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Mississippi Today is profiling members of Jackson’s 2023 Change Collective.

Vilas Annavarapu, 24 of Jackson, is a co-founder of the Riverside Collective, a worker-owned ice cream and coffee shop in south Jackson. Also, he currently works part-time for a non-profit in west Jackson called the Center for Social Entrepreneurship, overseeing all educational programming.

Annavarapu shares how he came to love the state after he wrote his college thesis on the Mississippi Freedom Schools. He was accepted into the Mississippi Teacher Corps, a 2-year teaching program that recruits college grads to teach in the neediest areas of the state. 

For two years, Annavarapu taught at Blackburn Middle School and he had an epiphany.

He found that he loved his students, teaching and the idea of helping them into the future.

“I never thought I’d love teaching and working with a few young people as much as I did,” said Annavarapu. “They’re incredibly bright, creative and thoughtful. And they have really, really big ideas for themselves in the world. Many people would be surprised by that. It touched me and I found that I wanted to find different ways to support them. So, after I finished teaching, I started a worker-owned business, that business is the Riverside Collective.”

“The workers make decisions about the store’s operations democratically, decide on the equitable distribution of profits, and involve community members in planning external events,” said Annavarapu. “The workers are only accountable to one another and their neighborhood. This allows for organic and sustainable growth not subject to the demands of shareholders looking for increasing returns. This model of ownership allows for economic development to occur without gentrification or displacement– as the business succeeds, so does the neighborhood.” 

Riverside is looking to build a more equitable future centered around the values of:

• Care for self. 
• Care for others.
• Care for the environment. 

“We work with middle and high schoolers to teach them the principles of cooperative entrepreneurship, we involve them in decision making, and pay them for their work. It’s a project based, and community facing approach, to get young people to learn fundamental skills like math, literacy, and lifelong practices like cooperation, creativity, and critical thinking.”

“One thing I notice in the classroom is that there are a lot of challenges. But for me, teaching them math and literacy wasn’t nearly as exciting sometimes as them talking about how they could make money. So, when I talked about entrepreneurship and business development, they got really excited. Still, what’s crucial to all of that is literacy, math skills and the fundamental skills to develop business ideas, while nurturing a deep love for education, and investing and giving back to their communities.”

“We’re in our startup phase right now, and as Riverside matures, we hope to be an incubator for other worker-owned enterprises. As more cooperative businesses grow, so will people’s capacity to build consensus and reclaim ownership over industry. Companies that profit off the poor cannot bully their way into communities. People set the terms for the economy– not the other way around, and are no longer at the mercy of corporations or their shareholders, residents will be able to make informed decisions with an eye toward a sustainable future for generations to come.” 

“That’s what this worker cooperative is about. Creating a future and an economy that values people’s labor. The dignity of labor will also be in harmony with our environment. We have an economy that prioritizes endless growth and destruction. Unless we come up with a new human centric model that focuses on meeting people’s basic needs and respecting our planetary boundaries, we’re in for a rough ride. This planet is all that we have, and unless we take drastic, radical action now and invest in developing a more ethical economy, our future is bleak.”

Sipping his tea, Annavarapu finishes by saying, “it’s simply about building an economy that pays people well, treats them with dignity, and is respectful of our planet.”

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Sept. 2, 1912

Civil rights lawyer R. Jess Brown was born in Kansas, grew up in Oklahoma, and moved to Mississippi after World War II. 

After teaching school, he became involved in a 1948 lawsuit to equalize pay for Black and white teachers. Fired for that, he decided to become a lawyer. He, Jack Young Sr. and Carsie Hall were reportedly the only Black lawyers daring to tackle civil rights cases in Mississippi. 

He represented a Black pastor in Jefferson Davis County, challenging Jim Crow laws that sought to bar Black votes. Brown also helped represent James Meredith in his successful bid in 1962 to enter the previously all-white University of Mississippi. Three years earlier, Brown and Young represented Mack Charles Parker, who was lynched before he could stand trial. A year after that, Brown represented Clyde Kennard, who was railroaded on a charge for “stealing chicken feed.” 

