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FEBRUARY 12, 1900

Five hundred Black students at a Jacksonville, Florida, school sang a new song, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”

Their principal, James Weldon Johnson, had written the words, and his brother had finished the tune in time to honor Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The brothers moved on to New York City, but the children kept on singing the new song and soon others joined them.

“Within 20 years, it was being sung over the South,” soon gaining the nickname, the “Negro National Anthem,” Johnson recalled. He became executive secretary for the NAACP, a crusader against lynchings and an important voice for the voiceless, coining the phrase “Red Summer” to describe the 1919 summer filled with race massacres.

But he remains best known for the song, which talks of the exodus from brutal slavery to the promised land. The lyrics continue to resonate today:

“We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, out from the gloomy past, ’til now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.”

The song continues to be recorded by top celebrities, including Beyoncé, and is now being played at NFL games, alongside the National Anthem.

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For a brief period in Mississippi’s political past, there was suspense going into the November statewide general elections about which party would control the Legislature.

For much of the state’s history, though, the minority party had no mathematical chance to capture the state Legislature in the general election. And that is certainly the case now.

If all the candidates Democrats found to qualify to run for state House and Senate seats won their November general elections, the Republicans still will have sizable majorities when the 2024 session begins.

Eleven Democrats qualified by the Feb. 1 deadline to run for House seats currently held by Republicans. But few expect all of the Democratic candidates to defeat the Republican incumbents. It would be more likely that all would lose.

But even if all 11 Democrats won, Republicans would still control a majority in the House. There are currently 76 Republicans, 41 Democrats and three independents in the 122-member chamber. Two seats are vacant — one held for years by a Democrat and one that traditionally is a Republican seat.

If the Democrats won all of those 11 seats, they would have 53 members, including the current vacancy, in the 122-member House. Democrats also will be favored to win another seat currently held by Michael Ted Evans, an independent from Preston in east Mississippi, though a Republican will be on the ballot. Democrats also could pick up a seat in House District 64, currently held by Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson.

Over in the Senate, the outlook is not much better for the Democrats. Republicans currently have a 36-16 advantage in the 52-member Senate. Democrats are challenging five of those 36 Republicans. Even using the new math, there is no way in November that Democrats can gain control of the Senate.

The state is not quite in the same position it was for decades when it was a given that the Democrats would control the Legislature and there would be only a handful of Republican lawmakers at best. No matter what happens in November, there will be a healthy number of Democrats in both the House and Senate.

For a few election cycles in the late 1990s and 2000s, as state politics evolved from Democratic to Republican control, there was suspense going into the November general election about which party would control the Legislature.

That culminated in the 2011 elections, when Republicans by a narrow margin won the House for the first time since Reconstruction and captured the Senate by a wider margin. Those Republican majorities grew during the four-year term as House and Senate members changed from Democratic to Republican.

As a result of the 2015 elections, Republicans gained more seats and captured a three-fifths majority in both chambers. That was significant since a three-fifths majority gives Republicans enough votes to pass a tax cut or tax increase without any Democratic support if all the Republicans stick together.

Going into the 2023 elections later this year, Republicans have two-thirds majorities in both chambers — enough to pass by the required two-thirds majority a resolution to amend the Mississippi Constitution.

Should Democrat Brandon Presley prove political prognosticators wrong and defeat Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves this November, Republicans without any Democratic help would have the required two-thirds majority needed to override a Presley veto.

Some other interesting legislative nuggets resulting from the deadline to qualify to run for office:

• Republicans are running in seven House seats currently held by Democrats. They are likely to win at least two of those seats.
• Republicans are challenging in four Senate districts held by Democrats.
• Twenty-eight House Republicans, including 27 incumbents, are unopposed this year without opposition in the party primary or in the general election from Democrats or from third party candidates.
• Nineteen House Democrats are running with no opposition.
• Sixteen Senate Republicans are running unopposed.
• Seven Senate Democrats are running with no opposition.

Under the current political climate, there is most likely no legislative map that could be drawn where the Democrats could capture control of the Legislature. But by the same token, the Republicans have gerrymandered the districts to such an extent that there are currently few competitive districts. Under the current legislative districts, there are a lot of Republican districts where the Democrat has little chance of winning and a fewer number of Democratic districts where the Republican has little or no chance to prevail.

