they had released him unharmed. A month later, they went on trial for murder, but an all-white jury acquitted them.
Months later, the brothers admitted in Look magazine that they had indeed beaten and killed Till, but authorities were unable to prosecute the brothers again because of double jeopardy.
That Look magazine article also concealed the existence of the barn because that would implicate the others involved, some of whom worked at the barn, Tell said.“Till was killed because of racism. And the barn was pushed out of public memory because of racism. It’s all part of the same story.”
For Keith Beauchamp, producer of the “Till” film and director-producer of “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,” the barn’s preservation brings mixed emotions.
“On one hand, it’s significant that a physical site connected to Emmett Till’s story will be preserved for future generations,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s also a place that represents deep pain and injustice. Regardless, it is a part of American history that must be acknowledged rather than forgotten, because remembering helps us understand and avoid repeating past mistakes.”
Beauchamp thanked Rhimes for her “generous gift to help preserve this history, especially during a time of debate over how our past should be remembered.”
He praised Jeff Andrews, who bought the property that included the barn in 1994. After learning about the barn, Andrews began to let Till’s family and other visitors spend time at the historic site.
Beauchamp praised his care, “maintaining the barn and welcoming the public, kept the site meaningful long before any official preservation began.”
In 2007, a group of Tallahatchie County citizens, Black and white, gathered outside the courthouse in Sumner — the same courthouse where Till’s killers walked free — and publicly apologized.
The interior of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Miss., pictured Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2025. The center honors the legacy of Emmett Till and educates visitors about his life and the Civil Rights Movement. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
An open letter published Monday on the Emmett Till Interpretive Center website says, “That act of honesty became a moral compass for our work. Since then, we have restored the courthouse where justice failed, commemorated the riverbank where Emmett’s body was found, and replaced the signs that hatred tried to destroy. Every project has carried the same conviction: a nation does not grow stronger by forgetting; it grows stronger by telling the truth. The barn is the next chapter in that conviction.”
On its website, the center said, “We did not want to have to pay for sacred ground. We understand that many other people also feel that even $1 is too much to pay for a site where such deep harm occurred. It’s an obstacle we wrestled with every step of the way. We explored every possible alternative to purchase, including asking for the owner to donate the property and exploring legal options including easements and eminent domain, but none were viable.
“The turning point came when we asked ourselves: What happens if someone else buys it? We could not risk this site — one of the most sacred in American history — falling into the hands of speculators or even hate groups. The barn is simply too important to leave to chance.”
The center, which has partnered with the National Park Service, will hold the title to the barn: “We chose preservation over risk, and truth over silence — because you can’t put a price on our history.”
Davis Houck, the founding director of the Emmett Till Archives at Florida State University as well as the Fannie Lou Hamer Professor of Rhetorical Studies, said the fact the money to purchase the barn came from private philanthropy “makes this a most generous gift — to the community of Drew, to the state of Mississippi, and ultimately to the entire nation.”
The center’s director, Patrick Weems, told Mississippi Today that buying the barn is just the start of this major project for the nonprofit. “Now we’re working to raise the resources to transform it into a sacred site,” he said.
By the 75th anniversary of Till’s lynching in 2030, the center says it plans to open the barn “as a part of a larger public memorial — a place of truth, creativity and conscience. Visitors will come not to look at tragedy, but to confront their own role in the ongoing work of democracy.”
The center says its role “is not possession, but protection — serving as caretakers on behalf of the community and the nation.”
The center says its work “has always been shaped by the truth, courage and moral vision of the Till family, especially Mamie Till-Mobley’s charge that ‘let the world see.’ … We will continue to listen to and engage family members, descendants, and community elders as we transform this site of trauma into a sacred space for remembrance, healing and collective conscience.”
Till’s cousin, Deborah Watts, co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, echoed the center’s sentiment. “We consider that area sacred ground where Emmett was murdered,” she said.
