OurTupelo

GREENVILLE — Two former law enforcement officers pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges tied to a federal crackdown on drug trafficking in the Mississippi Delta.

Former Humphreys County deputy Dequarian Smith, 29, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges for conspiring to protect a transport of illegal drugs through portions of the Mississippi Delta between August and September of 2022. At the time, Smith was also an officer with the Isola Police Department.

On Sept. 14, 2022, Smith accepted a $500 bribe from a regional drug dealer and FBI informant in Sunflower County in exchange for protection of an illegal transport of drugs.

Smith said he resigned from the Humphreys County Sheriff’s Office and the Isola Police Department in January 2023.

Former Greenville police officer Martavis Moore, 32, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting as well as attempting to aid and abet a March 2023 transport of illegal drugs through Greenville. He accepted a $5,000 bribe from an FBI agent who posed as a member of a Mexican drug cartel to protect a transport of illegal drugs.

Under federal guidelines, Smith can be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, and Moore could be sentenced to 10 years to life in prison. Smith also faces up to a $1 million fine, while Moore could be charged up to $10,000. 

On Oct. 30, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed six indictments, which ensnared more than 14 former and current Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers, including two sheriffs, on drug trafficking charges. At least eight Mississippi Delta law enforcement agencies had officers indicted.

As part of their plea agreements, Moore and Smith were charged with one count each. Moore was initially charged with one count of carrying or using a firearm during a trafficking crime. 

U.S. Chief Judge Debra M. Brown of the Northern District of Mississippi accepted both guilty pleas and scheduled sentencing for Moore on May 20 and Smith on May 27.

Judge Brown released Moore and Smith on the conditions of their $10,000 unsecured bonds after their Oct. 30 arrests.

Moore declined to comment. Smith could not immediately be reached for comment.

Citing fears of dark money and special interests usurping the state’s constitutional republic, the Senate on Wednesday tabled a bill aimed at restoring Mississippi voters’ right to put issues directly on a ballot and sidestep the Legislature.

The move, for the fifth year since the state Supreme Court invalidated the former process for ballot initiative in the state Constitution, effectively snuffed out this year’s push for reinstating the ballot initiative. The measure faces a Thursday night deadline for passage and is not likely to be brought back up after the Senate tabled it with a voice vote. The House does not have a similar ballot initiative measure pending.

Had the measure passed, voters would have had to ratify it to amend the state Constitution in a statewide election. As it was presented, the measure also contained a safety clause that would have required more debate and another vote before it could have passed the Legislature.

Sen. Joel Carter, a Republican from Gulfport, made the motion to table the measure.

“You’ve got these big groups that have got the ability to raise a bunch of money and put things on the ballot,” Carter said. “… It’s not really about an initiative amongst the people … There’s big money behind ballot initiative, and that’s what we got elected for, to make tough decisions and make hard votes …

“This is not a good bill,” Carter said. “It’s a terrible bill.”

Other lawmakers, mostly Republicans, argued against the measure Wednesday before it was tabled.

Some warned that it could allow voters — with the help of special interest money — to reinstate abortion rights in Mississippi, despite the resolution containing a clause prohibiting abortion ballot initiatives.

Sen. Angela Burks Hill, a Republican from Picayune, said other states are looking to roll back ballot initiative rights and warned “leftist billionaires” could use it to restore abortion rights and overturn other conservative policy in Mississippi.

“The dark money coming in is pushed by the most leftist billionaires abroad and in the United States,” Hill said. “George Soros is one of the largest funders of ballot initiatives across the country.”

Some Democratic lawmakers, although supportive of ballot initiative generally, had issues with particulars of the proposal, and were planning to offer amendments before it was tabled.

Mississippi voters’ right to ballot initiative has been in the state Constitution since 1914, but the state Supreme Court threw it out in 1922. The initiative went dormant until the Legislature and voters restored the right by passing a measure in 1992, allowing voters to amend the state constitution. But the Supreme Court again nullified it on technical grounds in 2021 in a ruling on a lawsuit over voters passing a medical marijuana initiative.

