Buildings were destroyed during the Tulsa Race Massacre when a white mob attacked the Greenwood neighborhood, a prosperous Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. Eyewitnesses recalled men carrying torches through the streets to set fire to homes and businesses. Credit: Library of Congress
The Tulsa race massacre began after a white mob gathered at a jail where a Black teen had been arrested on false charges of “attacking” a white girl in an elevator.
In reality, he may have tripped or bumped into her. Although authorities exonerated him, that didn’t stop the mob.
“As the whites moved north, they set fire to practically every building in the African American community, including a dozen churches, five hotels, 31 restaurants, four drug stores, eight doctor’s offices, more than two dozen grocery stores, and the Black public library,” according to a 2001 report on the massacre.
That rampage left as many as 300 dead and 10,000 homeless.“They tried to kill all the Black folks they could see,” recalled George Monroe, who was 5 at the time. The Black community known as Greenwood bore the name of the Mississippi Delta town. Greenwood, known as the “Black Wall Street” for its bustling businesses, became a pile of ashes.
No one was ever prosecuted for these crimes. Viola Fletcher, a 107-year-old who survived, said, “I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot. I will not. And other survivors do not. And our descendants do not.”
The community that once sprawled beyond 35 blocks is now just one block. A 7,000-square-foot museum, Greenwood Rising, now honors that community.
Over the last year, students, alumni, faculty and staff at Mississippi’s eight public universities have come to know this routine well: The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees fires or lets go of a president, often providing little information as to why. Then the board asks the community to participate in hours-long listening sessions to provide feedback on desirable qualities in the next president.
But are the trustees actually listening? If they are, what do they think? That part is often unclear.
At last month’s listening sessions on Jackson State University’s campus, five trustees and the commissioner, Al Rankins,quietly took notes as stakeholders shared their thoughts on the kind of president they’d like to succeed Thomas Hudson, whose two-and-a-half-year tenureended earlier this year in a mysterious resignation.
Steven Cunningham, the board’s only Jackson State alumnus and the trustee leading the search, occasionally shared his thoughts with the crowd. But the rest of the trustees and the commissioner kept their perspective confined to legal pads or notebooks, which Mississippi Today obtained through a public records request.
The handwritten notes — from all the trustees who attended except Tom Duff, the former IHL board president — provide a glimpse into how trustees are thinking about the key hire at Jackson State, which is not just the largest historically Black university in Mississippi but the largest university in the state’s capital city.
Trustees typically keep thoughts like these hidden behind the closed doors of executive sessions, but Mississippi Today has reprinted the notes, when legible, exactly as they appear in the records.
There were some common themes. Though none of the notes mentioned Hudson outright, nearly all trustees wrote that community members asked for the board to conduct a more thorough background check on Jackson State’s next president — or more generally to follow an unbiased, by-the-book selection process.
“Vetting,” Cunningham wrote. “What are we going to do DIFFERENT?”
It’s still not clear why Hudson left Jackson State, but many in the community believe the university would not be looking for a new president had IHL not cut the search short to hire him. Community members have a similar critique of IHL’s hiring of Hudson’s predecessor, William Bynum Jr., whose tenure ended after he was arrested in a prostitution sting in 2020.
“don’t hire friends,” noted Teresa Hubbard, a trustee and Delta State University alumnus who had just wrapped up the search for the next president there, which resulted in an out-of-state hire.
Hubbard also noted that the community wants a president who will advocate for JSU, writing “don’t run off a strong willed person.”
Many students said they wanted to be more involved in the selection process, Hubbard also noted. IHL has yet to announce a presidential search committee, a panel of stakeholders that confidentially advise the board, for Jackson State.
Other stakeholders want to be more involved in the search too, Cunningham noted.
“Listen to the Alums,” he wrote. “$,$,$.”
“Allow us to sit before you and listen,” wrote Gee Ogletree, a trustee and University of Southern Mississippi alumnus who, like Hubbard, recently finished a presidential search. “Don’t want to be shamed.”
A few trustees took note of the one person who wanted to see Elayne Hayes-Anthony, the temporary acting president, take the top spot permanently. Chip Morgan, a trustee and retired executive vice president of the Delta Council, wrote that trustees would start looking at applications after the job description was posted. It’s not live yet.
Multiple trustees wrote that community members said the university urgently needs more money to fix its ailing infrastructure — and to get its own water system. Hudson’s administration had been lobbying for $17 million in funding for infrastructure repairs, including a new water system, during the legislative session.
“PWI’s have water systems,” Hubbard wrote. Cunningham noted that this was a “priority!!!”
The trustees did not shy away from taking note of the extensive criticism that some community members had for them. Ogletree summarized nearly every point made by Ivory Phillips, a dean emeritus at Jackson State and a former faculty senate president.
Phillips, Ogletree noted, is a “Critic of College Board,” that trustees have “Not Given JSU Best Attention” and many community members believe the “Listening Sessions are a Sham.”
Ogletree also noted another community member who put the blame for the failures of Hudson, Bynum and his predecessor Carolyn Meyers squarely on the board: “3 Presidents Chosen by You Guys.”