A more balanced map with more competitive districts could be drawn.

But in the current political climate with the current legislative districts, the bottom line is that while there might be some individual races of interest on Nov. 7, there will be no questions that night about which party will control the Mississippi Legislature.

For decades it was the Democrats. Now it is Republicans.

In Mississippi, the more things change the more they stay the same.

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FEBRUARY 11, 1790

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society, believed to be the first American society dedicated to the cause, petitioned Congress for emancipation of all who were enslaved.

Educator and abolitionist Anthony Benezet started the organization after the creation of a school in Philadelphia for Black Americans. Benjamin Franklin served as president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, which sought to create schools for Black Americans and to help them find jobs.

The society became a model for other abolitionist groups that followed. One of its members, Robert Purvis, a Black abolitionist, helped form the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, using his home and farm to hide those who had escaped slavery before helping them escape to other cities and to Canada by way of the Underground Railroad.

The society still exists, combating racism and seeking to reduce harsh sentencing and the over-representation of Black Americans in prison.

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NFL legend Brett Favre maintains he did nothing wrong.

The recent focus on two of his projects that received welfare money during the biggest public corruption scandal in Mississippi history is just a pretext, his attorneys say, for blaming and smearing him in the media.

They say he never pledged his own money to build the widely publicized volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, so he couldn’t have personally benefitted from the taxpayer money used on the project.

And plus, there were many more state employees, attorneys and politicians who facilitated or approved of the legal loophole — which state prosecutors called a scheme to defraud the government — to funnel $5 million in federal grant funds from Mississippi Department of Human Services through a lease agreement between a private nonprofit and the university.

Favre, in the new filing, said former Gov. Phil Bryant knew that grant funding from the welfare department was behind the volleyball project.

“The agreement was reviewed and approved by the Attorney General, who recommended that the IHL Board of Trustees approve it, which they did,” Favre’s latest court motion reads. “The IHL Board of Trustees expressly noted that MCEC’s funding was via a block grant from MDHS. The Governor was aware of the source of the funding and supported it. Following final approval, Southern Miss publicly announced the plans for the State-owned Wellness Center and lauded MCEC’s support for the project. Not one public Mississippi official or lawyer expressed any objection to or concern about the funding and plan.”

Favre makes these new arguments in a recent motion to dismiss civil charges against him. Mississippi Department of Human Services alleges in its amended complaint filed in December that Favre is liable for more than $7 million that he helped funnel away from the poor or anti-poverty programs.

An email Favre’s attorneys entered into court appears to contain notes from assistant USM Athletic Director Daniel Feig about the MDHS funding proposal for the volleyball stadium. In the email, Feig acknowledged that the MDHS grant funds cannot be used on construction projects. But MDHS’s attorneys — Garrig Shields and Jacob Black, also defendants in the suit — advised that MDHS could give the money to a nonprofit called Mississippi Community Education Center, run by criminal defendant Nancy New, and she could give the money to USM Athletic Foundation through a lease. The notes suggest the theory that when MDHS money leaves the agency into the hands of the nonprofit, it becomes “private” money, and therefore federal regulations do not apply.

Feig did not immediately respond to a Facebook message Friday evening

Feig notes that other universities have entered similar lease agreements (“sub grants to do youth camps”) and that they could use those contracts as a model. He also wrote that even though they would be using MDHS funds, “Rather not have MDHS named.”

“If, as MDHS falsely alleges, Favre was part of a conspiracy, it was the most public and open conspiracy in Mississippi history, it was directed and carried out by MDHS itself to transfer funds from one public state entity to another, Southern Miss, and it was vetted and approved by numerous lawyers and State officials,” Favre’s motion reads. “To hold Favre responsible under these circumstances would have no legal or factual justification.”

Nancy New’s son Zach New, a nonprofit employee, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government for his role in the volleyball sham lease agreement. He is the only one facing criminal consequences over the scheme; Nancy New’s lengthy plea agreement does not include the USM Athletic Foundation payment.