During the 30 years that the state had an initiative, only seven proposals made it to a statewide ballot: two initiatives for term limits, eminent domain reform, voter ID, a personhood amendment, medical marijuana, and a measure requiring lawmakers to fully fund public education.

Of those seven, voters only approved eminent domain, voter ID and medical marijuana. The rest were rejected.

The Mississippi House passed a bill Wednesday that would allow prayer during school, adding Mississippi to a list of states challenging the Supreme Court edict that church and state remain separate. 

House Bill 1310 would mandate in state law that public schools provide students and employees with time to pray or read religious text during the school day. 

State law already says that students “may” pray at any time, but the activity isn’t explicitly protected. Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville, said the House bill is intended to provide an organized structure for accommodation, which is not currently in place, and stressed that prayer would not replace any learning time. 

While public schools have been prohibited from sponsoring prayer since a 1962 Supreme Court ruling, lawmakers in a handful of states, including Tennessee and Texas, have passed or are considering legislation similar to House Bill 1310. It aims to return prayer to schools — with apparent support from the Trump administration. Recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Education allows teachers to pray with students. 

The bill garnered 45 minutes of debate on Wednesday from House Democrats, who said that people in public schools have the right to freedom from prayer.

“If my child wants to sit at her desk and say a silent prayer, who is prohibiting that?” asked Rep. Daryl Porter, a Democrat from Summit. 

“They may not want to say a silent prayer,” Owen replied “They may want to get together with their fellow believers in Christ and pray together.”

The bill would also provide an “opt-in” mechanism. For students to be able to participate in prayer, parents must request it. And participating students would do so separate from non-participating students. 

Rep. Robert Johnson III, the Natchez-based leader of the House Democratic Caucus, said he was concerned about lawsuits over the bill. 

“All of the people who have asked questions about this bill …  just like me, we all love the Lord,” he said. “We believe in prayer, we believe in working together, we believe in respecting everybody’s right to prayer and everybody’s right to fellowship and congregate. But what we are very cognizant of is that we live in a state that our resources are very limited. 

“If we constantly find ways to violate the Constitution and invite litigation, we’re gonna be spending more money on lawyers than we spend on anybody else.”

The bill passed the House 80-35 and now heads to the Senate.

The Mississippi State Department of Health is overhauling its home visitation and care management program for high-risk pregnant women and infants in an effort to move the needle on the state’s high infant mortality rate.

The Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program, which previously served mothers and babies in all 82 counties, will restart under a pilot model to serve 10 counties with few resources and utilize community health workers for home visitation rather than nurses, State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney told Mississippi Today. 

The Mississippi State Department of Health has not publicly announced the redesigned program or named the 10 counties that will be targeted, though it stopped accepting new patients and referrals in January, according to the agency’s website. 

The 10 counties will be selected based on maternal and infant health data, service gaps and capacity to support intensive case management, and the agency will announce the selected counties once implementation planning is complete, health department spokesperson Greg Flynn said. 

Edney said the changes were implemented because while the program was serving moms and babies “wonderfully,” it was failing to reduce infant and maternal mortality, which — already at one of the highest rates in the nation — reached a 10-year high in 2024. 

“I couldn’t justify continuing to spend and it not improving the outcomes,” Edney said. “So, the whole model redesign is more about improving outcomes and attacking the highest impacted counties that right now, no one is serving.” 

Edney also pointed to the program’s high cost and noted that it has been affected by changes in Medicaid payments for high-risk prenatal services.

Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies serves high-risk mothers and infants by providing home visits, health education and referrals to wraparound services and benefits, including mental health, transportation, health insurance, breastfeeding, employment and food assistance during and after pregnancy. Mothers qualify if they meet certain criteria, including chronic illness, substance use, unsafe living conditions or teen pregnancy. Infants may qualify if they were born prematurely, underweight or with medical complications. 

