Alvin Sykes convinced federal prosecutors to prosecute Richard Bledsoe for a hate crime. Credit: Kansas City Public Library
A federal judge sentenced Raymond Bledsoe to life for beating Black jazz saxophonist Steven Harvey to death in a Kansas City park because of his race.
A Missouri jury had acquitted Bledsoe of murder, and afterward, he reportedly bragged to his girlfriend about killing a “n—–” and getting away with it.
Family members, Alvin Sykes and the Steve Harvey Justice Campaign convinced federal authorities to pursue the case. At the time, the conviction was reportedly the fourth under the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
In 2013, federal corrections authorities denied parole to Bledsoe. To date, he remains the longest serving inmate convicted under that Civil Rights Act. Sykes later helped bring both the Justice Department’s reopening of the Emmett Till case and the passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
Sykes died in 2021, and his New York Times obituary read, “Though he never took a bar exam, Mr. Sykes was a brilliant legal and legislative operator whose admirers included City Council members, politicians and U.S. attorneys general from both parties. … He led a monk’s life in the name of social justice. He rarely held a job, wore second hand clothing and lacked a permanent address for long stretches of time, staying with friends instead and living off donations and, later, speaker fees. He never learned to drive and so walked everywhere, most often to the reference section of the library in Kansas City, Mo, where he did his research, or to a booth at a restaurant that he used as an informal office, his papers surrounded by cups of coffee and stubbed-out cigarettes.”
Former Gov. Phil Bryant opted Thursday to release hundreds of pages of text messages with figures in the Mississippi welfare scandal after initially fighting a subpoena against him.
But several key messages between the state’s chief executive and his appointed welfare director are missing from the batch, according to a separate trove of leaked text messages obtained and possessed by Mississippi Today.
In a video statement he published prior to releasing the texts and emails Thursday, Bryant said he has been “as open and honest as I can be” about the massive fraud scheme that took place under his watch, resulting in the loss of $77 million in federal welfare funds from 2016 to 2019.
While thousands of text messages have come out in the course of Mississippi Department of Human Services’ civil litigation, the public has yet to see any messages sent during the pertinent months of the scandal between Bryant and his subordinate who ran the agency John Davis.
Bryant said on Thursday he does not possess any text messages with Davis between 2016, when Davis became director, and June of 2019, when Bryant forced Davis to retire — including the early 2019 messages Mississippi Today already retrieved and published last year in its investigative series “The Backchannel.”
Texts that Mississippi Today possesses that Bryant didn’t produce on Thursday include:
An exchange in which Bryant asked Davis to fund a specific vendor, to which Davis responded, “Yes sir we can definitely help. You can go ahead and tell them I will be reaching out to fund them. I will do today.”
A text Davis sent Bryant explaining that he had “FOUND A WAY TO FUND” a vendor Bryant supported after initially learning it would violate federal welfare grant regulations. Bryant responded: “Your (sic) the best..”
A text in which Bryant asked Davis about a Mississippi Today report on federal welfare expenditures. Davis responds that the state is spending money in “areas that encourage getting a keeping a job.” Bryant responded: “Keep up the good work.”
In response to Mississippi Today questions, a spokesperson for Bryant said on Thursday the former governor did not delete any messages from his phone.
Bryant, who faces no criminal or civil charges, has been at the center of public scrutiny for his alleged role in diverting tens of millions of federal funds intended to help the state’s poorest residents away from the needy. Following “The Backchannel” reporting in 2022, several Mississippians who have pleaded guilty to criminal or civil charges have alleged in court that Bryant directed or influenced their misspending or fraud.
Davis, who has remained the most silent in the case, has since pleaded guilty to 20 charges — two federal and 18 state — of conspiracy, theft or fraud and is aiding federal prosecutors in an ongoing investigation while awaiting sentencing.
After an agency employee brought forward a small tip of fraud against Davis in June 2019, Bryant turned over the information to State Auditor Shad White, whom Bryant initially appointed to his position, and forced Davis to retire. At this time, investigators from the auditor’s office retrieved Davis’ phone, which held messages with Bryant dating back only to March of 2019.