In addition to the $5 million volleyball project, MDHS claims Favre was party to a sham agreement to funnel $2.1 million in welfare money to a pharmaceutical startup company that the athlete was investing in — an allegation Favre denies.

“The Amended Complaint, again, does not, as it cannot, allege that Favre was aware that the money given to Prevacus consisted of TANF funds, even assuming that it did,” Favre’s motion reads. “And, even if Favre knew that Prevacus received public funding, he would have had no reason to suspect that there was anything improper about it—state governments routinely give financial benefits to private businesses to entice them to do business within their states—precisely what is alleged as to Prevacus.”

Favre is just one of several dozen defendants from whom MDHS is attempting to recoup tens of millions in misspent funds. Friday was a major filing deadline in the lawsuit, so several defendants filed responses at the same time, including Favre.

The court also saw filings Friday from defendants University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation; former state lawmaker Will Longwitz and his lobbying firm Inside Capitol; Nick Coughlin and his company NCC Ventures; former Family Resource Center employee Amy Harris; Williams, Weiss Hester & Company, the firm responsible for auditing Nancy New’s nonprofit; and former professional wrestler Brett DiBiase, who was the first to plead guilty in the separate criminal case in 2020. Several more were expected to file by the end of the evening.

In his motion, Favre called into question the involvement of former Gov. Bryant and current Gov. Tate Reeves in the funding structure that allowed for federal grants intended to alleviate poverty to flow unchecked through the nonprofit of their politically connected friend.

“Nancy New was well connected with numerous Mississippi officials, including Davis and then-Governor Bryant, and close friends with Governor Bryant’s wife Deborah Bryant,” the motion reads. “State officials like Davis, former Governor Bryant, and current Governor Tate Reeves were aware that New, through MCEC, used State money to provide services and funding to various State initiatives through, among other things, the Family First Initiative of Mississippi, an anti-poverty program started by Governor Bryant in conjunction with other State officials.”

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The election qualification of Mandy Gunasekara, who filed to run for public service commissioner in the northern district of Mississippi, is being challenged before the Republican Party.

A letter sent to Republican Party Chairman Frank Bordeaux by Hernando attorney Matthew Barton, who is a Republican candidate this year for district attorney in DeSoto County, says that Gunasekara has not met the legal requirement of being a citizen of Mississippi for “five years preceding the day of election.”

The letter reads, “Mrs. Gunasekara fails to qualify and should be removed because she does not meet the requirements.”

Gunasekara, former chief of staff of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Trump administration, is vying for the open PSC seat in the Republican primary against state Rep. Chris Brown of Nettleton and Tanner Newman, a former staffer of U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and now an administrator in the Tupelo city government.

Incumbent PSC Commissioner Brandon Presley is running as a Democrat for governor this election cycle. No Democrat or third party candidate has qualified for the open seat, meaning the winner of the August Republican primary will hold the seat.

The executive committee of the state Republican Party has the authority to rule on election challenges, such as residency requirements.

In a statement to Mississippi Today, Gunasekara, who now lives in Oxford, said she is qualified to vie for the PSC post.

“My heart, my home, and my family have always been in Mississippi,” she said. “My time fighting for conservative values with President Trump is why I’m the most qualified candidate and the subject of these attacks. I conferred with Mississippi election law experts, and I meet the requirements for PSC.”

In the letter to the state Republican Party, Barton documented where Gunasekara voted in the District of Columbia in 2018. She qualified to vote in Mississippi in January 2019.

She also owned a home in the District of Columbia and received a homestead exemption on her 2021 property taxes, the letter and public documents provided show.

The letter said the Office of Tax Revenue explains, “To qualify for the homestead deduction, you must be domiciled the District of Columbia and the property for which you are applying must be your principal residence.”

In addition, the letter points out that a mortgage document from 2020 said that Gunasekara “shall continue to occupy the property as borrower’s principal residence for at least one year after the occupancy.”

The letter to the state Republican Party is dated Feb. 9. The state parties have a June 9 deadline to submit to the Secretary of State’s office a list of qualified candidates for the August primary elections.