The new model will use a team-based approach, with registered nurses administering clinical oversight and health education, licensed social workers establishing connections to resources and community health workers providing regular support to participants. There will be twice as many community health workers compared to other disciplines to increase enrollment and community support, Flynn said. 

In August, the Mississippi State Department of Health declared a public health emergency in response to the state’s rising infant mortality rate. In 2024, the state’s infant mortality rate was near twice the national average, and 323 infants died before their first birthday.

Black families are disproportionately affected by the crisis. According to the health department’s review of 2023 and 2024 data, Black infants are three times more likely to die than white infants. In 2024, when Mississippi’s infant mortality rate reached a 10-year high, white infants experienced their lowest mortality rate in a decade. 

Strengthening the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program was one of the agency’s key measures in its multi-pronged response to the crisis, according to its emergency declaration announcement. 

Home visiting is one of the most effective strategies for improving maternal and infant health, and community health worker models have been shown to have strong outcomes, said Honour McDaniel Hill, the director of Infant and Maternal Health Initiatives for March of Dimes. 

“They meet families where they are,” Hill said. “They’re going where families need care and they’re doing it through this trusted, community-based support.” 

Home visitation programs led by community health workers, in partnership with nurses and social workers, were linked to a lower risk of adverse birth outcomes and helped to reduce racial disparities, according to a 2023 study published in JAMA Pediatrics. 

Last year, Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies served 810 infants and mothers from nearly every county in the state, according to health department data. Since 2021, the program has worked with more than 4,500 participants.

Edney said the program’s new model aims to serve the same number of participants but focus on a smaller geographic area. 

Participants in areas that are no longer covered by the program will be referred to alternative home visitation services, such as Healthy Start and Medicaid services, Flynn said. 

He said the health department is also strengthening partnerships, referral pathways and education for community organizations and providers to ensure that pregnant and parenting families can access care anywhere in the state.

“Everybody’s still going to be served, we’re just going to focus on the areas that were unserved, and do them better,” Edney said. 

Nakeitra Burse is the founder and executive director of Six Dimensions, a Ridgeland-based nonprofit focused on improving Black maternal health outcomes, and a member of the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee. She said she appreciates the health department’s effort to focus scarce resources on communities with the greatest need, but is concerned about the burden the change could place on community-based organizations. 

“I want us that work at the community level to be able to figure out how to adjust for what may be to come if there’s an overflow” of patients in need of services, Burse said.  

Delta Health Center, a federally-qualified community health center with locations throughout the Mississippi Delta, operates a separate but similar home visitation program led by community health workers. 

Robin Boyles, the organization’s chief program planning and development officer, said the program has significantly reduced patients’ adverse birth outcomes. Between 2023 and 2024, the rate of low birth weight babies fell from 15% to 6%, while preterm deliveries dropped from 13% to 3% from 2023 to 2024. She said the organization welcomes program referrals.

The new model is expected to reduce the cost of the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program, which previously cost the health department $4 million a year — a cost the agency could not continue to sustain, Edney said. 

“Healthy Moms is impossible to do statewide,” he said. “We just don’t have the resources.”

Edney said the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program was previously funded with a combination of Medicaid revenue and discretionary funds from the health department. Now, he said, Mississippi Medicaid is transferring the primary financial responsibility for high-risk prenatal care to managed care organizations, the private companies that provide services to more than half of Medicaid beneficiaries, a change the agency has been considering for the past year. 

Division of Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield did not respond to several requests for comment from Mississippi Today about changes to Medicaid reimbursements for high-risk prenatal care. Flynn declined to provide additional details about when or why the policy change was made and directed Mississippi Today’s questions to the Division of Medicaid.

Flynn said that while cost savings are important, the primary goal of the program’s redesign is to improve efficacy, accountability and measurable improvements in pregnancy and birth outcomes. 

“I’ll be really disappointed if we don’t move the needle in those 10 counties,” Edney said. 