“John has dedicated his life to serving others,” Bryant wrote in a glowing statement about Davis’ retirement, which did not address the fraud investigation.
Mississippi Today exclusively obtained 14 pages of text messages between Bryant and Davis sent in the four months leading up to Davis’ ousting. In the texts, Bryant asked Davis to fund specific subgrantees and praised him for his efforts to reduce the number of poor families receiving aid under under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF.
But when Bryant gathered the communication in response to a subpoena, he found that he did not have any of these messages in his possession, his spokesperson said, therefore he did not produce them Thursday.
“Everybody in modern America knows you can delete a text,” said Jim Waide, the attorney for Davis’ nephew Austin Smith, a defendant in the civil suit.
Waide is one of the attorneys who filed a subpoena on Bryant. One of the items he requested was any communication in which Bryant sought help from Davis for his nephew, which Mississippi Today first uncovered in “The Backchannel.”
These texts, in which Bryant thanked Davis “for all your (sic) have done,” do not appear in the documents Bryant produced Thursday.
“And we know they exist because (Mississippi Today) published them, several of them, between him and John Davis. So we know they exist, or somewhere at one time they existed,” Waide said.
Bryant’s public relations representative Denton Gibbes addressed the missing texts in a statement released to the news media Thursday.
“To the extent any additional messages exist, Gov. Bryant does not have them,” Gibbes said. “Gov. Bryant is aware of a message between he and John Davis relating to his nephew, Noah McRae, that he does not currently possess. Gov. Bryant did not delete this or any other messages. He is unclear why this message is not on his mobile phone. Gov. Bryant has searched older devices in an effort to recover this and any other additional messages. Gov. Bryant even requested Apple’s assistance in recovering additional messages. These efforts were unsuccessful.”
The statement said Bryant chose to produce all the text messages with Davis in his possession, even though they were not responsive to the narrow subpoenas, “in the spirt (sic) of transparency.”
The newly released texts, which cover the time period July to September of 2019, show that Bryant and Davis communicated after the welfare director left office. “We are still here if you need us,” Bryant texted the embattled former director, accompanied by a prayer hands emoji, in mid-July of 2019 as the investigation into Davis’ conduct got underway.
After this, Bryant continued to contact Davis about where to find a vendor’s TANF funding. “Do you know where the $250k funding for JMG maybe at? Think this was some TANF dollars,” he wrote in August of 2019.
“Yes sir it was ready to be approved. It falls within the guidelines of TANF funding. It should not be a problem,” Davis responded.
Davis also expressed concern to the governor about being able to secure a new job, considering the ongoing auditor’s investigation. Bryant told Davis, “I have told the Auditor I would stay out of this and trust him to do his best.”
Within the welfare scandal, much of the focus has been on three projects that received more than $8 million in federal funding because of the alleged involvement of both Bryant and former NFL legend Brett Favre. These include a volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, a pharmaceutical startup company called Prevacus and a $1.1 million promotional contract with Favre himself.
Mississippi Today published its 2022 investigation about Bryant’s role in the scandal after receiving and reviewing hundreds of pages of text messages obtained by investigators in the case, including those between Bryant, Favre, and Prevacus founder Jake Vanlandingham.
The texts showed that after Bryant met with former NFL legend Brett Favre about supporting his startup pharmaceutical venture in late 2018, the then-governor promised to “open a hole” for Favre and less than a week later, welfare officials including Davis struck a deal at the athlete’s home to funnel $1.7 million of federal grant funds into the project.
When the public funds started flowing to the drug company, Favre texted Bryant, “We couldn’t be more happy about the funding from the State of MS,” though Bryant denies knowing that the company received any public funds. Two days after leaving office, Bryant then agreed by text to accept “a company package for all your help,” Vanlandingham wrote, but arrests occurred before they were able to meet.
