OurTupelo

Legendary Mississippi author Greg Iles died Friday after a long battle with cancer.

The 65-year-old best-selling author, who wrote 17 novels, lost his battle to multiple myeloma, a cancer in which white blood cells begin to grow abnormally in the bone marrow. He had been battling the disease since 1996.

“He gave us great books, and he stayed in Mississippi,” said Lemuria Bookstore owner John Evans. “He wrote about a lot of the wrongs to make people all over the country realize that some people were trying to do right.”

Iles became a supporter of Lemuria long before he ever began writing books, coming first with his father and later on his own, Evans said.

Once on Ernest Hemingway’s birthday, Lemuria had a keg of beer and threw a party.

When Iles arrived, he confessed that he felt “totally at home in this bookstore,” Evans said. “He was just a kid.”

He pursued a career in rock music, but traded it for love and a life of writing novels. His first novel, “Spandau Phoenix,” a 1993 book that involved one of the unsolved mysteries of World War II, became a national success.

Iles soon became a New York Times best-selling author, blending real-life history with his spellbinding tales.

In 2011, he faced his own life-or-death crisis when he was nearly killed in an accident on U.S. 61. His right leg below the knee had to be amputated, but Iles never gave up.

During his convalescence, he began writing a trilogy set in his beloved Natchez based on a Ku Klux Klan group known as the Silver Dollar Group, which was involved in the fatal firebombing of Frank Morris, a Black shoe repairman in Ferriday, Louisiana, in 1964 as well as others.

Iles based one of the characters, Henry Sexton, on real-life investigative reporter Stanley Nelson, who wrote about Morris’ killing and other Klan violence.

Nelson, who died June 5, was flattered that Iles penned such a character, but the journalist confessed that his alter ego “has had a much more adventurous life than me. He is a musician, has a girlfriend and is tech savvy — that’s something I don’t know a damn thing about.”

After he finished the trilogy in 2017, he appeared with Nelson at the Mississippi Book Festival, an event he did his best to champion.

The festival’s executive director, Ellen Rodgers Daniels, greeted Friday’s news with sorrow. “He was such a huge part of the festival,” she said. “I’m heartbroken for [his wife] Caroline and the children.”

Despite his national success, Iles continued to sign books and host events at Lemuria. He held the last of those events at Cathead Distillery in Jackson, where he sat in a wheelchair as he talked about his last novel, “Southern Man,” which author Stephen King called “his latest and best.” 

Ever since Evans learned the news Friday night, he said he’s been thinking about Iles and other authors who have left us too soon. “I’ve seen so many of my Mississippi friends go away,” he said. “It makes me sad, and it makes me think of others, too.”

In one of the last posts on his website, Iles wrote, “My last thought for today is that only two things matter: family and friends.”

Nearly 2,000 families may be without child care at the start of this school year after dozens of child care centers run by Mississippi Action for Progress in northern Mississippi have not reopened after losing their federal funding.

Mississippi Action for Progress Inc., an administrator of Head Start pre-kindergarten centers, has lost funding to run its northern district centers – of which there are 28 listed on the group’s website – after the federal Administration for Children and Families found multiple deficiencies in MAP’s operations, including the group’s failure to report sexual abuse at one of its centers. MAP’s tax disclosures in 2024 showed that its revenue of $78,850,872 came entirely from government grants. 

Head Start is a federal program that, for 60 years, has provided early education and child care to low-income families with children younger than 5. Mississippi is one of a few states where Head Start is available in every county.

While the contract to administer those centers has recently been given to other nonprofits, parents of Head Start children and employees of MAP say they never received any formal communication from the organizations, leading to mass confusion and uncertainty, with questions from parents and teachers flooding Facebook. 

“In the coming weeks, the Office of Head Start will implement a plan to transition Early Head Start and Head Start operations to the leadership of these new grant awardees. This plan includes ensuring Head Start services for families who are expected to return in the fall,” the federal Office of Head Start told Mississippi Today. 

A letter reviewed by Mississippi Today that was sent by MAP Executive Director Bobby Brown to some employees on Friday said the Office of Head Start had asked MAP to provide “temporary, limited services” until “all locations have been transitioned to their new agencies.” While Brown said the temporary services would come with “some limitations and lower enrollment,” the letter did not provide clarity on the number of students who could be enrolled this year, or the number of teachers and staff MAP would retain, besides saying that “identified staff” would return on Tuesday for training and to prepare the centers.  