Both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature have advanced bills aiming to crack down on immigration, despite some lawmakers raising concerns that the federal government is responsible for enforcement and that the proposals could inadvertently harm U.S. citizens. 

The Senate on Tuesday passed a measure that would create a state crime of being in Mississippi illegally and authorize local law enforcement to charge people with being in the state without proper documentation. 

Sen. Angela Hill, a Republican from Picayune, is the author of the bill. She said the measure would not impose additional duties on local law enforcement. But it would “align” state immigration law with federal law. 

“If someone comes into Mississippi through the Gulf of America and not through a legal point of entry, this would create a state crime, a felony, for someone coming into Mississippi and bypassing a legal port of entry,” Hill said. 

Every Democrat, except Juan Barnett of Heidelberg, opposed the measure. All of the chamber’s 34 Republicans supported it. 

Sen. Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, argued the legislation needed more work. Hopson, an attorney, ultimately voted in favor of the bill, but raised concerns that the legislation may be unconstitutional because immigration enforcement is a federal, not state, responsibility.

“I think our government ought to be doing things with immigration,” Hopson said. “But current law is that this is a federal issue and not a state issue.” 

Hill said she believes the measure is constitutional. 

But she argued that if Mississippi had not disregarded concerns about complying with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and passed a 2018 law that restricted access to abortions, then the U.S. Supreme Court would have never overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

“What I would say is if this body had not fought to override Roe v. Wade, we’d have a clinic over there that’s pink,” Hill said, referencing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic that operated in Jackson until 2022. 

The immigration measure would require the state Department of Public Safety and law enforcement agencies operating county jails to enter into an agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

The measure currently includes a clause that would require the Legislature to debate it further before it can become law. 

The House on the same day passed a bill that could make it more onerous for people without a driver’s license to register to vote, a proposal its author said would allow local elections officials to verify a person’s citizenship.

The Safeguard Honest Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy, or SHIELD, Act would require county registrars to conduct extra checks on people who try to register to vote without a driver’s license number. 

Under the bill, if someone tried to register and could not produce a license number, the clerk would need to verify whether the person appears in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database called SAVE. Government agencies use the federal database to verify an applicant’s immigration status or citizenship.

The bill would also require election officials to notify applicants flagged as non-citizens and require them to prove citizenship.

House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins, said the bill he authored is necessary to ensure only U.S. citizens vote.

“The bill is designed to ensure that the people who vote are citizens like you and I,” Sanford said in response to questions from House Democrats.

Democrats said the bill would make registering to vote more costly and time-consuming for people who don’t have a driver’s license. They also said the bill would result in “voter suppression” and could even function as a “poll tax” because people might end up having to obtain extra documents, such as their birth certificate, to prove their citizenship.

The legislation in Mississippi arrives as the Trump administration pushes to “nationalize” elections with a federal bill that could potentially prevent millions of people from casting ballots.

The measures are several steps from becoming law, and each bill must pass the other legislative chamber in the Capitol before it could go to the governor for consideration.

House Speaker Jason White was not happy the Senate killed his expansive school choice bill, without even taking a full vote. 

Now House leaders appear to be sending a message to the other chamber: Most of the education bills passed by the Senate have been sent to two committees in the House, or “double-referred,” a tactic often used to kill bills or delay their passage and overhaul them. 

White said he is not trying to kill off Senate education measures — many of which mirror elements of the now-defunct House omnibus school choice bill. But Senate leaders this week took the double referral of their education bills as an indication otherwise.

Over the past six weeks, the two chambers of the Legislature have been warring over school choice, policies aimed at giving parents more power over their children’s education, usually by funding private schooling with public dollars. It’s been White’s top issue this session, with backing from numerous interest groups and the Trump White House. 

But educators statewide have opposed the move, and the Republican Senate leadership has been steadfast in its opposition to spending tax dollars on private schools.