“The fact is I did nothing wrong,” Bryant said in his statement Thursday morning. “I wasn’t aware of the wrongdoings of others. When I received evidence that suggested people appeared to be misappropriating funds, I immediately reported that to the agency whose job it is to investigate these matters. It’s been a long and difficult year watching as decades of my public service is dragged through the mud and hoping it doesn’t affect those closest to me.”
Waide and Gerry Bufkin, the attorney for nonprofit founder Nancy New, initially filed subpoenas against Bryant last year in the massive civil case that Mississippi Department of Human Services is bringing against 47 individuals or companies in an attempt to claw back the misspent funds.
Bryant has been fighting the subpoenas, arguing that his text messages are protected under executive privilege. Mississippi Today, the Daily Journal and Mississippi Free Press filed a motion in early April opposing Bryant’s attempts to block public access to the documents. Bryant chose to release the messages before the court had a chance to rule on the matter.
“After much thought and discussion with counsel, I’ve made the decision to forgo any arguments about executive privilege of my text messages in this matter and simply release them all,” Bryant said in the video statement on Thursday. “Frankly, I’m tired of paying legal fees to respond to lawsuits that I’m not a party to in order to protect my privacy and an executive privilege that should exist for future governors.”
The judge in the civil suit, Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Faye Peterson, would have had the final say on whether the texts were released. She recently filed her first major order in the civil suit, which has been in progress for the last year, in which she denied Favre’s motion to dismiss charges against him.
In response to Bryant’s decision to release the texts, current Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson told Mississippi Today in a statement that “the agency has not been provided any of these text messages since we are involved in pending litigation.”
“MDHS will be very interested to review and have counsel review these messages,” he added. “MDHS is interested in reviewing communications relating to all parties, especially those currently named in the civil complaint.
Waide said he didn’t buy Bryant’s argument that he was releasing the texts to avoid more legal fees.
“The attorneys’ fees have already been incurred when they wrote the brief,” Waide said. “He wouldn’t be incurring any additional attorneys’ fees now. And second, I believe it’s inevitable the judge was going to order him to release them, and that he did it as a smart public relations move.”
Bryant released the texts publicly on a new website called bryanttexts.com. Some of the photocopies are so faded, the dates of the messages are barely legible.
“We all know what’s going to happen next,” Bryant said in the video also uploaded to the website. “My text messages will be manipulated through a coordinated effort from a billionaire-driven media outlet and Democratic political consultants. These messages will be again mischaracterized into endless fodder for those who want to try to denigrate the success of my terms as governor and castigate Republican candidates in an election year.”
HATTIESBURG – Nearly a year after a Forrest County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot a mentally ill man, the man’s family has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the county for using fatal force rather than helping.
Corey Maurice McCarty Hughes, 45, died July 14, 2022 outside of his sister’s house in the Palmers Crossing neighborhood. As his family had done over a dozen times before, they went through the civil commitment process to get Hughes treatment and called sheriff’s deputies to pick him up and take him to the South Mississippi State Hospital in Purvis.
Investigators said a deputy shot Hughes in the neck and torso after the man struck him with a hammer. Months later, the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office determined the shooting was justified.
“This has left a hole in our hearts,” said Cassandra Teal, one of Hughes’ sisters who witnessed his death. “It wasn’t right what they (have) done.”
The lawsuit will be heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. The plaintiff is Hughes’ father, James, on behalf of Corey’s daughter, Chloe, and the defendants are Forrest County and 10 unnamed sheriff’s deputies.
Chloe Hughes, daughter of Corey Maurice Hughes, expresses emotion as she raises her fist during a press conference announcing the Hughes family lawsuit against Forrest County and law enforcement in the Forrest County Sheriff’s Department, at the Forrest County Circuit Courthouse in Hattiesburg, Miss. Thursday, May 4, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
It alleges “collective assault, negligence, gross negligence, and reckless disregard for the safety of others” and violation of Hughes’ federal, civil, Constitutional and human rights, according to the lawsuit.