Despite repeated requests from Mississippi Today, representatives of MAP did not provide the number of students or workers they would retain. 

Mississippi Action for Progress was founded in 1966 with a biracial group of board members including civil rights activist Aaron Henry, who served as president of the Mississippi state conference of the NAACP, and Hodding Carter III, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper publisher and journalist in Greenville. It was one of the earliest organizations in the state to have local Black leadership shape how federal dollars were spent. 

In the early years of the organization, Mississippi’s local government vetoed the spending of federal money and state officials threatened workers. Brown, who most recently drew a salary of $203,167 from the organization, has served as chief executive officer of MAP since at least 2001. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

Scrambling to find child care

For parents and grandparents in north Mississippi, the loss of Head Start came at the worst time: the beginning of the school year. For caregivers, it sometimes has meant calling up day cares in neighboring towns.

“It was sort of a shock for everybody,” said Sheila Summerford, whose granddaughter was set to attend Head Start this month in Fulton.

She had to scramble to find a new day care. Even though Head Start is the best value option, Summerford says she was able to find room at a new day care near the flower store she owns off Main Street. Many centers were already full.

“Everybody’s kids that go there was pretty much just waiting on a start date. And then, I found out through Facebook that they’re not opening yet,” said Sabrina Celeste, mother of a 5-year-old who was also set to attend Head Start this year. 

“And then it was going around that they wasn’t even going to open. And then now somebody got on there and updated everybody, saying that some more companies had took over, but it’s not MAP anymore,” she said. Celeste and her husband have since been taking their daughter to work with them. “Gotta do what you gotta do.”

It’s not clear when the federal Office of Head Start notified MAP that it had not been awarded funding for the northern district. When Mississippi Today reporters visited MAP’s Jackson office Thursday, Ashley Nichols, MAP’s director of community development, said she could not remember the date of notification. 

No one else from MAP’s Jackson office could be reached in person or by phone or email. 

A federal monitoring review of MAP Head Start centers conducted in June 2023 found multiple deficiencies, including negative behaviors demonstrated by MAP staff “causing children to be afraid to attend the center and regress developmentally,” not following appropriate strategies to support children’s independence and individual needs around toileting, and the organization’s failure to report allegations of sexual assault to the Office of Head Start in a timely manner.

Because of the deficiencies, the Office of Head Start notified MAP in 2024 that it would need to re-compete for funding for the 2025 school year. 

Mississippi Today on Friday filed a public records request for all reports regarding MAP Head Starts in the northern district. 

“They should at least send out a text message or something, instead of people finding out through Facebook,” Celeste said. 

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

Kala Holt worked for 16 years for Head Start in Fulton. For the last week, she has called MAP’s Human Resources department, and has been sent to voicemail each time. She was hoping to secure her retirement money.

“I feel like my 16 years are gone. I’m not even sure I want to teach anymore,” she said. “My babies are my babies. I loved what I did. I loved the smile on their faces and the joy that came over them when they learned something new.”

This month, her husband had to ask his aunt for help paying their electricity bill. She said her health insurance is set to expire this month, and that she was focused on securing her retirement money, but when she called the firm, she said it redirected her to MAP’s HR department that ghosted her for a week.

“The unknown of not having a job is very, very stressful,” she said.

Ten employees of MAP Head Start centers told Mississippi Today they found out about the closures through social media and are struggling to find alternative employment, all the while dealing with a lack of communication from their superiors and MAP management. 

“I called down there, left voicemails, they haven’t returned my calls,” said a teacher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. 

Holt was expecting to come back to classes in mid August after three days of training in Jackson, like every other year. But no announcement came by the end of July about when class would resume. To this day, Holt hasn’t received any official word from MAP.

“A lot of us want to reapply for the job,” Holt said. “When can we reapply?”

Teachers who spent years at local Head Start centers were disappointed about the change. 

“It’s a messed up situation. I don’t know what’s going on. I put my heart in what I’m doing. The truth is, it’s tough when children don’t know, too,” said Jerry Smith, who was a Head Start teacher for 19 years in Tupelo.

Lately, he’s been helping out after school part time in Lee County. He’s still waiting to hear back on a start date for Head Start.

Longtime employees said they could not get in touch with the same MAP supervisors they would call monthly for check-ups. Some were unsure if they were still MAP employees.