The 500-page bill White authored, House Bill 2, would have greatly expanded school choice in Mississippi by establishing education savings accounts. These would allow parents to spend public money on private school tuition. 

But the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Dennis DeBar of Leakesville, killed House Bill 2 after only 84 seconds of deliberation last week. 

READ MORE: ‘The bill dies today.’ Senate committee kills House school choice measure

While White denounced Senate leaders on social media last week after their decision to kill House Bill 2, he denied on Tuesday that he was trying to thwart passage of Senate education bills in response.

“It’s no way a response to House Bill 2,” he said. “If you were to go back and take the time and look at House bills that were dropped by House members, I don’t even know how many … but there were huge numbers that were double-referred.”

The double-referrals didn’t escape DeBar’s notice.

“All I can do is control what I can control,” DeBar said on Tuesday, and added that he hoped legislators could “all work together,” instead of devolving into infighting.

For a bill to become law, it must pass through its original chamber’s assigned committees and its full chamber, and then do the same in the opposite chamber. “Double-referring,” or sending a bill to multiple committees, is one tactic legislative leaders use to prevent a bill’s passage because the same version of the bill must pass all of those committees and the floor votes. If a bill is changed at all, the process begins anew. 

Both chambers’ leaders — the speaker in the House and the lieutenant governor in the Senate — assign bills to committees.

White recently told reporters that he’s considering all options to keep pushing for private school choice policies, so he could attempt to revive the education savings account legislation by inserting language in another education bill, potentially even one of the Senate’s.

Meanwhile, there does appear to be some tacit agreement between House and Senate leaders on allowing more school choice among public schools, usually called “open enrollment,” or “portability.”

Senate Bill 2002, which removes the veto ability of the home school district if a public school student requests a transfer elsewhere, is alive in the House. It’s one of three Senate education bills that have been passed by the Senate and assigned to only one committee in the House. 

A handful of other Senate education bills still await committee assignment in the House. 

Politics reporter Taylor Vance contributed to this story. 

It’s time to talk about what Mississippians do best, which is play and support college baseball. Mississippi State is a consensus top 5 team. Southern Miss is consistently a top 25 team and Rick says Ole Miss is underrated.

Stream all episodes here.

The construction industry has struggled since the Great Recession but now one of its main struggles is finding skilled workers. 

A bill passed by the state House on Monday proposes creating a fund to help schools with construction training programs and encouraging students to explore these careers. 

As written, the bill would divert 6.75% of contractor sales taxes to the new Construction Training Assistance Fund. The fund would be administered by Accelerate Mississippi, the state’s workforce development office. Accelerate would provide grants to public community colleges and K-12 schools to help provide construction training to students.

The bill’s author, Rep. Donnie Bell, a Republican from Fulton, said the bill would expose students to more opportunities and start them on a path to success. Bell and others point out that skilled workers, such as electricians and plumbers, are in high demand and can earn large salaries.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor estimates that employment for electricians will grow 9% annually through 2034. And the median annual salary for electricians and plumbers in Mississippi is over $57,000, higher than the state’s median household income of about $56,000. 

Skilled workers are especially in demand to build out the infrastructure needed for the state’s manufacturing and data center projects. In July 2025, there were 51,800 construction workers in Mississippi, up 2% from the previous year and 15% from Feb. 2020 according to a report from the Associated General Contractors of America.

At Monday’s Stennis Capitol Press Forum, Bill Cork, director of the state’s economic development agency, said construction jobs are in high demand with the companies he talks to.  

“Right now the most important skills we’re tracking are construction trades. If you believe the news reports and some of the advertising, we’re probably short 100,000 construction workers in Mississippi right now,” said Cork. 

Asked to describe Jim Poole, his close friend of six decades, Archie Manning paused, pregnantly. 

“I’m really struggling with Jim’s death,” he finally said.

After a few seconds of silence, Archie was back. “Jim was a rock,” he said. “He was solid – so smart and just utterly dependable. You always knew what you were going to get with Jim. You could always count on him. Nicest guy ever, as good a friend as I’ve ever had, as good a friend as anyone could ever hope to have.”