The sheriff’s deputies inflicted “unnecessary bodily harm” through “excessive, unreasonable, and unjustifiable force,” the suit alleges.
In its response to the lawsuit complaint, the defendants denied the allegations and invoked qualified immunity, which protects a governmental entity and government officials including law enforcement from being sued for wrongdoing while doing their jobs, according to the lawsuit.
Trial is scheduled for April 1, 2024, in Hattiesburg before U.S. District Judge Halil Ozerden.
Hughes was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the late 1990s and took medication, his family said. But when he stopped taking it, a family member would go through the civil commitment process to get him treatment.
Verna Tameka McCarty, one of Corey’s sisters, said in 20 years, her brother had been civilly committed over a dozen times and the sheriff’s office was familiar with him. She asked why they acted differently the night he was killed.
“We have been going through this for years and have been trying to do the right thing in a situation when we needed further assistance,” she said.
McCarty said the deputies wronged her brother because they were not prepared to work with someone with mental illness.
Verna “Temeka” McCarty, sister of Corey Maurice Hughes, speaks during a press conference announcing the Hughes family lawsuit against Forrest County and law enforcement in the Forrest County Sheriff’s Department after her brother’s death, at the Forrest County Circuit Courthouse in Hattiesburg, Miss. Thursday, May 4, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Under state law, sheriff’s deputies are required to pick up civil commitment patients and take them to the state hospital or to a holding location such as a jail until there is an available bed.
Attorney Dennis C. Sweet IV, who is representing James Hughes in the civil lawsuit, said there are policies and procedures for law enforcement to follow when encountering people like Corey Hughes who have been diagnosed with mental illness. He said the deputies did not follow those rules.
The Forrest County NAACP and Community Action Team of Palmers Crossing joined the Hughes family to show support and call for justice and accountability.
“We will not go away,” said Nathan Jordan of the Community Action Team. “We will be here until justice is done.”
Crusading journalist Ida B. Wells, an African-American native of Holly Springs, Mississippi, was riding a train from Memphis to Woodstock, Tennessee, where she worked as a teacher, when a white railroad conductor ordered her to move to another car. She refused.
When the conductor grabbed her by the arm, “I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand,” she wrote. The conductor got help from others, who dragged her off the train.
In response, she sued the railroad, saying the company forced Black Americans to ride in “separate but unequal” coaches. A local judge agreed, awarding her $500 in damages. But the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed that ruling three years later. The decision upended her belief in the court system.
“I have firmly believed all along that the law was on our side and would, when we appealed it, give us justice,” she said. “I feel shorn of that belief and utterly discouraged, and just now, if it were possible, would gather my race in my arms and fly away with them.”
Wells knew about caring for others. At age 16, she raised her younger siblings after her parents and a brother died in a yellow fever epidemic. She became a teacher to support her family.
Incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves says he’s not just facing a Democratic opponent, he’s up against a national cabal of East- and West-coast liberal elites and media.
He repeatedly warned a campaign kickoff crowd Wednesday that “they” are out to get Mississippi.
“My friends, this is a different governor’s campaign than we have ever seen before in our state because we are not up against a local-yokel Mississippi Democrat, we are up against a national liberal machine,” Reeves told a crowd in Richland on Wednesday, at a second campaign kickoff event. “They are extreme. They are radical and vicious. They believe welfare is success. They believe that taxes are good and businesses are bad. They think boys can be girls, that babies have no life, and that our state and our nation are racist.
“They think they can teach all of us Mississippians a lesson,” Reeves said. “They do not like who we are and they do not like what we believe. They look at all we have accomplished as conservatives and they hate it. They see our progress on education and the economy and they want to stop it. You see, a successful, thriving, growing Mississippi does not work for them, not if it is also a God-fearing, family loving and truth-believing, hard-working conservative Mississippi … They want Mississippi to be the butt of their jokes … They want to kick Mississippi around, and you and me are simply in their way.”