Spencer Ritchie, Gunasekara’s lawyer, said, “Under clearly established Mississippi law, citizenship and residency are not synonymous. To the extent Mandy ever lost her Mississippi citizenship during her time working in D.C., which is debatable, she certainly regained it once she took several concrete steps in 2018 to abandon D.C. and once again make Mississippi her permanent home … The Mississippi Republican Party State Executive Committee is very familiar with these fundamental concepts in Mississippi election law, and we are confident in how they will resolve the matter.”

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The University of Mississippi Medical Center has announced it is filling a health care gap for burn care in Mississippi after the closure of the state’s only burn center. 

But in the case of children with burns, the hospital is sending these patients out of state, according to an internal email from a UMMC Burn Committee member sent this week and obtained by Mississippi Today.

On at least one recent occasion, UMMC sent a pediatric burn patient to an out-of-state children’s hospital. 

UMMC officials have publicly said they are caring for both adult and pediatric burn patients. At a Jan. 20 press conference announcing the creation of the burn center, the newly named medical director said the hospital has the necessary pediatric subspecialties to treat children with burns.

“We’ve got pediatric subspecialty-trained plastic surgeons and general surgeons that are 100% on board with managing that specific patient population,” said Dr. Peter Arnold, professor and division chief of plastic surgery at UMMC.  

Over the weekend of Jan. 27, a child with a noncritical burn arrived at Winston Medical Center in Louisville, according to hospital officials. When the hospital attempted to transfer the patient to UMMC, the transfer was denied.

“The review I got was that everything was not ready for pediatric (burns) at UMMC,” Robert Turcotte, director of nursing at Winston Medical Center, told Mississippi Today.

Instead, the child was sent to LeBonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis – a three-hour drive from Louisville. LeBonheur is not a designated burn center but does provide care for kids with burns less than 30% of the total body surface area. It also provides follow-up care in a weekly trauma/burn clinic.

Burn injuries are particularly time sensitive, experts say – a delay in treatment can lead to worsened outcomes and increased mortality. 

 “I can confirm that UMMC continues to care for a large number of adult and pediatric patients with acute burns and that number increases every day,” an emailed statement from UMMC’s communications director attributed to Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs at UMMC, said on Monday. 

Jones, through the communications office, said the hospital cannot comment on specific patient information, but there are “many variables” considered when deciding on “the safest and most appropriate care for a patient.” 

Later this week, however, a member of the newly formed Burn Committee at UMMC listed in an internal email obtained by Mississippi Today examples of burn patients the hospital is not admitting. Those include: patients with burns greater than 20% of total body surface area; inhalational injury; electric burns; burn lesions to face, hands, feet, genitals; and, finally, children. 

In response to questions about the contents of the email, UMMC Director of Communications Patrice Guilfoyle sent an emailed statement: “As part of our ongoing work around the processes and and procedures of the new Burn Center, we will receive Mississippi burn patients transferred to UMMC and then the care team, upon evaluation, will make the decision on burn treatment that’s in the best interest of the patient. Our Emergency Department last week notified emergency care staff, including Mississippi MED-COM, that we would accept transfers of all burn patients.”

MED-COM is the emergency communications for UMMC and hospitals and emergency providers throughout Mississippi. 

Lawmakers on Friday debated a bill regarding the establishment of a burn center in the state, and several appeared confused about UMMC’s status in caring for burn patients. One state senator quoted from UMMC’s press release stating the burn center had already been established at UMMC. 

“I just went on the website for the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and I’m reading a release that just came out three weeks ago that says ‘I am pleased to announce the establishment of the Mississippi Burn Center,’” Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said during debate on the Senate floor. 

Another senator pointed out the Institutions of Higher Learning had approved UMMC to become a burn center.

“The IHL board does not have the ability to name the burn center in Mississippi. The Health Department determines that,” responded Sen. John Polk, R-Hattiesburg. 

After the burn center in Greenville closed in 2005, state lawmakers in 2006 approached then-Vice Chancellor of the University of Mississippi Medical Center Dr. Dan Jones about establishing a burn center at UMMC. Jones told Mississippi Today he asked lawmakers for a yearly commitment to help UMMC run the program, but lawmakers only offered one-time money.  