She welcomes further conversations with the center and wants to learn more about the upcoming plans, she said. “Will the family’s concerns be in consideration?”
Possible plans include creating a welcome center for visitors in nearby Drew. “For too long, people in the Delta — especially in places like Drew — have carried the weight of this story without the world truly seeing us,” said Gloria Dickerson, founder of We2Gether Creating Change, a nonprofit based in Drew. “The barn’s preservation means our voices, our land and our legacy will finally be part of how the world remembers Emmett Till — and how it learns from him.”
Another welcome center may be built in Mound Bayou, Mississippi’s first all-Black town, where Medgar Evers once sold insurance for his mentor, civil rights leader and surgeon Dr. T.R.M. Howard.
Both men worked on the Till case, tracking down witnesses for the historic trial that drew international attention. The injustice of the killers getting away with murder helped propel the modern civil rights movement.
Author Wright Thompson, who wrote “The Barn” about this historic piece of soil, called the purchase “the most important thing to happen to the Delta in generations because history is most accurately told here, and most reliably erased, through the land. Who owns it, who farms it, who lived and died on it, whose ghost is trapped in it. The Delta remains a place where power is tied to ownership of the dirt.”
He praised Rhimes for stepping “into the breach and through her generosity, the dirt has been reclaimed, and once reclaimed, the slow process of cleaning the blood from it can begin. This is a place people will visit for generations.”
SOUTHAVEN – Jason Haley, who’s lived in his Southaven home for the last two decades, in August started to hear a whirring, mechanical noise from outside that sounded like a leaf blower.
The noise would go on for days at a time and through the night, he told Mississippi Today. He soon realized the sounds were coming from a cluster of natural gas turbines about a half mile away.
Over the summer, billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company set up shop in north Mississippi, erecting dozens of turbines on the site of a former power plant to fuel two data centers just up the road in Memphis.
In 2024, the company, xAI, finished construction on the first center, Colossus, which it claims houses the “world’s biggest supercomputer.” Colossus holds over 200,000 computer chips powering the AI chatbot Grok. The company is now building the second iteration, Colossus II, near the Mississippi state line. To help power the operation, xAI planted 59 natural gas turbines in Southaven.
Eighteen turbines are currently running, as the company awaits permit approval through the state for the remainder. Mississippi regulators, though, aren’t monitoring air emissions from those 18 turbines because they fall into a “temporary-mobile” category.
The designation means they aren’t subject to air emissions oversight as long as they operate for less than a year, state regulators told Mississippi Today. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said it adopted standards used by the Environmental Protection Agency.
But some, including people living near the Southaven power generators, disagreed with MDEQ’s approach and argued a lack of enforcement and transparency will force them to breathe unsafe air.
“This isn’t some far away industrial site, this is smack in the middle of a suburban area,” said lifelong Southaven resident Shannon Samsa. She is especially worried about the impact of particulates from the turbines on kids at the multiple schools within a 3-mile radius from the plant.
Debate over EPA air pollution rules
Natural gas turbines are considered cleaner than coal but still release air pollutants such as nitrous oxides and particulate matter. Exposure to those can lead to heart and lung complications, the EPA says.
Amanda Garcia, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, argued MDEQ’s basis for allowing the temporary turbines to run without permits is flawed and violates the federal Clean Air Act. The turbines fall under the EPA’s “New Source Performance Standards” and need to be treated as a “stationary” source, she argued.
“While (the EPA) hasn’t weighed in directly, they’ve made pretty clear their interpretation is these large combustion turbines are subject to New Source Performance Standards, which means they need to get a permit,” said Garcia, who also led litigation from the NAACP over temporary turbines xAI placed in Memphis.
Last year, Garcia’s group made the same argument to officials in Shelby County, where Memphis is located, over xAI needing permits for the generators. In January, the company finally applied for permits for its Memphis turbines, and then moved others to Mississippi, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Memphis metropolitan area, which includes Southaven, already has smog-pollution levels that surpass federal standards, Garcia said.
