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In one of his first acts as mayor of Jackson, John Horhn announced the team that will help him lead the city, including several new faces and some holdovers, at a packed meet-and-greet at the Two Mississippi Museums Thursday. 

Leading the appointments as the city’s interim chief administrative officer, Pieter Teeuwissen, a former Hinds County Court Judge who served as city attorney under former mayors Harvey Johnson and Frank Melton. 

The chief administrative officer is a vital position in Jackson City Hall as Teeuwissen will essentially serve as the deputy mayor, with most of the city’s departments reporting to him. So far, Teeuwissen said the job has mostly entailed a lot of reading in preparation for the city’s intensive budget process. 

“How do we craft a budget with audits that are now three years old?” Teeuwissen said, referring to the city’s failure to complete timely audits in recent years. “That would be the issue, and if you ask me next Monday, that’s gonna be the issue. Next Tuesday, next Wednesday, until we get a budget done.”

Willie Bozeman, Horhn’s campaign manager, will serve as interim chief of staff. Horhn’s appointments can serve in an interim capacity for 90 days, and Horhn must put their name on the agenda to be confirmed by the Jackson City Council before that time period is up.

Other new faces in the administration include: 

• ReSean Thomas, a former leader of the firefighters union who helped secure pay raises in recent years, will serve as interim fire chief;
• Von Anderson, who oversaw communications for Horhn’s transition team after serving as the chief commercial officer for the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, will be the interim director of planning and development;
• Grace Fisher, a former communications director at the Mississippi Department of Corrections and editor at the Clarion Ledger, will serve as interim communications director;
• Pearlean Campbell, former victim services director at MDOC, will serve as interim constituent services director;
• Nathan Slater, a local technology consultant, will oversee the IT department;
• and Jamal Sibley, a staff on the Horhn campaign, will serve as interim special assistant to the mayor. 

Slater has already started working on the city’s website and said he hopes to roll out a new one within 30 days. 

Of the directors Horhn has retained from former Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s leadership team, the most notable is Fidelis Malembeka, the chief financial officer. 

Other holdovers include City Attorney Drew Martin, Municipal Clerk Angela Harris, Police Chief Joe Wade, and Director of Human Resources, Toya Martin. 

Emad Al-Turk, the contractor for the city’s public works department, will stay on with public works director while Horhn launches a national search for a new one, WLBT reported. 

A bit over 200 years ago, a group of guys made a pretty big splash about their tea. They made history. Revolutionary, to say the least. Even before then, tea has been a soul soother the world over. 

Whether sipped from dainty cups, pinkies out accompanied with giggles; or whispered secrets or on hot, sunny days over ice, lazing on a front porch; or as spiritual satisfaction after an elaborate ceremony steeped in tradition, tea offers a quiet revelation.

Christina Berry, owner and chief tea officer of ‘Sippsi Good Tea in Jackson, has a desire to be a revelation. 

“When I decided to start the business, I went to a tea conference to learn all that I could. At first, drinking tea out of my cup was just something that I did daily. But I wanted an understanding of the business of it,” said Berry, as she sipped a blended brew in her tea shop, located in the Pinnacle Building in downtown Jackson.

“I met this really great network of women in the tea industry. I knew I wanted to attract different consumers and bring us all together with tea. So one lady that I really connected with was willing to be my mentor. She encouraged me in naming my business and making it Mississippi-related, (and) even though seemingly everything in the state is sip this or sip that, I stuck with it.”

‘Sippsi Good Tea offers a wide variety of teas, from herbal to apothecary teas for wellness. There are green and black teas as well as bottled favorites with catchy names like Shade Tea Mechanic, a cranberry and orange flavor, and Berry Southern, a blackberry flavor. Add a locally baked pastry with your tea.

The selection includes Southern Hospitali-Tea and Wild Strawberry Fields, a caffeine-free Mississippi Blueberry and a green tea, among others. You can even blend your own.

The teas can be purchased in-house or online, and also at the 2 Mississippi Museums.

Berry said she’s pondering another kind of tea as well.

“I’ve had input from some customers that suggested I should do strawberry-raspberry lemonade, and also a blueberry. We’ll see. I invite everyone to come in, take your time and ‘Sipp deeply. You’re home.”

‘Sippsi Good Tea is located at 100 E. Capitol Street, Suite 106 in the Pinnacle Building in downtown Jackson.

Hours: 7 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Online: sippsigoodtea.com

Mississippi will attempt to overturn a portion of a recent federal court decision that found the state’s latest legislative redistricting plan unlawfully diluted Black voting power. However, it’s unclear what part of the court order the state will contest. 