For one pregnant employee who wished to remain anonymous while she navigated the job search process, optimism has turned to dread. She feels her pregnancy has hurt her employment chances. As a single mother, she needs the work.

Another former employee already took another job with a public school.

An employee and mother of two who recently got her associate’s degree in early childhood education found out through Facebook that the Head Start center where she worked for two years shut down and has not been able to find a new job. 

“I picked teaching, and I’m thinking I went to the wrong career,” she said.

“Any other place that I’ve ever worked, there’s an exit method set up for a smooth transition. But it was just like we went to the edge and they just pushed us over,” said another teacher who worked at her MAP Head Start center for six years.  

What’s next?

Federal funds have been allocated to four organizations to run the MAP centers that are closing, according to the Administration for Children and Families, which houses the Office of Head Start. 

Those organizations – Delta Health Alliance, Five County Child Development, Mississippi State University and Pearl River Valley Opportunity – have also been kept in the dark. 

Delta Health Alliance received its award letter Thursday, the day after the federal Office of Head Start told Mississippi Today that the group was a grantee. 

“The notification was back dated to Aug. 1,” said Rickey Lawson, communications coordinator for Delta Health Alliance. 

The organization is working quickly to offer Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Lee, Itawamba, Pontotoc and Union counties – where 465 children were previously enrolled in MAP Head Start Centers, Lawson said. 

The other three grantees did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today. 

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, told Mississippi Today he is monitoring the situation and wants to make sure the transition is seamless for families. 

“Normally, when an agency has trouble, they will contact my office for assistance, but for whatever reason once I was made aware of MAP’s situation, the decision had already been reached to put it out for competition,” Thompson said. “So my effort now is to make sure that those families and employees formerly affiliated with MAP would be given the same consideration for the new agency.”

Memorial Hospital Biloxi will stop offering labor and delivery services as of Sept.1 – a change that comes seven months after Memorial Health System bought the hospital from Merit Health with intentions to expand services, including OB-GYN care. 

The Biloxi hospital will still offer gynecological services, but patients will have to go to Memorial Hospital in Gulfport or another nearby hospital to give birth.

Kent Nicaud, president and CEO of the hospital system, said his team has prepared for this transition and expects no delays in care or extended wait times at the Gulfport hospital. 

“We have recently added several new providers, including physicians and OBs, to support our growth,” Nicaud told Mississippi Today. “These resources ensure there will be no access issues or delays, and every expectant mother will receive the highest standard of care in the region.”

Both hospitals accept the same insurance, Nicaud confirmed. 

Expectant mothers who are currently patients at Biloxi have been informed about the transition, their delivery options and enhanced services at Gulfport. The two hospitals are about 15 miles apart.

The Gulfport hospital is home to Mississippi Gulf Coast’s only Level III neonatal intensive care unit. Level III is equipped to deal with babies who are born earlier than 32 weeks or who have critical illnesses. 

The availability of obstetrics care has been declining for over a decade, with labor and delivery units shuttering across the U.S., particularly in rural areas. Obstetrics is one of the most expensive services hospitals provide. 

Nicaud said this move is intended to improve efficiency, citing Gulfport’s NICU, OB emergency department and 24/7 laborist program. 

“We’re consolidating obstetrics services to give every expectant mother access to all of the region’s most advanced maternity resources in one place,” he said. “This unified approach ensures high-quality and coordinated care from pregnancy through delivery and beyond.”

The following hospitals offer labor and delivery services in Mississippi’s six southernmost counties, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health: 

• Memorial Hospital Gulfport
• Singing River Hospital Ocean Springs
• Singing River Hospital Pascagoula
• George Regional Hospital, Lucedale
• Highland Community Hospital, Picayune
• Keesler Medical Center, Biloxi.

A note from Adam Ganucheau: A couple hours after this column published, Sen. Roger Wicker’s office reached out and demanded a correction, saying the senator’s “get a life” comment was directed to himself and not to constituents. That’s certainly not how I nor hundreds of Mississippians who commented on and shared the viral video heard it. Mississippi Today has updated portions of this column to reflect concerns raised by Wicker’s office. Here’s a link to the video/audio of his response to the question about constituent concerns. Mississippians can decide for themselves what Wicker meant.

When 34-year-old Thad Cochran arrived in Washington after his first election in 1972, the Republican felt it important to document what he’d heard and learned from Mississippians on the campaign trail and share it with his young staff.