Several trustees seemed alarmed by one faculty member who said that she and other professors had experienced bullying from students. “SAFETY e.g. student threats!!!,” Cunningham wrote; “students cheat + admin does nothing,” Hubbard noted.
Cunningham editorialized his notes with emphatic capitalization, underlinings and exclamation points in blue ink. It appears he took great interest in comments made by Dawn McLin, a professor and the current faculty senate president, underlining her name multiple times and writing “CORE VALUES” beside it, a list that included integrity, “accountability” and “stick to policies/ procedures.”
After one instructor teared up talking about how she did not plan to send her kids to Jackson State due to security concerns, Cunningham wrote down the word “Safety.” He drew a square around it. “(Crying),” he noted. “SAFETY,” he wrote again, this time circling it multiple times.
In another note, Cunningham wrote that a community member wanted Jackson State to have an “open door policy” and for the university to “focus on RETENTION as well enrollment.”
“IHL’s roll(sic)?” he wrote underneath it.
Al Rankins, the IHL commissioner whose role it is to manage the eight university presidents, took notes in two columns titled “(Institutional Executive Officer) characteristics” and “issues.”
Under issues, Rankins wrote, among other things: “low morale,” “high presidential turnover,” “administration ignoring complaints,” “need more extensive background checks” and “need to place fence around campus.”
Under characteristics, he wrote, “integrity,” “strong moral compass,” “forward-thinking,” “understand traditions,” “participate in code of ethics training,” “progressive thinker,” “strong advocate for JSU,” “visible,” “transparent,” “visionary,” “structured and have backbone,” “welcoming,” “is home-grown talent,” “servant leader, faith in God” and “loves JSU and its students.”
Is there anything better than post-season baseball? The Clevelands have plenty to discuss with Southern Miss a No. 2 seed in the Auburn Regional, William Carey University threatening to win an NAIA national championship and the Mississippi High School State championship series taking place at Trustmark Park. There are so many story lines in Pearl, at Auburn and in Idaho where Carey coach Bobby Halford got his 1,300th victory Monday night.
The Tate Reeves campaign says the governor still intends to give away political contributions he has received from those involved in the state’s welfare scandal, though at this point those funds remain in his campaign coffers.
“The political donations from anyone who is connected to the TANF scandal will be donated to a worthy cause at the ultimate conclusion of the legal proceedings. Those cases are ongoing,” said Elliott Husbands, Reeves’ campaign manager, referring to the continuing investigation of the misspending of $77 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare funds.
In a February 2020 press conference, Reeves acknowledged receiving campaign contributions from people associated with the scandal and ongoing investigation, such as Nancy New and her son Zach, both of whom have pleaded guilty to state and federal charges related to the misspending of funds that were designed to provide assistance to the state’s poorest citizens.
“I can tell you right now, anything they gave to the campaign is going to be moved to a separate bank account,” Reeves said in 2020. “… Anything they gave the campaign will be there waiting to be returned to the taxpayers and help the people it was intended for. If that doesn’t happen, the money will go to a deserving charity.”
There is no indication that the funds have been transferred to a separate bank account based on a review of Reeves’ multiple campaign finance accounts. The Reeves campaign gave no indication that a separate bank account had been established.
Records indicated that the News contributed at least $6,000 to Reeves’ election efforts.
In Reeves’ 2019 gubernatorial campaign, he also filmed public education commercials touting his public school teacher pay plan at the News’ now shuttered private New Summit School in Jackson. Private school students and teachers were used for the commercial. Video from the 2019 New Summit advertisement has been used again this campaign cycle by Reeves in two commercials.
In addition to other charges and guilty pleas related to the welfare funds, federal prosecutors have alleged that Nancy New used at least $76,889 in public funds that were supposed to go to the New Summit School to purchase a house.
The governor also is close to other people who have been caught up in the welfare scandal. Fitness trainer Paul Lacoste, who received $1.3 million in welfare funds that the state is now trying to recoup, cut a campaign commercial on social media endorsing Reeves and touting himself as the governor’s personal coach.
And Reeves received a campaign contribution from members of Brett Favre’s family, including his wife Deanna.
Favre was able to secure $5 million in welfare funds to build a volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi. Favre had pledged to USM that he would raise funds for the volleyball center, and he has said he did not know the money he secured for the center was supposed to go to help poor people.
Referring to the inquiries from Mississippi Today, Husbands called Mississippi Today “a liberal Democrat SuperPAC” and mentioned an unnamed donor who has given money to both the nonprofit newsroom and to Brandon Presley, Reeves’ Democratic challenger for governor later this year.
Mississippi Today shares numerous contributors to both the Reeves and Presley campaigns, and no Mississippi Today donor has been convicted of misspending public funds.
Editor’s note: Donors do not influence Mississippi Today’s editorial decisions. A list of our donors, always posted publicly to our website, can be found here.
A $5 million federal lawsuit was filed Tuesday against the city of Indianola, the police chief and Officer Greg Capers, just days after police shot an 11-year-old boy.