Brown died of cancer on the last day of 1989. A documentary, “The Defenders,” spotlights the work of Brown, Young and Hall.

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Delta State University appears to have never had a policy on academic freedom, a core tenet of higher education that ensures faculty will not be disciplined for conducting research that could be considered controversial. 

The lack of such a policy, which free speech experts called “very unusual,” was discovered over the summer by a faculty member who realized the oversight could have imperiled the university’s upcoming reaccreditation, according to emails obtained by Mississippi Today. 

The faculty senate president immediately started drafting a new policy at the request of an administrator overseeing accreditation. 

But over the summer, discussions hit a hitch on a clause that said free speech cannot disrupt the university’s functioning. The faculty senate wanted to include an exception for civil disobedience, given the Mississippi Delta’s storied legacy of civil rights protests, and the provost, who stepped down last month, did not. 

That exception did not make it into the final version of the policy, which was released to the campus today. 

The policy development comes as Delta State faculty are working to start the university’s first-ever chapter of the American Association of University Professors. The advocacy organization’s famous 1940 statement on academic freedom forms the basis of many academic freedom policies at colleges nationwide. 

Academic freedom in higher education is a hot-button issue across the country and at Delta State where there was public outcry earlier this year over the appointment of an interim band director who made transphobic comments on a now-deleted podcast. 

But the real reason for these policies, experts say, isn’t the flashy moments when faculty members express far-right or far-left political opinions in the classroom or off-campus. It’s to ensure research that challenges powerful or corporate interests, like gender-affirming care or the risks of pesticides, is protected. 

“When faculty don’t have those academic rights, we can’t have that marketplace of ideas, that free inquiry that advances our whole society,” said Laura Beltz, a policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which studies free-speech policies in higher education. 

Delta State administrators who worked on the new policy recognized this, emails show. 

“As you know, teaching “difficult” topics is not the main reason to have an Academic Freedom policy,” Josie Welsh, an associate provost overseeing reaccreditation, wrote to Christopher Jurgenson, the faculty senate president, on June 22. “The primary purpose of such a policy is to protect faculty whose research findings challenge fundamental teachings (e.g. Earth revolving around the sun and not the sun revolving around Earth).” 

Welsh and Jurgenson did not respond to inquiries from Mississippi Today. 

Still, Welsh wrote she had checked the two previous reports the university had submitted to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges — a regional accreditor that upholds educational standards — and there was no mention of such a policy. 

This is significant because without accreditation, Delta State students likely wouldn’t be eligible for federal financial aid or use their degree to go into certain professions. 

“Long story short, for decades now we have been cobbling together bits and pieces of other policies to argue that we have a policy on Academic Freedom,” she wrote. “Why we did that instead of just adopting a standard policy on Academic Freedom I do not know. Let’s fix that.” 

The discovery meant that Delta State was likely the only public university in Mississippi without such a policy. The state’s seven other public universities all have academic freedom policies online or in faculty handbooks, Mississippi Today found. 

Though the university had been working to create an academic freedom policy in the spring, a looming accreditation deadline in the fall meant it was vital to write one immediately, Welsh added. 

Artificial intelligence, she mused, could help. 

“This immediate need highlights the ways that AI technology can be used in a positive manner,” she wrote. “We certainly don’t want to adopt the first CHATGPT-generated Academic Freedom policy; however, AI tools could be very useful in generating a policy appropriate for Delta State.”  

Jurgenson got to work right away. He had a draft the next week. 

A month later, the sticking point arose shortly after news broke about the university hiring Steven Hugley, the interim band director, despite disparaging comments he’d made about trans people and women on a podcast. 

Jurgenson had added an exception for civil disobedience, after the faculty senate, an elected group of professors who represent their departments, spent 45 minutes discussing the issue. 