He sat down at a typewriter and wrote a memo titled “General Responsiveness” and dated March 14, 1973:

During the campaign I detected a very strong animosity among the people toward government and those associated with government bureaus and agencies. This included elected officials and those associated with them. Part of the cause of this attitude was due to a lack of feeling or understanding by government people for the needs and opinions of the average citizen. We are all in a job to represent all our constituents. We are not the bureaucracy. A constituent who asks us for help should be assured to be in need of help with our office as his last resort. A constituent who writes a letter should be made to feel by our response that he is glad he wrote us. A constituent who claims to have been wronged by the government should be assumed to be correct. Everyone should guard against developing the attitude that we are better than, smarter than or more important than any constituent. We do not hold a position of authority over any constituent. We are truly servants of the people who selected us for this job.

Every year from 1973 through 2018, over his three U.S. House terms and six U.S. Senate terms, Cochran shared that memo with every staffer who worked in his offices. The guidance, he said all those years, was a necessary reminder to show respect to the people who offer feedback or need help. He never wanted his staff or himself to forget who sent them to Washington.

The memo, like so many other things, serves as a stark reminder that Cochran was among the last in a bygone era of American politics. The perspective he wrote and shared is a far cry from what Mississippians have been getting recently from our current U.S. senators.

“Surely everybody else has better things to do with their time,” senior U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker said to a room full of constituents earlier this month when asked about calls and emails his office has been getting. After half-heartedly explaining that he does see a list of names of people who reach out to his office, he quipped: “Get a life.”

Wicker’s office said Friday that the senator directed “Get a life” to himself, not to constituents.

Wicker, who typically chooses his words a little more carefully, perhaps has been trying to match his junior colleague’s energy.

“Why is everyone’s head exploding?” U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith said in April to Mississippi constituents who had expressed concerns over slashing federal Medicaid spending. “I can’t understand why everyone’s head is exploding.”

There are many kind staffers working for Republicans Wicker and Hyde-Smith who are helpful to Mississippi constituents in any number of ways privately or behind the scenes. These people care deeply about serving their home state and they do it well, and they cannot help how their bosses address the public. But, boy, their phones must be blowing up more than ever since the senators made these comments.

Consider, for a moment, what it means that we have devolved from having a leader who believed that “a constituent who claims to have been wronged by the government should be assumed to be correct” to one who thinks telling constituents to “get a life” is appropriate. Think about the fact that we replaced a leader who regularly reminded his staff that “we are truly servants of the people who selected us for this job” with one whose gut response to legitimate concerns from constituents is that their “heads are exploding.”

Just … wow. To call it alarming doesn’t fully encapsulate the gravity of their behavior. It’s enough to discourage even the most optimistic among us about the present and future of our state and our nation.

It’s enough to inspire you to ponder, in this intense political climate when unprecedented and harrowing federal government decisions are being made and going largely unchecked every day, whether our current U.S. senators even remember why they’re in Washington, why we sent them there.

It is necessary, in the shortest possible order, to ask and answer for ourselves what we should expect of our elected officials and whether we should feel OK about being dismissed or ignored outright like this.

You don’t have to be a Democrat to think that this behavior is out of line. Plenty of Republicans — some publicly and many privately — are increasingly disturbed by what’s happening in Washington. Regardless of your own personal political beliefs, be honest with yourself about whether you can read these comments from our senators and still feel that your best interests are being represented.

Sadly, we can no longer ask Cochran to help us answer these questions, but it sure seems clear where he’d stand. What about you?

READ MORE: Mississippi, where ‘We Dissent’ means nothing to elected officials

More than 380 students on financial aid at Jackson State University have signed a petition calling on Denise Jones-Gregory, the interim president, and the university’s housing and residence life office to “address an unfair housing crisis” as they scramble to find lodging just days before classes begin. 

Arianna Thomas, who identified herself on the change.org site as a Jackson native and honors elementary education scholar, created the petition Wednesday. She could not be reach for comment.

Students who applied for dorms and financial aid in the spring were removed from their housing assignments without warning, according to the change.org petition. Some were told they were rejected because of unpaid balances or their aid wasn’t applied correctly or delayed. 

As a result, students said they are now left without housing, placed on waiting lists or reassigned to more expensive campus lodging and meal plans costing $3,000 or more. Students said no clear answers have been provided by university officials to address the matter, according to the petition. 

When reached for comment via email by Mississippi Today, university officials said they were aware of the petition and working to address the issue.