UMMC walked away, citing financial constraints, but lawmakers nevertheless passed a bill in 2007, sans funding, authorizing the university to create the Mississippi Burn Center. The bill being debated Friday brings forward that code section for possible amendments. Polk wanted to change the language from UMMC “shall” establish the Mississippi Burn Center to “may” establish – in light of possible competition from Mississippi Baptist Medical Center.

According to the internal email, UMMC officials are uncertain of how long the process of becoming a burn center will take. The goal, it says, is for UMMC to become a burn center admitting complex cases by January of 2025. 

It also said the committee is aware most providers at UMMC do not have experience treating burn patients but there will be burn care education and training offered. Only about three additional employees will be hired at this time.

The former medical director at Merit Health Central’s burn center, Dr. Derek Culnan, is currently treating burn patients at Baptist. Speaker of the House Philip Gunn authored a bill that would allocate $12 million to establish a burn center at Baptist in Jackson. That bill is still pending. 

Culnan, a fellowship-trained burn surgeon, is being sued by his former employer and the operator of the center at Merit Health Central, Joseph M. Still (JMS) Burn Center Inc., for allegedly violating his employment contract by soliciting JMS employees to join his new company. He created the new company after Merit Health Central announced it would be closing the burn center. 

Officials with Baptist declined to comment when asked about the lawsuit’s impact on a potential burn center.

“It would be inappropriate for us to discuss an active lawsuit or any related plans. However, as always, we can confirm that we are committed to providing quality care for the residents of Mississippi,” a statement from Kimberly Alexander, public relations manager for Baptist Memorial Health Care, said. 

Alexander said Culnan and his team have treated 14 pediatric burn patients since he began there in late November.

Editor’s note: Kate Royals, Mississippi Today’s community health editor since January 2022, worked as a writer/editor for UMMC’s Office of Communications from November 2018 through August 2020, writing press releases and features about the medical center’s schools of dentistry and nursing.

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HATTIESBURG — The Louisiana Cajuns were raining bright red all over Southern Miss’s basketball parade. The Cajuns, who had won 10 straight, led by 10 points with four minutes and change to go in the first half. The Golden Eagles were drowning in a sea of missed shots and foul trouble.

Louisiana’s all-Sun Belt Conference forward Jordan Brown was scoring seemingly at will. No Golden Eagle could stay in front of Themus Folks, Louisiana’s left-handed whirling dervish of a point guard. Worse, Southern Miss stars Felipe Haase and Austin Crowley were largely ineffective, Crowley on the bench in foul trouble and Haase scoreless having missed all five of his shots and without a single rebound. It seemed Haase and many of his teammates were shooting at a moving target.

Thursday night’s mid-major showdown was fast becoming a beat-down. A raucous crowd of 8,097 at Green Coliseum — the first sellout in 14 years here — was watching what seemed a replay of so many USM basketball debacles in recent seasons.

That’s right. Bleak doesn’t begin to describe the Golden Eagles’ situation, and perhaps that’s appropriate. Nothing is supposed to be easy – and it’s not – for this team, which has become college basketball’s version of Lazarus. Of course, Lazarus, in the Bible, was buried for four days. These Eagles have been dormant for years.

READ MORE: The stunning transformation of USM basketball

By now, most readers will know that Southern Miss fired back for a 82-71 victory, its 22nd of the season against just four defeats. The Eagles erased the 10-point deficit and won by 11, edging one game ahead of Louisiana in the tight Sun Belt race.

Haase, the multi-talented Chilean, scored all of his 17 points in the second half. Crowley started the second half and announced his presence with a long, rainbow-like three-pointer that immediately got the crowd back into it. DeAndre Pinckney poured through 14 of his team-high 22 points in the last 20 minutes. Green Coliseum — the Greenhouse, it is called around here — became a noise factory. Just three months ago, you almost could have a conversation with someone across the court in this place. Now, you can’t hear yourself think. It is difficult to describe just how loud it was, and it seemed to lift the Eagles to a much higher level of play. Southern Miss shot a blistering 62% in the second half, and 63% from beyond the three-point arc.