The three-member state Board of Election Commissioners on Thursday filed a court document declaring it intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court an order issued by a federal three-judge panel. 

A representative in Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office, which is filing the appeal on behalf of the state, said the appeal will not disrupt the upcoming elections. Fourteen legislative districts around the state are preparing to conduct the election based on the lower court ruling.

Fitch’s office has not yet filed a substantive briefing outlining what portion of the lower court’s order it intends to appeal. But an official within Fitch’s office said the appeal will only present a narrow legal issue to the nation’s highest court and not appeal the entire lower court order that required the state to conduct do-over elections this year.

Still, the appeal is notable because it comes in the middle of special elections that the lower court ordered the state to conduct to allow Black voters in Mississippi a realistic chance to elect candidates of their choice. The party primaries are scheduled for August.

The nonprofit group that administers federal family planning money in Mississippi had its funding restored Wednesday, one month after it was forced to lay off half its staff and three months after its funding was withheld by the federal government.

Title X, a federal program that has been providing money for family planning services to states for over 50 years, flows through Converge to 91 clinics around the state. On March 31, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Converge it was withholding $4.5 million intended for Mississippi’s Title X program indefinitely during an investigation into the organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices. 

“We are relieved to have received our Notice of Award for Title X funding today, which enables us to return to the essential work of supporting our clinical network, maintaining operations, and meeting the needs of our communities across Mississippi and Tennessee,” Jamie Bardwell, co-executive director of Converge, said in a statement. 

The nonprofit will be rehiring some of the 10 staff it laid off, but is not currently able to rehire all due to “continued instability of federal funds,” Audrey Sandusky, vice president of communications and marketing at Converge, told Mississippi Today. 

The team received a letter from HHS on June 25 that the investigation found Converge to be compliant with the law and that funding would be restored. 

“OASH (Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health) reminds you of your ongoing obligation to comply with all terms of the award, including by not engaging in any unlawful diversity, equity or inclusion-related discrimination in violation of such laws,” the letter read. 

That same day, Sen. Bradford Blackmon, D-Canton, wrote a letter urging Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to push HHS to restore Converge’s funding. Blackmon wrote that the money supported services delivered through federally qualified health centers, which he called “lifelines in both rural and urban areas of our state.”

“The stakes for our communities could not be higher,” Blackmon wrote. “In 2024 alone, over 16,800 Mississippians, the majority of whom are uninsured and living at or below the federal poverty level, relied on Title X-supported services provided by Converge’s network.”

A spokesperson for Reeves did not immediately respond to Mississippi Today’s questions Wednesday about whether the governor advocated for the return of federal funding to Converge.

Blackmon has been a supporter of reproductive health care. Last session, he introduced a protest bill called the “Contraception Begins at Erection Act,” which would have made it unlawful for men to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo. 

Converge leaders still do not know what prompted the HHS investigation, though the initial allegation referenced a 2020 statement the nonprofit made committing to diversity in health care during the wake of the George Floyd protests. 

The team is proceeding with caution, but eager to resume a range of services related to helping people get pregnant, preventing pregnancy through birth control like long-acting contraception, cancer screening, pregnancy testing and STI testing and treatment. 

“This marks a critical step forward for communities that have gone without essential family planning funding for three months and have worked tirelessly to provide care with limited resources,” Bardwell said. “We look forward to resuming services, reconnecting patients with trusted providers, and continuing the vital work of ensuring access to high-quality, compassionate care across the South.”

John Horhn became the mayor of Jackson on Tuesday, after his fourth run for the office. At the swearing in ceremony, several delegates — including Congressman Bennie Thompson, Gov. Tate Reeves and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann — joined Horhn on stage.

Read the Mississippi Today Jackson team’s full coverage of the inauguration ceremonies.

By Tuesday evening, the room where Jackson Mayor John Horhn took the oath of office between gospel performances by the Mississippi Mass Choir earlier in the day had transformed into a glittery gala, replete with a red carpet, lit candles and a classically raunchy gig by blues musician Bobby Rush.

It was a spectacular party that helped generate half a million dollars in sponsorships for Tuesday’s inauguration festivities. More than 140 sponsors across Jackson made monetary and in-kind donations to celebrate Horhn, a longtime state senator from northwest Jackson, finally attaining the office he’d sought for 16 years.

“What better way to kick off and put the cap on such a monumental day, a momentous day, than to come out to the Jackson Convention Center and throw a party,” Horhn said after he took the stage.

