OurTupelo

JACINTO — Candidates for the state’s highest offices were stumping under the historic Jacinto courthouse at the community’s annual Independence Day festival, but certain people in the area won’t have a say this year in which of those candidates represent them. 

Mississippi is one of fewer than 10 states that places a lifetime voting ban on people convicted of certain felonies, resulting in more than 10% of the state’s voting-age population being barred from the ballot box, according to one study.

Numerous people from nearby communities in northeast Mississippi have petitioned state politicians in recent years to return their voting rights. But because of the state’s convoluted system for getting those rights restored, their efforts have been unsuccessful. 

The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear a case challenging Mississippi’s process for stripping voting rights from people with certain felony convictions, leaving the future of this system in the hands of state officials. 

“I’m open to doing something,” Republican Rep. Nick Bain of Corinth told Mississippi Today. “But we frankly can’t do anything until we get the governor on board,” Bain said.

READ MORE: Supreme Court refuses to hear Mississippi felony suffrage appeal

Once a person has had their suffrage taken away from them, it’s incredibly difficult to get it back. 

To do so, a disenfranchised person must get a lawmaker to sponsor a suffrage restoration bill on their behalf and get two-thirds of both the House and Senate to approve of the legislation. The Legislature did not approve of any suffrage restoration bill this year.

A governor can also pardon a convicted felon, but both Reeves and his predecessor, former Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, have declined to issue any pardons. 

Reeves’ campaign did not make the governor available for questions from the press on Tuesday, but he has previously told reporters that he is hesitant to change the current disenfranchisement process.

Brandon Presley, Reeves’ Democratic opponent, said he wants to establish a criminal justice task force to examine felony suffrage and other measures but stopped short of calling for an overhaul of the system.  

“I think there is a common sense approach to dealing with this issue, and it’s clear that when you go an entire year, and no one’s right to vote has been restored, that we’ve got a system that needs to be looked at,” Presley said. 

While candidates debate whether the system should be revamped, the current process has real implications for a significant number of Mississippians. 

More than 235,000 people in the state cannot vote because of a felony conviction, according to an estimate by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit organization. Black people make up more than half of that disenfranchised population. 

The lieutenant governor, who leads the Senate, has a direct impact on legislative policy. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Jones County, are both competing in the Republican primary this year.

Both Hosemann and McDaniel told reporters on Tuesday they want to maintain the status quo and leave the system intact for the foreseeable future. 

“I don’t approve of violent criminals,” Hosemann said. “If you’re a murderer and rapist, I’m not giving you your right to vote back. You’ve cut yourself out of society.” 

The current structure stems from the framers of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution crafting the law to prevent Black citizens from voting by targeting crimes they were believed to commit. 

The state constitution strips voting rights from people convicted of 10 felonies, including forgery and bigamy. The Mississippi Attorney General issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking and felony-level bad check writing.

Bain leads the House committee with jurisdiction over the state’s criminal code, and he has repeatedly said the Magnolia State should have a more consistent, fairer way to decide who has their voting rights restored instead of having politicians decide the outcome. 

Bain last year led the efforts to clarify that those who have had a disenfranchising crime purged, or expunged, from their criminal record can obtain their voting rights back. 

But Reeves vetoed that legislation because he believed it “created a pathway to restoring rights” that went beyond what the state constitution allowed.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves vetoes bill easing Jim Crow-era voting restrictions

The post Thousands of Mississippians can’t vote because of felony convictions. Many top candidates want to keep it that way. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Yazoo City native Rod Walker, a Mississippi State-educated engineer, switched careers and became an award-winning sports writer, first at the Clarion Ledger and now at the New Orleans Times Picayune. His bank account’s loss was the sports world’s gain. Rod joins us to talk New Orleans and Mississippi sports.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: New Orleans sports writer Rod Walker, a Yazoo native, joins the Pod. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

JULY 5, 1827

A day after those enslaved were freed in the state of New York, 4,000 Black Americans marched along Broadway through downtown streets with a grand marshal carrying a drawn sword. They arrived at the African Zion Church, where abolitionist leader William Hamilton said, “This day we stand redeemed from a bitter thralldom.” 