Civil disobedience is the act of peaceful, but unlawful, political protest. It has played a significant role in the history of Delta State, most notably in 1969, when dozens of the first Black students at the predominantly white institution were arrested and sent to Parchman after they held a sit-in outside the president’s office. 

It was a unique request. Beltz told Mississippi Today she had never heard of faculty asking an exception for civil disobedience. 

Andy Novobilski, the provost, took issue with this inclusion. 

“The term ‘Civil Disobedience’ describes a non-violent action by a person or group of persons who knowingly break rules with the willingness to suffer the consequences of their actions to bring about a greater good,” he wrote on July 26. “Somewhere along the way, the concept has forgotten the consequences portion.” 

The disagreement seemed to stem from two views of the role of higher education in Mississippi. The faculty senate was calling back to a largely bygone era when institutions like the private, historically Black Tougaloo College were nodes of political activism in the state. Novobilski was reminding them of the hard reality that universities are also nonprofit entities with rules and regulations. 

That same day, Jurgenson replied that the goal was simply to ensure faculty would still have a job if, hypothetically, they were arrested at an unlawful protest, adding that “given Mississippi’s history with civil rights, telling the faculty they cannot exercise academic freedom in the form of civil disobedience will be met with resistance.” 

Novobilski doubled down.

“Delta State does not condone the breaking of laws and certainly won’t change that by writing it into policy,” he wrote back. “The statement condoning civil disobedience is not appropriate.” 

That night, Jurgenson conceded, agreeing it was a “bad look” for the university to endorse illegal behavior. 

It would have been tricky for Delta State to create a civil-disobedience exception to the free speech policy that did not implicitly pick-and-choose which rules are allowed to be broken and in what way, said Kristen Shahverdian, a program coordinator with PEN America, a nonprofit that promotes free expression. 

“It’s really hard for a university to say, this thing that happened that clearly broke XYZ rule, we’re gonna say that that is okay, but this other thing that also broke the same rule is not okay,” she said. “These policies need to be instituted in a viewpoint neutral way.” 

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Ninety percent of likely Mississippi voters said they are concerned about the Mississippi welfare scandal and government corruption in general, according to a new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll.

Of numerous issues polled, it’s nearly top of mind for voters, trailing only the state’s hospital crisis.

But despite Democratic challenger Brandon Presley’s efforts to lay the scandal and corruption at incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ feet, it doesn’t appear to be providing him much separation. Reeves leads Presley in head-to-head polling by 11 points.

But when asked which of the two candidates they believe will do a better job of addressing corruption and the welfare malfeasance, the split is narrow: 45% choosing Presley to 43% Reeves.

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

At least $77 million in federal money meant to help the poorest of the poor was stolen, misspent or directed to wealthy, politically-connected people between at least 2017 and 2020. One of the large expenditures was for a volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi, a project championed by Reeves’ friend and supporter former NFL quarterback Brett Favre.

Eight people have been criminally charged, seven have pleaded guilty and 47, including Favre, are being sued by the state to recover money. State and federal probes continue.

Voters have been bombarded by Presley’s claims of Reeves’ involvement in the scandal and Reeves’ counterclaims.

READ MORE: What exactly is Gov. Tate Reeves’ involvement in the welfare scandal?

For weeks, Presley has aired a TV advertisement alleging: “Under Tate Reeves, millions were steered from education and job programs to help his rich friends.”

Reeves quickly responded with his own ad that counters Presley’s claim.

“Tate Reeves had nothing to do with the scandal,” the Reeves ad narrator says. “… It all happened before he was governor.”

But past reporting reveals several ways the scandal has touched Reeves.

Mississippi Today reported this week that Gov. Reeves’ brother coordinated with state Auditor Shad White on damage control for former NFL star Brett Favre after an audit first revealed in 2020 that the athlete had received more than $1 million in welfare funds, according to text messages the governor’s political campaign released Thursday.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves’ brother used backchannel to state auditor to help clean up Brett Favre welfare mess

And records obtained by Mississippi Today indicate that then-Lt. Gov. Reeves in 2019 met with the head of the state welfare agency — who has pleaded guilty to charges in the scandal — about Reeves’ friend and fitness trainer Paul Lacoste.