Reeves on Wednesday held a campaign rally and lunch at Stribling Equipment in Richland, after having an initial campaign kick-off event Tuesday in Gulfport. About 250 people attended his Wednesday event, including many present and past elected officials, lawmakers and lobbyists and local government and GOP leaders.
The event was near his hometown of Florence and in his home county, Rankin. In the 2019 general election against Democratic former Attorney General Jim Hood he won Rankin County after losing there in the Republican primary and primary runoff that year.
Reeves didn’t mention his Democratic challenger, longtime Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, by name, but worked to cast the race as a nationalized battle between Republicans and Democrats. This was a winning strategy for him in Mississippi — which has been solidly ruby red in national elections for decades — in his first gubernatorial election against Hood.
“The election that is before us is a question of whether or not we will keep up our momentum in Mississippi,” Reeves said. “The national Democrats have recruited a candidate. They are filling up his bank account. They have sent in experts in far-left politics to run his campaign. They even sent the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, here to check on his progress.”
Reeves was referring to a four-state tour, including Alabama, Arkansas and Florida, by Newsom last month as part of his launch of a new political action committee meant to promote Democrats in GOP-led states. Presley did not meet with Newsom on his visit, but Reeves chided Mississippi media on Wednesday, telling the crowd, “Oh, you didn’t see the news of Gavin Newsom here campaigning? Mississippi media must have left that out.”
When asked about whether Presley met with Newsom during his visit, a Presley campaign spokesman said: “Brandon was in Nettleton attending Palm Sunday services at his home church.”
Reeves in his speech said Mississippi has made great gains in economic development and education, adding, “Today we are building a Mississippi where nobody has to leave.” He repeated the speech’s theme — “this is Mississippi’s time” — many times from the stump.
“I have a message for all those governors in New York and California and Illinois: Mississippi is coming to take your jobs, and we have no intention of giving them back,” Reeves said. He also asked the crowd, “Help us one more time … Let’s defeat the national liberals. This is Mississippi’s moment. This is Mississippi’s time.”
Ruby Ainsworth and Betty Phillips, both Simpson County Republican Executive Committee members, were among the crowd of supporters at Reeves’ Richland event.
“I think he gave an excellent speech, one of the best I’ve ever heard him do,” said Ainsworth. “I think he’s done an excellent job as governor.”
Phillips said: “He has moved Mississippi forward — in all the ways he just said he has.”
Former Mississippi U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, a Rankin Countian, agreed.
“I’m here today as a highly unpaid political volunteer,” Harper said. “… He has earned the right to be elected another four years.”
When asked how he believes Reeves will do in Rankin County, Harper joked, “I think it will be hard for him to get more than 90% of the vote in Rankin County.”
Mississippi cleared a big hurdle after lawmakers extended postpartum Medicaid coverage this session, guaranteeing low-income women a year of health care coverage after having a baby.
Now experts say that Mississippi needs to turn its attention to what happens before these women give birth. Early prenatal care is vital to healthy moms, babies and pregnancies, but because of the state Division of Medicaid’s policies, it’s unknown if the majority of pregnant Mississippians are getting that care.
The division, which funds more than two-thirds of births in Mississippi, doesn’t monitor when people go to their first prenatal visit. And the absence of presumptive eligibility in Mississippi creates major delays for people seeking prenatal care.
Pregnancy presumptive eligibility allows people to receive care when they’re pregnant, even if they’re not on Medicaid. It’s presumed that they qualify, so their providers enroll them and start billing Medicaid, which reimburses providers immediately.
That means fewer delays when it comes to receiving care. They’re able to go to doctor’s offices and get the care they need quickly, without having to pay out of pocket.
The agency is hoping to eventually track when recipients go to prenatal visits, but Communications Officer Matt Westerfield could not provide a timeline for when that data might be available. And Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder has said he won’t take steps to make it easier for expecting mothers to get on Medicaid without legislative action.
Mississippi is one of the most dangerous states in the country to give birth in, and early intervention is key to successful pregnancies, according to Dr. Anita Henderson, former president of the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The state’s dismal maternal mortality rate is getting worse, especially for Black people, and Mississippi has the highest infant mortality, preterm birth and low birthweight rates in the nation.