“Jackson State University understands the importance of stable housing to our students. We are working directly with students who still need placement, including partner housing that offers shuttle service, security and daily support,” Anthony Howard, media relations specialist with the university, said in an email statement. “While each student’s situation is unique, our Housing and Residence Life team and university partners are also assisting students with cost concerns to ensure they have the resources they need.”

Commenting on the change.org site, Naheeme, a student from Bronx, New York, said, “They have terrible communication when it comes to housing and they makes problems for family’s because that disrupts people money due to not having them having overly expensive housing it’s just not acceptable for a school as good as Jackson State.”

“Students should be provided the housing they paid and waited for,” a student from Houston named Rhylin commented.

“Students need the housing they apply for. Stop prioritizing students that you don’t know will stay over returning students who need housing to continue their education. Graduation rates will surely drop,” said Deona, a student from Jackson.

Last year, former university president Marcus Thompson unsuccessfully pitched a $5 million plan to Mississippi’s college governing board to purchase the Jackson Marriott as a temporary solution to a housing crisis as the school experienced increasing student enrollment in the past years. 

Thompson, who prioritized the issue during his tenure, told board members the school had received roughly 800 more housing applications than it had to accommodate when the campus only had 2,000 available beds. 

For years, the state’s largest HBCU has been trying to secure funding to fix its housing shortage through state legislative support. 

For the 2025-26 academic year, the school leased 106 rooms at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites in downtown Jackson for $2.1 million, providing housing for 200 students according to Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board meeting minutes. The state college governing board approved of the leasing agreement during a July 31 special called meeting. 

Alcorn State University, the state’s oldest land grant university and an HBCU, is also experiencing a housing crunch as dozens of students will be spending their first semester rooming at Magnolia Bluffs Casino Hotel of Natchez, which is owned by Magnolia Bluffs Casino, according to the IHL board’s meeting minutes from a July 18 special session. 

The hotel is approximately 40 miles from the university’s main campus in Lorman. About 100 students will be housed in 50 rooms at the hotel, which is 1 mile away from the casino. Two additional rooms will provide lodging for administrative staff as oversight as Robinson and Burrus Hall, a residence on campus remains offline for repairs. These projects are funded through Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds, which are set to expire next year.

Transportation services will be provided to students, John Pearce, senior associate commissioner of the IHL explained, during the session.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday refused for now to block enforcement of a Mississippi law aimed at regulating the use of social media by children, an issue of growing national concern.

The justices rejected an emergency appeal from a tech industry group, NetChoice, that is challenging laws passed in Mississippi and other states that require social media users to verify their ages. The court had been asked to keep the law on hold while a lawsuit plays out.

There were no noted dissents from the brief, unsigned order. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote to say that NetChoice could eventually succeed in showing that the law is indeed unconstitutional.

Kavanaugh said he nevertheless agreed with the court’s decision because the tech group had not shown it would suffer legal harm if the measure went into effect as the lawsuit unfolded.

NetChoice argues that the Mississippi law threatens privacy rights and unconstitutionally restricts the free expression of users of all ages.

A federal judge agreed and prevented the 2024 law from taking effect. But a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in July that the law could be enforced while the lawsuit proceeds.

It’s the latest legal development as court challenges play out against similar laws in states across the country.

Parents and even some teenagers are growing increasingly concerned about the effects of social media use on young people. Supporters of the new laws have said they are needed to help curb the explosive use of social media among young people, and what researchers say is an associated increase in depression and anxiety.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the justices that age verification could help protect young people from “sexual abuse, trafficking, physical violence, sextortion, and more,” activities that Fitch noted are not protected by the First Amendment.

NetChoice represents some of the country’s most high-profile technology companies, including Google, which owns YouTube; Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat; and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

NetChoice has filed similar lawsuits in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Utah.

Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst of The Associated Press reported from Washington.

Change occurs so quickly in the 250th year of our nation’s existence sometimes we feel the need to call timeout, survey the rapidly shifting landscape and wonder: What next? What in Hades happens next?

We have a former Fox Network weekend host in charge of our military. We have a former professional wrestling promoter heading up the Department of Education (which she wants to scrap entirely). We have an anti-vaccine advocate leading the Department of Health and Human Services. Hard to tell these days who are our allies and who are our enemies. Few of our traditional allies trust us anymore. Our president creates, then delays, then reduces and then increases tariffs so often we can’t keep up. 