“An incredible euphoria,” was how Jay Ladner, the Southern Miss coach described the atmosphere.

“It just makes me so happy to see all the little kids running around with big smiles on their faces and so many grown-ups acting like kids,” Ladner said.

Haase, Crowley and Pinkney have provided three-pronged leadership all season in this outhouse-to-penthouse story. That said, it took so much more than their prowess to secure the biggest Southern Miss basketball victory since many of these kids with big smiles on their faces have been alive.

My MVP vote this night would go to Neftali Alvarez, the irrepressible Puerto Rican point guard who has come back from a leg injury to provide instant energy off the USM bench. Nefta, as his teammates call him, applied constant defensive pressure, directed the offense, and somehow weaved and muscled his way to the bucket for critical baskets. He scored 17 points, passed out four assists, stole the ball twice and played his best basketball during that critical period late in the first half when Southern Miss cut that 10-point deficit down to a manageable five.

But it took more than Alvarez’s heroics, as well. Big Tyler Mormon came off the bench to slow – if not completely stop – Louisiana’s talented Brown. After scoring 16 points on 7 of 11 shooting in the first half, Brown scored nine points, including just two of six field goals, in the second. Donovan Ivory was also huge off the bench for the Eagles, scoring seven points and defending well in his 22 minutes of playing time. The Golden Eagles out-scored the Cajuns by 18 points while Ivory was on the floor. That was better even than Crowley, the sharp-shooting Ole Miss transfer. USM was a plus-17 during Crowley’s 27 minutes of playing time.

What is becoming increasingly apparent with each USM victory is how much this team enjoys one another. They willingly share the basketball. They constantly encourage one another. They appear to be having so much fun.

You can even see it in the warm-ups when they come out in their cover-up shirts that say “Southern Miss grit” on the front and the number “14” on the back. Wait, you say, everybody can’t be number 14. No, but that’s where Southern Miss was picked to finish in the Sun Belt Conference, 14th of 14 teams.

Instead, for now, fast approaching March Madness, they are first, but they wear that “14” like a badge. They have Southern Miss fans by the thousands pinching themselves and asking, “Is this real?”

The young’uns’ big smiles — and the grown-ups acting like kids — serve as a definitive and affirmative answer.

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I guess the idea of the legislation — to allow trained teachers to carry weapons in school — would work as well here in Mississippi as anywhere; yet, I still have serious reservations. I think of my high school science teacher, who weighed 80 pounds on a good day, going Dirty Harry on someone. And honestly, how horrible is it that we even live in a world where this is an even a conversation.

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FEBRUARY 10, 1989

Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first Black American to lead a major political party in U.S. history.

Brown was a descendant of Mississippi Reconstruction lawmaker Eugene B. Welborne, who had to flee the state to avoid being killed. He and his brother disguised themselves as Confederate soldiers and “carried it off because of their fair coloring,” Brown recalled.

He grew up in the Theresa Hotel in Harlem, which his father managed. In the hotel, he bumped into the likes of boxer Joe Louis and actor Paul Robeson and enjoyed the world-class entertainment available at the nearby Apollo Theater.

The son of Howard University graduates, his parents sent him to prep schools, and he became the only Black student in the freshman class at Middlebury College in Vermont. White classmates from the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity welcomed him, but the national organization objected because it barred Blacks. Fellow fraternity members backed him, leading to the chapter’s expulsion by the national chapter.

Brown then became a trustee at the mostly white school. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he earned a law degree, became a social worker and joined the National Urban League before becoming the first Black attorney at a high-powered Washington law firm. At first glance, Brown seemed unlikely to become chairman. He had just managed Jesse Jackson’s 1988 campaign for president. “I promise you,” he told the Washington Post, “my chairmanship will not be about race; it will be about the races we win.”

Under his leadership, Democrats saw the election of a Black governor in Virginia and a Black mayor in New York City. Democrats also picked up four congressional seats in special elections. In 1992, Bill Clinton became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win in 16 years, and he appointed Brown as Secretary of Commerce.

Three years later, Brown was on an official trade mission when he died in a plane crash in Croatia. Clinton praised Brown, calling the secretary “one of the best advisers and ablest people I ever knew.”

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