But as rural health care collapses and hospital closures loom, it’s getting harder to access health care for expecting Mississippians. Neonatal ICUs and labor and delivery units are closing, and county health departments stopped enrolling new maternity patients in 2016.
It’s a dangerous mix following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last summer to overturn abortion rights, which means the state is expecting thousands more pregnancies.
Care during the first trimester is crucial to a healthy pregnancy and healthy babies, especially for people with conditions that need to be managed like high blood pressure or diabetes.
“I think given the level of health concerns in our population that exists before pregnancy, we know too many people are going to start prenatal care with medical conditions that make that pregnancy high risk,” said Dr. Charlene Collier, an OB-GYN based in Mississippi. “The consequences are always snowballing when a person enters pregnancy with an untreated or complicated medical history.”
When people who are expecting can’t make it to a prenatal visit in a timely manner, the consequences can be deadly — and, often, preventable.
Collier cited the prevalence of congenital syphilis in Mississippi, which is at an all time high, to stress the importance of early care. She said there’s a limited time frame to prevent complications from syphilis.
Last month, the state health department implemented an emergency order requiring doctors to test pregnant patients for syphilis. Previously, Mississippi was one of six states in the country not to require the testing.
“Now that we’re seeing a rise in congenital syphilis, it’s even more important that people are in prenatal care, getting their blood work done and getting treatment so that infections like syphilis, which is easily treatable with penicillin, can be identified and treated early,” she said. “Any delays increase the chance of a really detrimental infection in a pregnancy.”
Another barrier to timely prenatal care is that it’s complicated to get pregnancy Medicaid coverage.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mississippi is one of 21 states as of January 2020 that doesn’t offer presumptive eligibility for pregnant people, which has significant benefits.
According to a study commissioned with the University of Mississippi Center for Population Studies by the Center for Mississippi Health Policy, preterm births are less likely for low-income people when they live in a state with presumptive eligibility and expanded Medicaid.
Mississippi is one of only three states in the country that has neither expanded Medicaid nor provides pregnancy presumptive eligibility.
And it takes the Mississippi Division of Medicaid about 24 days to approve pregnancy applications, Westerfield said in November. Until then, uninsured people who are expecting must foot the bills themselves, if a doctor sees them at all.
It’s a tedious process that even top officials in Mississippi are confused by.
At a recent press conference about Mississippi’s commitment to its “culture of life” following the overturning of abortion rights, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said that the state has presumptive eligibility. But he was referring to hospital presumptive eligibility, which allows hospitals to assume patients’ Medicaid eligibility to provide care. It is not the same thing as presumptive eligibility for pregnant people, which allows them to get care at doctor’s offices just as they would if they were insured.
Reeves’ spokesperson Shelby Wilcher responded that pregnant women in Mississippi have presumptive eligibility at hospitals. After Mississippi Today clarified hospital presumptive eligibility was not the same thing as presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, Wilcher suggested further questions be directed to the Division of Medicaid.
She did not respond to a question asking if the governor would support establishing presumptive eligibility for pregnant women.
“Presumptive eligibility is, intentionally, a very loosely used umbrella term,” said John Dillon Harris, a health care systems and policy consultant at the Center for Mississippi Health Policy. “The question is who is presumed eligible and for what?”
At the last Medical Care Advisory Committee Meeting on Feb 24, Snyder said that the Division of Medicaid wouldn’t utilize pregnancy presumptive eligibility unless directed to by the Legislature.
Westerfield said in an email that position is to prevent the DOM from paying “providers for services for women who subsequently would not qualify for Medicaid.”
Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, introduced a bill this past session to establish presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, but it died after being referred to the Medicaid committee, which met just once last legislative session and only advanced two bills out of committee.
Collier said she recently had a patient who applied for Medicaid but hadn’t yet been approved. The patient delayed getting ultrasounds and other labs out of fear of running up a higher bill even though all her bills would be back-paid once she got on Medicaid.