Celebrations took place as far away as Boston and Philadelphia. In New York’s capital, Nathaniel Paul, pastor of the First African Baptist Society, declared, “We look forward … (to) when this foul stain will be entirely erased, and this, the worst of evils, will be forever done away … God who has made of one blood all nations of men, and who is said to be no respecter of persons, has so decreed; I therefore have no hesitation in declaring this sacred place, that not only throughout the United States of America, but throughout every part of the habitable world where slavery exists, it will be abolished.” 

Among those freed by this act? Sojourner Truth, who was born into slavery and had escaped to freedom just a year earlier. The Fifth of July is still recognized and celebrated in New York City.

The post On this day in 1827 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

As this is written, the Atlanta Braves, who have several Mississippi markings, have the best record in baseball. The Braves are insanely hot at present, having won 23 of their last 26 games to improve their record to 56-27.

How hot are they? The Braves just completed a three-game sweep of the second place Miami Marlins. And check this out: The Braves are 9-1 against the Marlins, who are a remarkable 47-28 against every other team they have played.

How hot are the Braves? Eight Braves will play for the National League All-Stars, including the entire infield. You could have made a good case for other Braves, as well.

How hot are they? In Saturday’s game at Atlanta, Marlins starter Eury Perez entered as baseball’s best pitcher having not given up more than five hits in any of his previous nine starts and having given up only one run in his last 33 innings. You read right: one run in 33 innings. Perez had not given up more than four runs in any appearance.

So former Mississippi Brave Ronald Acuna homered to lead off the bottom of the first inning, and then former Mississippi Brave Ozzie Albies homered behind him. Eury had allowed one run in 33 innings. He gave up two in two batters. Before the first inning carnage was complete, the Braves would score six runs. Against a pitcher who had not allowed more than five hits in any game, the first six Braves hit safely. Against a pitcher who had not allowed more than four runs in any game, the Braves scored six before Eury could record his second out. In fact, he never did get that second out.

And, dear reader, the Braves are doing this game after game after game. Now this is baseball, and the Braves will undoubtedly cool down. And some other team will get hot — watch out for the Phillies — and perhaps make a race of it in September. We will see.

But the Braves are playing the best baseball these eyes have seen in a long, long while. The scary part is they have achieved most of this with two of their best starters — left-handed ace Max Fried and right-hander Kyle Wright (21-5 last season) — sidelined with injuries. They will be back. Fried and Wright are former Mississippi Braves, too. And so is Michael Soroka, a Major League All-Star in 2019, who finally appears to be returning to that form after career-threatening injuries. Soroka, you may recall, won 11 games for the 2017 M-Braves with a 2.75 earned run average.

Now seems a good time to look at all the former M-Braves who are producing, big-time, in Atlanta. Acuna, the best player in baseball not named Shohei Ohtani, leads the list and is surely the mid-season leader for National League MVP honors. Acuna hit .327 with nine home runs and 19 stolen bases in 56 games for the 2017 Mississippi Braves. 

Albies, the second baseman, hit .321 with four home runs, seven triples, and 22 doubles for the 2016 M-Braves. Southaven native Austin Riley, the former DeSoto Central wunderkind, hit .333 with an eye-popping slugging percentage of .677 in just 27 games for the 2018 M-Braves.

As has been written in this space before, the last piece of Atlanta’s everyday lineup puzzle is none other than 22-year-old Michael Harris II, who was playing for the M-Braves just last spring when he hit .305 with five home runs, 16 doubles, two triples and 11 stolen bases during the first 43 games of the Southern League season. He skipped Class AAA altogether and was called up to Atlanta on May 28. Since then, Harris has hit .286 with 26 home runs and 30 stolen bases and has turned untold doubles, triples and home runs into outs as one of the best centerfielders in the sport.

READ MORE: Atlanta Braves’ No. 1 prospect Michael Harris is a chip off the old Alcorn State block

Another measure of just how good these Atlanta Braves are: Harris bats ninth in the order. He would bat first, second or third for most Major League teams.

And then there’s Spencer Strider, the fire-balling 24-year-old with a 10-2 record and 155 strikeouts in just 98 innings. Hard to believe Strider was 3-7 with a 4.71 ERA, pitching for the M-Braves in Pearl just two years ago. It is true.