“There is no way a reasonably trained officer who would have done what Greg Capers did — to shoot an unarmed 11-year-old,” Carlos Moore said Tuesday at a news conference outside his Grenada office. Moore, the managing partner of The Cochran Firm in the Mississippi Delta, is representing the youth, Aderrien Murry, and his mother, Nakala.
On May 20, she received an unexpected visit from “an irate father of one of her minor children,” according to the lawsuit. “(She) instructed her son to call the police, because she feared for her and the children’s safety.”
Capers responded and drew his gun, but “failed to assess the situation before displaying and-or discharging his firearm,” according to the lawsuit.
As a result, Aderrien, 11, was shot, resulting in a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and fractured ribs.
His mother said her son asked, “Why did he shoot me? “What did I do?” before he began crying.
Doctors intubated him when he arrived at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and put him on oxygen. They released him from the hospital four days later.
These injuries could have been avoided if Capers and other officers had received adequate training in this area. Instead, Capers acted with “deliberate indifference, reckless disregard and gross negligence,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit also accuses the officer of acting with malice, saying the “ulterior purpose in misusing the legal process was to severely harm Plaintiffs while not executing their lawful duties to actually serve and protect Plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals.”
City officials have not responded to the lawsuit, which represents only one side of a legal argument.
At the news conference Tuesday, Murry’s mother, Nakala, said whenever she closes her eyes, the scene flashes back — holding her son and applying pressure to his wound, only to see blood running from his mouth.
She called for a halt on the shootings of the sons of so many mothers. “We’re a voice for everybody,” she said, “because something needs to be done.”
Capers was named Policeman of the Year in 2021, according to the Enterprise-Tocsin. He is now on administrative leave with pay.
“If he’s your best, you need a clean house from top to bottom,” Moore said. “If that’s your best, I would hate to see the worst.”
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is now conducting a probe into the shooting.
Murry’s family is calling for the arrest of the officer on aggravated assault charges and for firing both the officer and chief of police, Moore said. “Give this family some justice and some peace.”
A Hinds County Circuit Court judge has ruled the state Democratic Party improperly disqualified Bob Hickingbottom from this year’s gubernatorial primary ballot.
The state party is appealing the decision to the state Supreme Court. The high court issued an order Tuesday for parties to file briefs and other paperwork by Wednesday to expedite the matter, with the start of absentee voting drawing near.
Hinds Circuit Judge Forest Johnson Jr. ruled that Hickingbottom meets qualifications to run for Mississippi governor — being at least 30 years old, a U.S. citizen for 20 years or more and a resident of the state for at least five years. The judge ruled that, while it is undisputed that Hickingbottom has failed to file a statement of economic interest with the Ethics Commission as required by law since he ran for governor in 2019 as a Constitution Party candidate, he should still be on the ballot.
The ruling said there is a difference between violating the law requiring a candidate to file an ethics report and qualifications to run for governor and, “Qualifications are core … Either you are or you’re not.” The court noted that if elected, Hickingbottom could face misdemeanor penalties for failing to file the report, including being barred from being sworn into office or receiving a salary.
The judge also ruled that while Hickingbottom appeared to wait too late to file an appeal of his disqualification by the party, his right to run for office and the right of people to vote for him “prevails over his delay in seeking relief from this court.”
“We are a constitutional democracy in this nation,” Johnson wrote. “Voting is a fundamental pillar of our democracy. The right of citizens to run for elected office, while not yet recognized on the same level as voting itself, is at least a quasi fundamental pillar of our democracy.”
The state Democratic Party Executive Committee in February ruled that Hickingbottom and another little-known candidate, Gregory Wash, had not met eligibility requirements to run for governor, with both failing to file statements of economic interest with the Ethics Commission. This left Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley as the lone candidate on the Aug. 8 primary ballot. Wash, who ran for governor as a Democrat four years ago, did not appeal the decision in court.
Presley is considered the frontrunner in the Democratic Primary and is expected to face incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who faces two little-known candidates in his primary, in the Nov. 7 general election.
Vernon Jordan, who once worked alongside Medgar Evers as a field secretary for the NAACP and later advised Bill Clinton, survived an assassination attempt in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin (and so did Hustler publisher Larry Flynt).
Franklin was acquitted of the assault — only to confess his guilt years later. In an interview, Franklin said he considered Adolf Hitler his hero and “Mein Kampf” his Bible. “I read it hundreds of times.”
Trying to start a “race war,” he said he bombed synagogues, shot interracial couples and killed “enemies of the white race.” By the time it ended, he had killed at least 22 people, including Jackson State University student Johnnie Noyes Jr., who had simply been washing his car.
In 2013, Franklin was executed in Missouri for the 1977 murder of Gerald Gordon outside a synagogue in St. Louis.
Mississippi Today’s Adam Ganucheau, Geoff Pender, Bobby Harrison and Taylor Vance break down frequently asked questions about the 2023 lieutenant governor’s race. The Republican primary features incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and state Sen. Chris McDaniel.