Indeed, what the heck comes next? 

Well, stop the presses. Now we know what’s next: Cage fighting on the White House grounds, UFC style. Trump has indicated he wants it to happen. His close friend Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), says unequivocally this is going to happen. Paramount, which has been so much in the news lately, will televise it. Millions of dollars will be made. Eyes will be blackened! Brains will be concussed!! Blood will flow!!! Ratings will soar!!!! MAGA!!!!!

Ancient Rome had the Colosseum and gladiators fighting to the death for the entertainment of the emperor. Washington will have cage fighting, no holds barred, at the White House, heretofore a National Historic Landmark so designated for its significance to American history, architecture, arts and culture. At least there will be no lions in the White House cage. Or will there be? Perhaps alligators.

The target date is July 4, 2026. As Trump put it in a speech in Iowa: “We’re going to have a UFC fight, think of this, on the grounds of the White House. We have a lot of land there. … We’re going to have a UFC fight, championship fight, full fight.”

Yes, he really did say we have a lot of land there, leaving out the obvious. It doesn’t take much land for a caged-in, 746-square foot UFC octagon. Besides, there’s not enough room for a golf course, which Trump might prefer.

U.S. presidents have dabbled in sports before, though not quite the way Trump, who owns 17 golf courses worldwide, has immersed himself in golf. Trump in his second term reportedly has played golf on a quarter of the days he has been president, costing taxpayers roughly $70 million in travel and secret service expenses.

Previous presidents have not been quite so active, although Nixon installed a bowling alley in the White House basement. Eisenhower added a putting green on the White House lawn. Clinton added a jogging track to the White House grounds. Obama loved to play pick-up basketball. Most all recent presidents have been huge sports fans. But, at least to my knowledge, Trump is the first UFC aficionado in the White House.

Which brings to my mind this question: Which president would have been best at UFC? My money definitely would be on sturdy Teddy Roosevelt, who boxed at Harvard and sparred at both boxing and judo while president. He was a fitness freak. He also found time as president to save college football, although I’m not at all sure President Teddy would fancy what college football has become.

There are other president-athletes to consider. Abe Lincoln was a champion amateur wrestler and would have had a decided advantage in reach over most presidents. Gerald Ford was a Michigan football star who played on two national championship teams and was the Wolverines’ MVP as a senior. Ford was in the trenches, a center on offense and a linebacker on defense. This was back before facemasks. Clearly, he was a tough guy.

William Howard Taft, our 27th president, was a varsity heavyweight wrestler at Yale. In retrospect, it seems a shame sumo wrestling wasn’t popular in the early 20th century. Taft, 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing just over 350 pounds, would have been a natural.

On the local front, you don’t have to read Mississippi Today daily to know that Mississippi’s current political leaders often follow President Trump’s lead. Indeed, there seems a highly competitive contest to see which Mississippi politico can get the tightest grip on Trump’s coattails. They all want to follow Trump’s blueprint and make Mississippi great again.

With that in mind, can UFC fighting at the Governor’s Mansion, right there on Capitol Street, be far behind?

Think of the possibilities. For starters, how about Shad White vs. Andy Gipson? Who you got?

Clarification: This column was updated to reflect that the United States of America is in its 250th year of existence.

Baristas serve pie as the walls shake with noise at Urban Foxes coffee shop near downtown Jackson. It’s nighttime, and the 88-year-old house with hardwood floors and lots of windows is now a venue for an alternative music show where local artists shred electric guitar against recordings of cicadas and static.

T-shirts for Mississippi band Filth Eternal sit on a merch table next to a used copy of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Audience members wear orange paper wristbands. Outside, artists smoke cigarettes and pull equipment out of cars. After the show ends, all proceeds are donated to the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi.

The July 25 show was one of many in Jackson’s DIY scene. Jackson DIY is decades-old and encompasses a wide range of alternative music genres, including punk, metal, noise and hardcore, as well as independent publications, like zines.

DIY stands for “do-it-yourself.” According to Lucy Isadora, one organizer of Jackson DIY shows, the style is characterized by a lack of industry influence on artists. Local people organize shows and post flyers to Instagram. Isadora often hosts traveling artists at her house. Bands split money made from shows, which generally have an entry fee of $10 to $15.

Isadora has booked bands like Alien Nosejob at the bar and restaurant CS’s and annually organizes the punk show Brisket’s Birthday Bash to honor her dog, Brisket. 