Lacoste at the time had secured a contract to receive $1.4 million in welfare funds for a fitness program. But most of the money had not come through. Communications records indicate that changed after Reeves met with the welfare chief. The welfare director texted his deputy at the time and asked him to find a way to send a large sum of welfare money to a nonprofit without triggering a red flag in an audit so the nonprofit could fund Lacoste’s fitness camp. The welfare director in the text referred to the program as “the Lt. Gov.’s fitness issue.”

Reeves, who took office as governor in 2020, has also faced questions about his firing of the attorney the state had initially hired to probe the welfare spending and sue to recover money. In July 2022, after the lawyer subpoenaed the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation for communications with former Gov. Phil Bryant, Bryant’s wife Deborah, and former NFL star Brett Favre over $5 million in welfare dollars spent on a volleyball stadium, Reeves’ administration abruptly fired the attorney.

Pigott said his firing was a politically motivated response to him looking into the roles of former Republican governor Bryant, the USM Athletic Foundation and other powerful and connected people or entities Reeves and others didn’t want him looking at. 

Reeves has called Presley’s attempts to tie him to the welfare scandal “mental gymnastics” and said, “The bad actors in this case have been sued by the Reeves administration.”

Only 9% of voters polled between August 20-28 said they were not concerned about the scandal and government corruption, with 1% not knowing or refusing. The poll surveyed 650 likely Mississippi voters and has a margin of error of 4%.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 650 registered voters was conducted August 20-28, 2023, and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

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An overwhelming majority of Mississippians are concerned about the state’s hospital crisis, and voters by a large margin favor Medicaid expansion to provide health care for the working poor.

A new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows 92% of likely voters surveyed are concerned about the hospital crisis, with 70% saying they are “very concerned.”

Expansion of Medicaid — one widely proposed solution to the hospital crisis — is favored by 72%, opposed by 23%, with 5% not answering.

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

A recently updated study shows nearly half of the rural hospitals in Mississippi — a poor, unhealthy state already lacking in health care — are struggling financially and at risk of closure. Most medical and hospital officials in the state favor expanding the state-federal Medicaid program, using federal money to provide health care to the working poor and help flagging hospitals cover uncompensated care.

READ MORE: At least three Mississippi hospitals aim to end inpatient services, convert to rural emergency status

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley’s campaign has focused on the hospital crisis and expanding Medicaid as a key plank in his platform.

Incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has given conflicting answers to whether he believes the state’s hospital and health care crisis is a serious campaign issue this year, and he opposes Medicaid expansion. Reeves and other state GOP leaders have blocked Medicaid expansion, equating it to welfare, for the last decade as most other states adopted it and as support for it has grown among Mississippi Republicans.

Yet when respondents of the recently released poll were asked whether Reeves or Presley “will do a better job addressing the Mississippi hospital crisis,” the two candidates were tied at 44% each.

Mississippi Today asked Reeves at the Neshoba County Fair in late July what his reaction was to hospitals and medical facilities laying off employees. The governor chuckled, didn’t substantively respond and brushed off the question. 

But minutes later, asked a similar question, Reeves said: “We’ve got to have more availability of health care throughout our state, we’ve got to have more accessibility to health care throughout our state and we’ve got to make sure that we can make health care more affordable throughout our state.”

Reeves has adamantly opposed Medicaid expansion for years. He said solutions to the state’s health care woes include providing Mississippians with better jobs and allowing more free-market competition in medical services in the state. Reeves said he wants lawmakers to remove regulations on hospitals.

Presley recently said of Reeves: “Where have you been for 12 years? You were lieutenant governor for eight. You’ve been governor for four. If all of these ideas were great, why haven’t you gotten them done, partner?”