Poole, a big, strapping tight end, caught many of the passes Manning threw at Ole Miss. They had met as high school juniors, Jim from Oxford, Archie from Drew. That was 60 years ago, They remained close friends until Jim’s death Sunday following a short illness. James E. Poole Jr. was 76.

Poole and Manning were members of a group of former Ole Miss football players who called themselves “The Dirty Thirty,” a name that requires an explanation.

“When we got to Ole Miss there were 64 of us freshmen football players, if you can believe that,” Manning said. “Sixty-four! There were 40 of us on scholarship and 24 walk-ons. Then, Coach Wobble (Wobble Davidson, the freshman coach) got hold of us. Let me tell you, that was a gut check. He almost killed us, and some probably wished they were dead.  People were quitting right and left. By the end of that freshman season, there were 30 of us left, the dirty 30.”

Poole knew what he was getting into. He had grown up at Ole Miss going to football practices. His dad, Buster, and uncle, Ray, both coached under John Vaught. His Uncle Barney had been an Ole Miss All American who caught the passes of Charlie Conerly. The Poole family is a huge part of Ole Miss lore. Naturally, Poole Drive runs through the center of campus.

They were huge men, the Pooles were. James E. “Buster” Poole, Jim’s dad, was the oldest of the Ole Miss Pooles who grew up near Gloster in Amite County in remote southwest Mississippi near the sandy banks of the Homochitto River. The community’s only school only went through the 11th grade, so Buster boarded in Natchez for a year to get his high school diploma. He returned home for Christmas and told his younger brothers, “Boys, I have found a game we can play.” 

That game was football, and, boy, they could play it. All were tall, broad-shouldered, swift and country strong. All three of the brothers played end. All three also played baseball and basketball at Ole Miss. All played football professionally. They began a long line of Pooles and Poole in-laws at Ole Miss. At last count, the Poole family has earned more than 50 Ole Miss varsity athletic letters.

Jim Poole earned three, only because freshmen couldn’t play for the varsity back in 1968. In Vaught’s offensive system, tight ends caught passes, but they also had to block. Jim excelled at both.

“Jim had great hands,” Archie said. “If he ever dropped a pass, I don’t remember it. He was just so dependable. He just always did his job and did it well. You know I always told my boys that what separates the great players from just good ones is that the great ones play their best against the best opponents. That was Jim. He was good against everybody but he was great against the LSUs, the Alabamas, the Tennessees and in the bowl games. He had big games when it counted most.”

Older fans all remember the Alabama-Ole Miss shootout in 1969 when Ole Miss rolled up more than 600 yards of offense only to lose 33-32. Poole caught six passes for 72 yards. That same season, Ole Miss came from 11 points down to defeat LSU in Jackson. Poole caught eight passes for 77 yards. When Manning was the MVP of the 1970 Sugar Bowl, Poole caught seven for 72. In the 1971 Gator Bowl against Auburn, Poole caught nine passes for 111 yards and a touchdown.

Said Skipper Jernigan, an outstanding guard on those Rebel teams, “When you know you can count on somebody it means a lot. We knew we could always count on Jim Poole.”

Poole, the Oxford native, made sure his fellow freshmen Jernigan, Manning and Billy Van Devender learned the essentials of living in what then was a sleepy little college town. That included the hot fudge sundae at Leslie’s Drug Store, playing eight-ball at Purvis’s Pool Hall and eating home-cooked meals from Jim’s mom, Anna.

Jernigan, Manning, Van Devender and Poole remained especially close in the decades since. Poole’s death clearly has been a gut punch, far worse than Coach Wobble ever delivered, to the other three.

They all speak of Jim’s loyalty, his wit, his faith and his giving nature. In his later life and especially since he retired as a highly successful CPA, Poole volunteered much of his time working in prison ministry, specifically through Kairos Prison Ministry. Earle Burkley, a first cousin, introduced him to the volunteer work and says Poole dedicated himself to trying to improve the lives of convicts, primarily at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl.