We would be remiss not to mention perhaps the most important of all the former Mississippi Braves contributors to the current Atlanta Braves success. He would be skipper Brian Snitker, a Braves lifer who managed the 2005 Mississippi Braves. “Snit,” as his players and friends call him, is the glue that holds it all together.

Watch Snitker, a 67-year-old grandfather, and you cannot tell whether the Braves are down 12-0 or up 5-4. He never changes expression whether the Braves are two games behind in the standings or nine games ahead, as they currently are. Snit is a throwback to Hall of Famer Bobby Cox, whom Snitker constantly praised back in 2005 when he spent the season in Pearl.

Said Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Jay Powell, who did a rehab stint under Snit back in the summer of 2005: “There are certain managers or coaches you just want to do the best you can for them. There’s a respect there, a trust. I was fortunate to play for some Hall of Fame managers including Bobby Cox and Jim Leyland, and I put Snit right in there with them. He just gets it. He gets baseball.”

To which Snitker would probably tell you: “It’s pretty easy to manage with guys like Acuna, Albies, Riley, Harris, Strider and all the rest.” 

There’s some truth to that, too. But it is an amazing blend of talent, management (in the front office and on the field, and esprit de corps the Braves display night after night. And we watched a lot of it in Mississippi before it became, at least for now, the best in baseball.

The post The Atlanta Braves, with much Mississippi influence, are insanely hot appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Fight! appeared first on Mississippi Today.

JULY 3, 1917

One of the worst racial massacres in U.S. history ended after three days in East St. Louis, Illinois. After Black workers were given jobs in a factory that received government contracts, White workers began stabbing, beating and killing them. As many as a 100 or more were killed, hundreds more were injured, and 6,000 were driven from their homes. 

“My father … witnessed … horrible things: people’s houses being set ablaze, . . .  people being shot when they tried to flee, some trying to swim to the other side of the Mississippi while being shot at by white mobs with rifles, others being dragged out of street cars and beaten and hanged from street lamps,” said Dhati Kennedy, whose father was one of the survivors. 

The Pittsburgh Dispatch wrote, “The picture of wantonness by the savagery of mobs at East St. Louis will be a humiliating display for the Fourth of July sun to look down upon as it rises on our national liberty jubilation with the country just entered upon a war to make democracy safe.”

The post On this day in 1917 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Greta Kemp Martin, a Democrat challenging incumbent Attorney General Lynn Fitch this year, joins Mississippi Today’s Adam Ganucheau to discuss her campaign and the ideas she has for the job.

The post Podcast: Greta Kemp Martin, candidate for Attorney General appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Lauren Rhoades moved to Mississippi and figured she’d be here three years. Ten years later, she not only loves the state, she is raising a family here and helping other transplants tell their stories. In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Marshall Ramsey (also a transplant) visits with Lauren and talks about what is so special about their adopted home. She also talks about her excellent Substack magazine, Rooted.

The post Mississippi Stories: Lauren Rhoades appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Tyree Irving, the chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party since 2020, resigned as dozens of the state party’s executive committee members appeared poised to remove him from his seat in a July 6 emergency meeting.

Irving’s resignation, effective July 22 but announced on Saturday, comes less than a week after Mississippi Today published emails that some party officials feared would jeopardize a $250,000 donation from the national party.

The emails, which included a nasty personal attack of the No. 2 leader of the state party and were sent to senior staffers of the Democratic National Committee, led the state party’s executive committee members to begin gathering signatures to call a special meeting next week. The purpose of the meeting, according to a form being circulated, was to “address the long standing and repeated actions of malfeasance and misfeasance of the Chair of the Mississippi Democratic Party.”

Dozens of signatures had been gathered as of the weekend — more than enough to both call the meeting and ultimately remove the chair, several sources on the state party’s executive committee shared with Mississippi Today.

Irving, who sent his resignation letter to some committee members on Saturday, was critical of the coverage of his actions.

“The past week has been very stressful for me, and especially my family, due to the circulation of false and misleading information impugning my name and reputation, while we are trying to plan for a successful election this year,” reads the resignation letter from Irving, first reported by SuperTalk Mississippi. “Regrettably, today I must inform you of my intent to resign as Chairman, effective at midnight, July 22, 2023.”