Forty states have expanded Medicaid. Expansion has been blocked in Mississippi primarily by Reeves and outgoing House Speaker Philip Gunn.

At times Presley has said he will expand Medicaid on his first day in office. But that would not be possible and it is questionable about whether he could do it under any circumstance without legislative approval. In recent days, Presley has said “on day one I will take action to expand Medicaid and save our hospitals.”

Speaking to a legislative panel recently, Republican Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said, “We’re going to have some very severe problems within the very near future. I’m talking about in six to 24 months, we’re gonna have some hospitals that close.”

Chaney told legislators his office is contracting with a group to study the issue and offer possible solutions.

Mississippi Today/Siena College polling has tracked support for Medicaid expansion since early 2023. Some results:

January 8-12: 80% support, 70% of Republicans support

March 6-8: 75% support, 59% Republicans support

April 16-20: 60% support, 52% of Republicans

June 4-7 (likely GOP primary voters only): 52% support, 35% oppose, 13% not sure

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 650 registered voters was conducted August 20-28, 2023, and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

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A new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is leading Democratic nominee Brandon Presley by 11 points ahead of the November general election.

The poll, which surveyed 650 likely Mississippi voters between August 20-28, found 52% of respondents would vote for Reeves, while 41% would support Presley. Six percent of respondents were undecided, and 1% said they were not going to vote. 

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

The recent poll remains consistent with similar Mississippi Today/Siena College polls conducted earlier this year. Every poll the newsroom has conducted with the nation’s top pollster has shown Reeves leading.

In January, the polling showed Reeves with a 4-point lead head-to-head over Presley: 43% to 39%, with 14% undecided. A poll in April showed Reeves led Presley by 11 points: 49% to 38%, with 6% undecided.

The latest poll shows the same 11-point spread as the April poll, but the most recent results show Reeves capturing a majority of the electorate for the first time this year.

The poll also surveyed favorable and unfavorable sentiments for both candidates, with the governor having a relatively high unfavorability rating and Presley having a sizeable problem with name recognition.

Reeves was 46% favorable to 49% unfavorable, with 5% saying they didn’t know enough about Reeves to say. Presley was 38% favorable, 29% unfavorable and 35% didn’t know enough about Presley. 

Despite Reeves’ unfavorability and Presley’s name recognition problems, both political parties indicated some level of excitement about the upcoming race.

Forty percent of Democrats indicated they were “very excited” about the race and 32% responded they were “somewhat excited” about the race, indicating 72% of Democratic voters show some measure of excitement about the race. 

For the GOP, 29% of respondents said they were “very excited” about voting and 41% indicated they were “somewhat excited,” totaling 70% of Republicans who recorded some level of enthusiasm in the upcoming election. 

And while Reeves is enjoying some measure of excitement from his base, the voters appear to support issues that he’s either not addressing on the campaign trail or is outright rejecting. 

Around 92% indicated some level of concern about rural hospital closures, 90% said they had some measure of worry about the state’s welfare scandal, 70% believed transgender athletes competing in women’s athletics is a serious issue and 72% believed the state’s leaders should expand Medicaid to the working poor. 

Presley and Reeves will compete in the general election on Nov. 7 against Gwendolyn Gray, an independent candidate, who did not garner a traceable percentage in the August poll.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 650 registered voters was conducted August 20-28, 2023, and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

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Sept. 1, 1975

School teacher Marva Collins took $5,000 from her retirement fund and opened the low-cost Westside Preparatory School on the second floor of her home in Chicago. She started with four students, including her own daughter, and began welcoming students that others had labeled “unteachable.” Her success led newspapers such as the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Post to write about her. 

“In the one room that is Westside Prep, 30 children from 4 to 14 years old sit side by side delving into the sciences, mathematics, literary classics,” the Post wrote. “A 5-year-old is engrossed in the Canterbury Tales. A 9-year-old gives Nietzsche a critical read. A 12-year-old ponders the intricacies of Rabelais. These are not the children of Chicago’s intellectual elite. Most are fresh off the streets of one of the city’s toughest, predominantly black ghettos, and many of them couldn’t even read before Marva Collins got her hands on them.” 