“Obviously, my dog does not go to his birthday party because it’s a punk show, and, like, that’s not really fun if you’re a dog,” Isadora said. “But, every year that we’ve done it, we’ve been able to raise a decent amount of money for animal shelters.”

Arin, who goes only by her first name, started attending Jackson DIY shows two years ago and now covers the scene in her publication JXN Underground. She also books performances and hosts local artists on her podcast. She said traveling bands love Jackson once they play a show.

“I guess it’s that old Southern charm, but they’re always so pleased to be here. And I think it works out well that way, because this scene is so small,” Arin said. “It’s very intimate. Everybody really does know everybody.”

Though local and tight-knit, Jackson’s DIY scene has attracted bands from as far away as Poland. Punk artists have been playing in Mississippi’s capital city for decades. 

J.D. Burns has attended punk and hardcore shows in Jackson for over 20 years. Arin called him an “old head.” 

Burns said some of his first shows were at a “really seedy, kind of dangerous bar” called W.C. Don’s. He explained how, unlike today, Jackson punk bands in the early 2000s had a reputation for being rowdy and intoxicated.

“They were much more bratty, drunk, older people, not quite street punk, not mohawks and chains and leather jackets, but just gnarly, gnarly people,” Burns said.

Bands used to appear in weekly show bills released by the Jackson Free Press, now known as the Mississippi Free Press.

Churches also served as DIY venues in the Jackson area in the early 2000s, when there was a boom in Christian metal and hardcore. Since the bands were Christian, churches allowed them to play.

W.C. Don’s and many of the old bars are closed, and churches no longer have metal shows, Burns said. Now, bands advertise themselves on Instagram, and many of today’s venues, like Sunflower Oven and Urban Foxes, allow fans of all ages.

“Right now, Jackson has the best, most diverse scene that it’s had in a long time, maybe ever,” Burns said. “We can also acknowledge that it’s all based on experience.”

The flyer for the July 25 DIY show at Urban Foxes depicted a black cat in an ornate flowery frame with the headline: “A Night of Noise Benefitting Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi.” The show was pay-what-you-can, and attendees were invited to donate shelter supplies such as cat food instead of money.

Four artists played: Raven Weather, that which waits beyond sleep, INDOLE and The Sky Imposed its Will ….

The acts belong to the experimental noise genre, where artists integrate noises that are sometimes thought of as nonmusical into their work. 

Before the first set, INDOLE, whose stage name refers to an aroma chemical found in both feces and flowers, sat by the front steps.

Show attendees could also pull zines from Landmass Library, which is run by Isadora and distributes free DIY publications. 

One zine, written by a punk ER doctor, discusses what to expect when visiting the emergency room. Other zines focus on immigrants’ rights, queer issues and Black Lives Matter – topics Isadora said “are really important to me but are getting squashed by the current administration.”

Many of the night’s music artists belonged to multiple projects at once. Burns, who runs the noise project “that which waits beyond sleep,” is also in the band Kicking. 

“Please put in your article that I think everyone should start a band,” Isadora said. “And, even if your band sucks, I will come see your band at least once. But, if you suck, I might not come back again.”

Isadora bought a guitar so she could learn to play for Hammer and the Tools. She is left-handed, but, initially, had mistakenly bought a right-handed guitar. She gave that guitar to Arin, who is now learning to play. 

Arin explained that, for people interested, the best thing to do is just go to a show.

“I certainly didn’t know that I was going to be doing all this when I went to my first show,” Arin said. “I was just trying to get out of the house, so it can really open up some doors that you might not even consider.”

Correction 8/14/2025: This story has been updated to show that J.D. Burns is also in the band Kicking.

This year marks what would have been Emmett Till’s 84th birthday, and 70 years since the Black teenager was kidnapped and lynched in Mississippi. The Two Mississippi Museums and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center are holding events dedicated to Till and the impact of his death, inspired by the anniversaries. 

The side-by-side museums in Jackson – the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History –  continued a tradition of conducting tours on Till’s birthday, July 25. Visitors sat in the center of the civil rights museum, where a guide recounted Till’s story and its impact on the Civil Rights Movement. People could also enter a small gallery to watch a documentary about his life.

DeSean Dyson, a Jackson native, said he considers Till’s life essential to his own work. His job takes him around the U.S. to promote peace and justice initiatives.