Emails published on June 26 showed that Irving sharply criticized Andre Wagner, the state party’s executive director and No. 2 leader of the party, in a note that was sent to three Democratic National Committee staffers. Shortly before Irving sent the email, the DNC officials had committed to sending the state party $250,000 to boost political programs and support candidates “up and down the ballot.”

READ MORE: Democrats fear state leader’s tirade will jeopardize $250K commitment from national party

Wagner had sought in an email to clarify Irving’s previous comments about how the state party should spend that $250,000 from the national party. Then Irving, a 77-year-old former Mississippi Court of Appeals judge who has been party chairman since 2020, insisted that he alone ran the state party and that Wagner was “out of order.”

“Mr. Wagner, you do not speak for the chair, and you are out of order,” Irving wrote. “I am an accomplished jurist. I know and understand things that you cannot know or understand because: you do not have the education level, you do not possess the personal or vicarious experience that I have, and you know nothing about the historical political landscape of Mississippi. You are not in a position to speak for the Mississippi Democratic Party or say how the Mississippi Democratic Party will spend any funds without being granted that authority to speak, and it has not been granted to you. You are a salaried employee and nothing else. You need to find your place and stay in it.”

Wagner, in response, forwarded the exchange to other state party leaders and predicted that the national party would pull its commitment to send the money to the state party. Several other Democratic Party officials told Mississippi Today they shared Wagner’s concern.

Irving, in an interview and follow-up messages with Mississippi Today, declined to respond to the content of his emails and whether he thought they may encourage the DNC to pull back on their commitment.

After the article published, several prominent Democrats publicly called for Irving’s removal from his post.

Shuwaski Young, the lone Democrat running for secretary of state this year, said the state Democratic Party’s executive committee should promptly remove Irving from his post.

“The chairman’s main job is to fundraise and to support candidates up and down the ticket,” Young said earlier this week. “When you have a chairman acting in this outrageous way, it makes people not want to invest into the party. It makes people not want to donate to candidates. And politically, it makes it harder for Democrats to win. When we can’t operate in a coordinated fashion because our leader can’t respect other people, it hurts every Democrat in the state. We have to be able to have our house in order, and that’s clearly not the case.”

Irving’s resignation comes at a critical time for Mississippi Democrats. Every statewide office, legislative seat and district attorney positions is on the ballot in November. And at the top of the ticket, Democrat Brandon Presley is challenging incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in a race many political observers have opined will be close.

On Thursday, before Irving announced his resignation, Presley attempted to distance himself from the Democratic Party drama.

“We’re running our own race, which, frankly and truthfully, doesn’t give me time to divert attention to things that seem to be internal matters within the party or party matters and are not my campaign matters,” Presley told Mississippi Today after speaking to Burning Bush Missionary Baptist Church in Grenada.

Democrats in recent years have been dominated by Republicans at every level of politics in the state. In election years, the party chair often guides political strategy and programming in addition to fundraising.

The executive committee is expected to meet in coming days to select a new chair of the party, who will lead the party’s efforts to support its candidates in the major election year. The new chair must currently serve on the state’s 80-member executive committee and must secure a majority vote of the committee.

READ MORE: Statewide candidate calls for ouster of Mississippi Democratic Party chairman

The post Mississippi Democratic Party boss resigns ahead of removal vote appeared first on Mississippi Today.

JULY 2, 1946

On his 21^st birthday, Medgar Evers and six other World War II veterans, including his brother, Charles, tried to vote in Decatur, Mississippi, only to be turned away by an armed White mob. 

That day, Medgar Evers vowed that he would never be whipped again. He and other Black war veterans joined together to fight the civil rights movement. 

After graduating from Alcorn College, he tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi School of Law — only to be turned away. NAACP officials considered taking up his case but were so impressed with him they decided instead to hire him as first field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP. 

He put thousands of miles a year on his Oldsmobile, recruiting new members, reviving branches and investigating often unpunished violence against Black Americans, including the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. 

On May 20, 1963, he talked on television about the mistreatment of Black Mississippians: “The years of change are upon us. In the racial picture things will never be as they once were. History has reached a turning point, here and over the world.” 

Three weeks later, he was assassinated in the driveway of his Jackson home. On his birthday in 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it hours later.

The post On this day in 1946 appeared first on Mississippi Today.