“Jim was always big on helping less fortunate folks any way he could,” Burkley said. “Not a whole lot of people want to do that kind of work in prisons, but Jim tried it and saw he could help. And so he did it. That was just Jim.”

•••

Visitation will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, with the funeral in the sanctuary at 11:30 a.m. Burial will be at 4 p.m. at Oxford Memorial Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Gateway Rescue Mission (P.O. Box 3763, Jackson, MS 39207) or online to Kairos Prison Ministry.

Civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer’s Presidential Medal of Freedom is now on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

The Medal of Freedom was unveiled on display in the “I Question America” gallery Tuesday by Hamer’s niece, Marilyn Mays, and cousin, Hinds County Tax Collector Eddie Fair.

Hamer, who died in 1977, posthumously received the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025 from then-President Joe Biden. 

It was announced Hamer’s family donated the medal to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History last October.

Mays said there is no better place for the medal to be than where Hamer lived and worked for equality.

“She got national acclaim, but the roots of everything she did, and the motivation for what she did, was Mississippi,” she said.

Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums, said Hamer is “a figure of international significance.”

“I hope that our school kids, as well as visitors from around the world … learn from Fannie Lou Hamer this notion of dignity, this notion that every human being is entitled to respect,” he said. He also hopes young people learn from Hamer the power of their voices and the importance of political participation.

“On paper, she doesn’t look like the kind of person that could change the world, but she defies our notions about who superheroes are,” Morris said.

Neither Fair nor Mays realized how significant Hamer was until they became adults, but she became a key inspiration in both of their lives.

Fair said Hamer was a major influence on his decision to enter public service. 

“It was a big influence because I wanted to do something to represent her, to represent the people back in Ruleville, to represent what each and every one of them did to fight to get us to the place that we are today,” he said.

Mays said Hamer inspired her to be part of integrating her hometown’s high school, attend Mississippi State University and enter corporate America.

Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, in 1917. She was the youngest of 20 children, and her parents were sharecroppers. 

In 1962, after attending one of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s voting rights meetings, Hamer and some of her neighbors traveled to Indianola to register to vote. Hamer was one of only two from their group who got to fill out an application and take the literacy test. She refused to retract her application when her landlord and employer found out, which cost her her job and home. 

She became a field secretary for SNCC in 1963. That year, she and several other activists were beaten in a jail in Winona. The assault left Hamer partially blind and with permanent kidney damage.

Hamer continued her work, becoming a key part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964. She co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, even running for Congress as the party’s candidate, but lost the primary to the incumbent Democrat. MFDP went on to challenge the seating of Mississippi’s all-white Democratic delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

While there, Hamer testified to the Democratic Convention’s Credentials Committee about her experiences with racism in Mississippi, including being beaten and forcibly sterilized. This became known as her “I Question America” speech. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson called a press conference at the same time to prevent networks from broadcasting her speech. Despite this, her entire testimony was aired on the evening news nationwide.

Democratic Party officials offered the  MFDP two at-large seats and a promise the next convention wouldn’t allow segregated delegations. President Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. supported this compromise, but Hamer did not. A group of MFDP delegates was seated at the 1968 convention.

Hamer co-founded the Freedom Farms Corporation in 1969, and continued working as an activist and public speaker until her death in 1977.

In 2022, her great niece, Monica Land, produced a documentary about her life, “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America.” 

Land said the family chose to donate the medal so it could be shared publicly and encourage visitors to learn more about Hamer’s life, legacy and the sacrifices she made in the fight for voting rights.

“I am so happy we were able to gift this award to the museum and to the people of Mississippi,” Land said. “Aunt Fannie Lou loved Mississippi and, hopefully, this donation will spark or further interest in her life and all that she fought so hard to accomplish for all people – not just Black people.’”