“I do think the lack of insurance preceding pregnancy is a major barrier to initiating early prenatal care, particularly getting bloodwork done in a timely manner,” Collier said.
It’s a paradox — a confirmatory pregnancy test is required to qualify for Medicaid, but many doctor’s offices don’t provide care to people who are uninsured.
County health departments still offer these confirmatory tests for free, said Liz Sharlot, communications director at the Mississippi Department of Health.
“In fact, that is the most common reason women come in for the pregnancy tests is to confirm that pregnancy test and receive the confirmation letter to bring to the Regional Medicaid Offices in order to apply for Medicaid benefits during pregnancy,” she said.
Clinics that specifically serve uninsured and underserved populations such as the Hinds Comprehensive Health Center, where Dr. Jaleen Sims works as an OB-GYN, also provide these confirmatory pregnancy tests at low cost.
It’s not clear how many people are aware these services are offered at low or no cost at places other than primary care doctor’s offices. And if they are aware, transportation can be another issue.
“The patients who live in these areas need a ride or they have to take off work for a full day to drive to Jackson or their closest areas, spend time in the waiting room, have their visit and then drive back,” she said. “By the time you finish with that you’ve missed … a full day of work for the most part.”
It also continues to be a challenge to recruit doctors, especially OB-GYNs, to Mississippi and keep them here. Of the five people who graduated from UMMC’s OB-GYN program in 2019, Sims was the only one to stay in Mississippi.
For the doctors who stay, their patient waitlists are long.
One of the nurses Sims works with had to use her health care connections to get into a doctor’s office. She had just missed her period and called to schedule an appointment, only to be told she had to wait four months.
“I’ll never judge a person again on coming late to prenatal care,” Sims said the nurse told her.
It’s hard work being pregnant in Mississippi, Sims said.
“It’s almost like you have this feeling of being defeated,” she said. “It’s like, ‘I’m trying everything that I can to take care of me and to take care of my baby. But I have all these barriers and hoops that I have to jump through just to get to that point.’”
Brandon Presley, the Democratic candidate for governor, collected around $1.35 million in donations since the beginning of this year, according to his campaign, surpassing fundraising benchmarks set by previous Democratic gubernatorial candidates.
A news release from his campaign said Presley is now sitting on $1.6 million in total campaign cash, giving the presumptive Democratic nominee more resources to build name ID and buy advertisements in a deeply conservative state.
“Brandon Presley is receiving overwhelming support from Mississippians because they are ready for a governor who will clean up state government and return power to the people’s hands,” Ron Owens, Presley’s campaign manager, said in a statement.
State law requires all candidates running for state offices to submit campaign finance reports by May 10. Neither Presley nor incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves have submitted their official reports to the Secretary of State’s office. The Reeves campaign has not yet released an early fundraising total.
Presley’s announcement likely marks the most money a Democratic candidate for governor has raised during the first fundraising period of the year in at least two decades.
A former mayor of Nettleton, Presley raised nearly twice as much as 2019 Democratic nominee Jim Hood, who raised $755,000 within the same period. Johnny Dupree, the Democratic nominee in 2011, raised around $228,000. Ronnie Musgrove, the party’s 2003 nominee, raised $837,696, according to the Associated Press.
But even with the recent influx of campaign funds, the current utility regulator in north Mississippi still faces a steep climb to raise enough cash to put him on a level playing field with the current governor.
Reeves in January reported that he had around $8 million in cash on hand, including $3.5 million that he raised during 2022.
A recent Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows Reeves has an 11-point lead over Presley, but a majority of voters indicated they still want someone other than Reeves to serve as governor.
If either candidate wants to change their popularity among voters, they will likely have to spend a substantial amount of money to improve their standing.
The Cleveland boys review the NFL Draft, the dismissal of Mississippi State’s pitching coach Scott Foxhall, Southern Miss’ chances to host the red-hot Atlanta Braves, and what Mississippi lost with the death of the great Ralph Boston.