“One of our big concerns was that this huge unpermitted installation of gas turbines had become the largest source of smog forming pollution in Shelby County, and we have the same concern about the installation in Southaven,” she said.
Last December, the EPA proposed amending emissions standards for different types of turbines. In a statement to Mississippi Today, the EPA did not address whether MDEQ had properly applied current federal standards.
“EPA is working expeditiously to issue a final rule,” said the agency.
The EPA statement also criticized Democratic members of Congress over the recently ended government shutdown, saying the “Democrat shutdown disrupted critical functions of our agency and others across the federal government.”
When asked for a response to Garcia’s argument over EPA’s standards, MDEQ replied in an e-mail to Mississippi Today, “It would not be appropriate for MDEQ to engage in a legal debate through this means.”
Residents yet to see noise mitigation
Haley, living near the turbines, said he hopes something can be done to limit the noise. The temporary turbines have another nine months before they reach their one-year limit.
“I can’t live here like this for another nine months. It’s going to drive me crazy,” Haley said, adding he’s filed noise complaints, talked with the police department and emailed the mayor.
Friends suggested he sell his house and move. He likes his house and worries about his neighbors who aren’t in a financial position to move. But if the noise continues, he believes he might not have a choice.
In a Nov. 19 email to Mississippi Today, Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite said, “The noise is mostly temporary construction noise that will go away within days. xAI has assured the City that any and all necessary adjustments will be made within days to mitigate any noise and not negatively impact surrounding developments and neighborhoods in any way.”
A Mississippi Today reporter recorded sounds at 7 p.m. on Nov. 12 of a constant loud humming noise easily heard from homes in the Colonial Hills subdivision of Southaven half a mile from the xAI power plant. Reporters also reviewed recordings by Southaven residents of similar sounds heard on different dates.
When Samsa heard that xAI would be operating a power plant two miles from her home, she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. She’d heard about environmental concerns surrounding xAI’s data centers in Memphis, where residents have pushed for stricter air quality monitoring.
Samsa remembers thinking that after everything that happened in Memphis, public officials would take steps to protect Southaven residents. While Musselwhite has assured the generators will have a “very low” environmental risk, she’s found the lack of public information around the turbines’ impacts worrying.
“If a project is truly healthy and safe, why not be transparent about it,” Samsa said.
The 41 permanent turbines will have a maximum generation capacity of 1,200 megawatts, while the temporary generators will only be able to reach about 400 megawatts, MDEQ told Mississippi Today in an email.
While notifying xAI that the temporary turbines fall into a special criteria precluding them from emissions limits, MDEQ in a July letter “implored” the company to “operate … in a manner that minimizes the emission” of nitrous oxides and particulate matter.
“In conversations we’ve had with (xAI), I think they have the right intentions,” MDEQ director Chris Wells later told Mississippi Today.
Mississippi Today reached out to xAI with questions about emission controls and noise complaints and received what appeared to be an automated message that said, “Legacy Media Lies.”
Seldom in the history of the state has the Legislature passed laws, without being forced to by the federal courts, to make it easier for Mississippians to vote.
As COVID-19 spread in 2020, Mississippi legislators and election officials were criticized by national groups because of their nominal efforts to accommodate voters during the deadly pandemic. In the midst of the health scare, Mississippi legislators took one step to improve voter access.
Granted, it was a small step, but by Mississippi standards perhaps a landmark event. The Legislature amended state law to allow mail-in ballots to be counted if they arrived in the circuit clerk’s office within five days after Election Day.
Republican groups are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that a law passed by the Republican-dominated Mississippi Legislature is unconstitutional.