“It’s very important to me, as I have a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old and a 16-year-old, that they stay rooted and connected to this history,” said Dyson, a former educator who took his sons to tour the museums. 

He said teachings about Till should emphasize his humanity.

“Like, it’s really important how we frame Emmett’s death as being inspiring to a generation, but Emmett’s life mattered a lot,” Dyson said.

Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums, said he wants people to understand the broad context of Till’s life and death.

“I hope visitors learn about not just the fact that he was murdered, which is important, but also the fact that his life really did stimulate, encourage, inspire a lot of youth his age to become a part of the modern Civil Rights Movement,” Morris said.

Longtime civil rights activist Hezekiah Watkins of Jackson volunteers at the civil rights museum in various roles, often speaking about his life story. In 1961, he was just 13 when he was arrested at Jackson’s Greyhound bus station. Authorities thought he was part of the Freedom Riders, a racially integrated group of young people who rode interstate buses through the South to challenge segregation. Watkins and the Freedom Riders were sent to the Mississippi State Penitentiary and housed on death row.

Watkins recounted that when he told his mother he was joining the Civil Rights Movement, she used Till’s death as a warning: “She said, ‘You remember me telling you about Emmett Till?’ She said, ‘The same thing that happened to Emmett will happen to you.’

“I guess I really didn’t care,” Watkins said, “because I didn’t know that we was living in bondage … I didn’t know we was living as slaves, per se.”

In August 1955, 14-year-old Till traveled from Chicago to the Mississippi Delta to visit his cousins. Till and other young Black people went to buy snacks one day at Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market in the tiny community of Money. Till’s cousin Simeon Wright later said he heard Till whistle at the white storekeeper, Carolyn Bryant, as they left.

Days later, a group that included Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till from the home of Moses Wright, Till’s great-uncle. They beat Till, shot him and dumped him in the Tallahatchie River, using barbed wire to attach a 75-pound cotton gin fan to him. His body was discovered three days later, decomposed beyond recognition except for his father’s ring on one of his fingers.

Mississippi authorities wanted a quick burial, but Till’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley requested his body be returned to Chicago. After seeing the horrific condition of her son’s corpse, she insisted on an open-casket funeral so the world could see what had happened. 

Jet magazine published a photo of Till’s mutilated body at his funeral, launching the killing into an international news story. Weeks later, an all-white jury in Mississippi acquitted Milam and Bryant of murdering Till. Outrage over the injustice of the case helped launch the Civil Rights Movement, inspiring many Black people to openly oppose Jim Crow.

Today, the courthouse where Till’s killers were acquitted is restored and is a National Park Service site. The restoration was done by the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, formed in 2006 by Jerome G. Little, the Tallahatchie County Board of Supervisors’ first Black president.

The commission was dedicated to remembering Till and healing racial division. It went on to become a nonprofit organization and establish the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner. 

The center is hosting a Till commemoration Aug. 28-30 at Mississippi Valley State University’s Walter Roberts Auditorium.

Benjamin Saulsberry is the museum’s public engagement and education director. He said the impact of Till’s death is still felt today by people who remember the terrible events of that hot Mississippi summer.

“We’re talking about people who are still alive with us, people who were lawmakers or about to become lawmakers themselves … and in turn, their ideologies and their spaces have helped – or in some ways maybe not helped — shape the world that we live in today,” he said.

The three-day commemoration will focus on Till, his mother and the impact of Till’s lynching in the Delta. The programming includes a theatrical performance, an award-winning biographical exhibit and panels with people discussing their accounts of watching Till’s story. Registration for the commemoration is on the center’s website.

Saulsberry hopes visitors come away from the commemoration knowing more about Till and the Delta, that they feel inspired to continue learning and that they know they can create change in their own lives.

He acknowledged Till’s death was a tragedy, but said people should remember the action it inspired. 

“And I want to be clear that it marks the 70th year after his murder, but also marks the 70th year of Mrs. Mamie Till making the decision she made that would help basically, bring us to another part of the Civil Rights Movement,” Saulsberry said. “It’s the 70th year anniversary point of recognition where Mr. Moses Wright stands up in that courtroom and points directly at Milam and Bryant, knowing he was putting his own life at risk.” 

Hard to believe the Mississippi football season opens later this month. Not so hard to believe is that the Clevelands have looked ahead at the schedule and picked the five most interesting high school and college football games on the schedule. A hint: You don’t have to wait long for one some of the most intriguing games, both high school and college.

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