Many of her students went on to graduate from Ivy League schools. “Kids don’t fail,” she declared. “Teachers fail, school systems fail. The people who teach children that they are failures — they are the problem.” 

In 1981, CBS aired a made-for-TV movie about her life, starring Cicely Tyson and Morgan Freeman. Within a decade, she was training 1,000 teachers a year on her methods of helping students to love to learn and to think critically. She remained an inspirational figure, appearing in Prince’s video, “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” 

After George H.W. Bush was elected president, he asked her to become Secretary of Education. She declined the offer, preferring to continue to influence the lives of students, one by one. In 2004, she received a National Humanities Award. She died in 2015.

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Mississippi Today is profiling members of Jackson’s 2023 Change Collective.

Jamie Rasberry is the director of policy and strategic partnerships for the Mississippi Alliance of Nonprofits and Philanthropy. Rasberry attributes where she is in life to an isolated upbringing, out of which grew an insatiable curiosity about the people and places in the world around her.

“So, I grew up in Kosciusko on my family’s farm. Way out in the country like that, my exposure to other people was just people who worked for my family. I went to a small private school that doesn’t even exist anymore. I didn’t really know any other world but the one I lived in.

“Oh, you know, I’d hear things, but I didn’t really know what they meant. One was, ‘Black is beautiful. Tan is grand. But white is the color of the big boys man.’”

“Our communities were divided racially. I knew other people different from me existed, but that was it. I certainly wasn’t taught about the Civil Rights movement or the why of it in school. It wasn’t talked about at home. I just didn’t know. Basically, I grew up in a bubble.”

“My first real exposure to a lot of people of color was when I attended Delta State. One day I see these Black girls playing cards and they looked like they were having so much fun. I found out the card game was called Spades. I found out, too, that I wanted to learn how to play. I watched these young women, listened to them and kind of marveled at how they just simply accepted me. There was no me/them. It was just people my age … it was the beginning of a turning point in me.”

“I realized we’re the same. I started to ask myself questions. Why are we so divided? Thinking back on that private school I went to and what I wasn’t taught, and how those around me … how I had no one around me that could explain it. They didn’t have answers either. It all just made me curious. It made me question everything.”

“The Delta didn’t do it for me. So, I came to Jackson, went to college here. I worked with people of color, and you know, at first, I wouldn’t say that those I was around were friends exactly. I can say we were acquaintances. And I couldn’t just ask these questions about race when I wasn’t comfortable with it myself.”

“It was years before I could find people that I could trust and that I could talk to about it. And I mean, not just point me to the truth, but felt comfortable talking to me about it. I needed to understand. From my early 30s, it was 10 years of curiosity and wanting to know. I read a lot of books, watched a lot of documentaries. I learned you have to put it through your own filter and be honest with yourself. And that’s where I think a lot of people get jammed up. They can’t be honest with themselves that “

“I moved to Jackson and was involved in ministry. I lived right over there in Mid-Town. I got to know and care about my neighbors there. We’d all hang out on the front porch, play dominoes together, laugh and talk. We all wanted the same things, just a good life. I thought, you know, some people are lucky enough, well, blessed enough to experience that. It just opens up the world for you.”

“I’ve gone from a total not knowing, to curiosity and having my eyes opened to transitioning to the justice side where I can do something about the injustices out there. Because there’s still a lot of folks that just refuse to recognize the divisiveness and how that causes conflict and problems. I used to be uncomfortable saying, white privilege. Until I understood the responsibility that I had to use it to actually benefit other people.” 

“I’m committed. I’m committed to be better and make a better way for my daughter. I understand this is just not about me. My daughter is biracial. It’s about her too, and the things that she’ll face in her life just because she’s biracial that I never had to face. There are already assumptions about her, and bias towards her. I have to be her advocate.” 

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