Rep. Timaka James-Jones listens as Samantha Buckley, director of policy for the Secure Democracy Foundation, presents during September meeting of the House Select Committee on Voting Rights at the Mississippi Capitol. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Never mind that Mississippi is one of only three states in the nation that does not allow some form of no-excuse early voting – in person, by mail or both. Never mind that many of the people who are allowed to vote by mail – if they have an excuse – must have two election documents signed in front of a notary public to do so. In many cases, the mail-in ballot request must be notarized and then the envelope that is used to return the ballot via mail also must be notarized.
So, in 2020, the small step of providing some protection to ensure mail-in ballots would be counted even if there was a postal office snafu was celebrated.
And it seems a bit perplexing that the Republican National Committee would challenge the five-day rule in Mississippi since many other states – 14 – had similar laws and in some cases have had the laws for some time. Even more states – 29 – allow military and overseas ballots that are postmarked by Election Day to be counted after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. It is not clear what a Supreme Court ruling striking down the Mississippi law would do to the overseas and military ballots.
Most believe that if the law is found unconstitutional in Mississippi, it would mean the other states that allow mail ballots to be counted after Election Day – as long as they are postmarked on or before that day – also would be null and void.
Such a change could be important in a so-called swing state where the elections are often close and a few thousand late-arriving ballots could make a difference in determining the next president.
But the only problem with that thinking is that most of the states that allow late-arriving ballots to be counted are not swing states. Some are blue states while others are red. Nevada is perhaps the only swing state that allows late-arriving ballots to be counted if they arrive after Election Day, excluding the additional states that allow late-arriving military and overseas ballots to be counted.
The Mississippi five-day rule has a certain symmetry. After all, people who try to vote without the required government-issued photo identification have five days after the election to prove they are who they say they are. So, it makes a certain amount of logic to allow election officials to also count late-arriving ballots for five days as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
Plus, the five-day rule must help a little for people voting by mail who must get two documents notarized.
Various groups have routinely listed Mississippi at the top or near the top in terms of the most restrictive states to vote.
Now, will the nation’s highest court rule that one of the state’s few efforts to improve access is unconstitutional?
Agricultural and builders’ groups have called it a win for private property owners. Environmental groups warn that it will exacerbate costly challenges like flooding that already plague the river and its tributaries.
The new rule, proposed Monday, is the latest in a convoluted, decades-long fight over which streams and wetlands qualify as “Waters of the United States” and thus are regulated by the federal government under the Clean Water Act. Environmental advocates claim more expansive federal protections are needed to preserve the country’s natural resources, while some farmers and homebuilders argue the government is overstepping its authority to control how they use their land.
A landmark 2023 U.S. Supreme Court case, Sackett v. EPA, used a narrow definition to determine which wetlands get federal protections. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin promised earlier this year that the agency would adjust its definitions to comply. The proposed rule delivers on that promise.
The proposal will be open for public comment for 45 days before it moves forward.
Wetland advocates are still parsing details of the proposal but say they’re concerned with the impacts it could have.
“This does not help any of the issues the basin is facing,” said Kelly McGinnis, executive director of One Mississippi, a group that advocates for the river. “Whether we’re talking water quality and pollution, trying to mitigate the impact of the more frequent floods and droughts we’re seeing — removing even more wetland protections … is devastating.”
States along Mississippi River have varied wetlands protections
In Sackett v. EPA, a couple asked the Supreme Court to restrict federal regulations of wetlands so they could build a home on their northern Idaho property. The court ruled in their favor, saying only wetlands that have a continuous surface connection with another r protected water body — such as a permanent, navigable waterway — qualify for protections under the Clean Water Act.
The Clean Water Act protects the “Waters of the United States” but it does not define them. That has fallen to the EPA, which has changed its definition repeatedly since the law’s passing in 1972. The murkiness and scope of the definitions has long frustrated stakeholders.
In a news release, Zeldin said the new EPA rule follows the Sackett decision closely, granting protections only to wetlands that touch another protected water body and have visible water for at least part of the year.
Experts say a wetland is doing work even if it doesn’t usually have water in it or is isolated. The benefits of wetlands lie in their ability to relieve flooding, purify water, mitigate drought and provide wildlife habitat. Experts say in an era of increased storms, droughts and floods wrought by climate change, they’re needed now more than ever.
Many groups have attempted to predict how many wetlands will lose protections following the Sackett decision, but the actual impact is yet to be understood. What is clear is that with more limited federal regulation, states will have different rules governing wetlands.
Along the Mississippi River, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Mississippi have wetland protections that go beyond the Clean Water Act, a Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk analysis found. Mississippi, which has 4 million acres of wetlands, protects these areas beyond the federal progam with state laws, such as the Coastal Wetland Protection, which specially targets coastal areas.
Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas do not have more protective wetland laws on the books. Louisiana extends state protections to its coastal wetlands, but not inland ones.
And state laws are still moving targets. Tennessee lawmakers, for example, voted this year to roll back protections that had been in place since the 1970s requiring developers and landowners to seek state permission and pay for mitigation before draining or altering isolated wetlands. In Illinois, where researchers have estimated about 72% of the state’s remaining wetlands could lose federal protections under Sackett, lawmakers have drafted legislation beefing up their state’s regulations, though they have not passed it, yet.
There are also unanswered questions about how the Sackett decision would affect areas along the Mississippi and other rivers where the river’s main channel is separated from the floodplain by built levees — a concern Justice Brett Kavanaugh mentioned directly in his concurring opinion on the case.
Wetland-rich Louisiana, in particular, relies on manmade flood control structures to try and hold back floodwaters from low-lying communities. State legislation passed in 2025 made wetland areas behind levees ineligible for state protection.
Should those areas lose federal protection, it opens them up to “a ton of risky development,” said Haley Gentry, assistant director at the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy in New Orleans.
“The reason to not build in a wetland shouldn’t have been, ‘Oh, you have to get this pesky federal permit,’” Gentry said. “It’s that wetlands flood … this is not creating more affordable housing, if you’re building risky homes in flood zones.”
Mississippi River basin wetlands are already in trouble
Groups like the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Association of Manufacturers, whose members faced the potential of hefty fines if they altered federally regulated wetlands, have reacted positively to Zeldin’s proposed rule.
The groups have complained that the previous definition, which was published in early 2023 and protected a broader swath of wetlands, left farmers confused about things like what constitutes a continuous surface connection between a wetland and a water body, said Courtney Briggs, senior director of government affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“The fact that this administration has come in and given definitions to those terms already improves the situation significantly,” Briggs said. “It gives our farmers more confidence in using their own land.”
Environmental groups, however, say that there will be consequences of the administration’s effort to make it easier for people to drain and fill wetlands for their own purposes.
“They have, in this rule-making, completely ignored the costs of fewer wetlands and more polluted water to communities around the country,” said Mark Sabath, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
In Mississippi, protecting wetlands is at the heart of the fight against the Yazoo Pumps, a flood relief project that the U.S Army Corps of Engineers has touted for decades. The project now also has the backing of the Environmental Protection Agency, whose veto killed a previous iteration in 2008 because of the pumps’ potential to harm 67,000 acres of valuable wetland habitat. In a Jan. 8 letter, the EPA wrote that proposed mitigation components are “expected to reduce adverse effects to an acceptable level.”
However conservationists, including a group of former EPA employees, are not convinced.
According to data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 132,000 acres of wetland across the basin were lost between 2009 and 2019, the equivalent of about 100,000 football fields.
“One cannot protect waters like the Illinois, Mississippi, and Ohio Rivers and the Gulf of Mexico without protecting wetlands and small streams,” they wrote.
Alex Rozier with Mississippi Today contributed to this report.
The Walton Family Foundation is also a Mississippi Today donor. Donors do not in any way influence our newsroom’s editorial decisions. For more on that policy or to view a list of our donors, click here.