All told, Horhn’s inauguration committee raised more than $485,000 in cash sponsorships and $150,000 in write-off donations to organize Tuesday’s events, including the bash that was free and open to the public and featured food from more than 20 local businesses and a pricey cash bar. 

While the final tally of what was spent Tuesday or how many people attended isn’t complete, Jeff Good, a local restaurateur who oversaw the committee’s finances, said he had budgeted about $320,000 for the day and estimated 2,500 attendees. Horhn will be able to use any leftover funds to put on future events. 

Each sponsor had a different motivation for donating, Good said. Some were local companies who have sought city contracts, while other Jacksonians made financial contributions simply because they are fans of Horhn. 

“There’s so many things that John has done,” Good said at the gala. “Everybody loves John.” 

While past mayors have thrown similar balls upon their inauguration, Horhn’s party was especially well-attended and inclusive, multiple attendees said. 

In the weeks leading up to the gala, the inauguration committee circulated a digital chart inviting people to sponsor the event at different levels from the lowest tier, called “spark” at a minimum of $500, all the way up to the “drum major” at $15,000 or more. 

Sponsors were to make the checks out to a 501(c)4 set up by the inauguration committee, Good said, and send them to a P.O. Box managed by Willie Bozeman, Horhn’s chief of staff and interim campaign manager. 

What did the sponsors get in exchange for their contribution? Good pointed at gigantic screens on either side of the gala’s main stage that listed the sponsor’s names. 

“We read their names on the podium,” he said. “They get the notoriety that they supported the mayor. It’s no different than if you’re doing a charity ball.” 

Sponsors also got dedicated tables, an invitation to a VIP reception, a swag bag and acknowledgement in the event program — a list that reads like a who’s who of Jackson and included developers like the Mattiace Company and Gabriel Prado, prominent law firms such as Butler Snow, nonprofits, lobbyists, engineering firms and well-known city construction contractors. 

“When you read the sponsorship list in our program, it is Jackson businesses, Jackson families, Jackson couples,” Good said. 

Cynics might say these donations will be used to get the mayor’s ear down the road.  

“Some folks are doing it to reap the benefits of contracts,” said David Archie, a former Hinds County supervisor recently hired by former Mayor Chokwe Lumumba after running for mayor himself, as he was looking for a table to sit at. “Some folks are doing it to be on the staff or to have family members on the staff.” 

But many others felt their sponsorship was more akin to a “thank you.” Carla Kirkland, the chief executive officer of an education consulting company that works with Jackson Public Schools, said she didn’t need to donate to get Horhn’s attention — she’s known him since he was a senator. 

Instead, Kirkland said she donated $15,000 to show Horhn that she has his back, much more than she’s given past mayoral administrations. 

“I think it shows the support that we are showing for the new administration and just letting them know that we are behind you,” she said. “We will put our money behind you, and we will put our name behind you.” 

Kirkland went even further, helping to fundraise for the gala, which she said was easy to do. Through her group chat network, she said she sold over 100 “spark” sponsorships. 

“I am in a GroupMe with the AKAs, with the Jack and Jills … with Women for Progress,” she said. “So I just pulled together my network.” 

The gala also proved to be a good networking opportunity: While talking to a reporter, Kirkland spotted Errick Greene, the Jackson Public Schools superintendent. He took a picture with Kirkland and her team. 

2C Mississippi, a Ridgeland-based nonprofit focused on climate resilience in Mississippi, recently joined a national lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency after the government terminated over $20 million in grant funds for the organization.

In February, the lawsuit says, the EPA followed directives from President Trump to cut federal spending by terminating grants for a variety of environmental justice and climate resilience projects. Lawyers from a number of groups, including the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, filed the complaint in federal court in Washington D.C. on June 25. The complaint asks for full funding of the roughly 350 awarded grants impacted by the EPA’s cuts.

The Ridgeland organization, federal data shows, was set to receive about $20.5 million for two projects in Jackson: $20 million for a self-sustainable “resilience hub” and $500,000 to complete a “microparks” project aimed at tackling flooding and blight in the city. 2C Mississippi, one of the over 20 plaintiffs from around the country, received just $300,000 of those funds so far.

In a March memo the EPA sent to 2C Mississippi, the agency wrote, “This EPA Assistance Agreement is terminated in its entirety effective immediately on the grounds that the award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”

Dominika Parry, who founded the nonprofit in 2017, called it a “nearly impossible task” to obtain the $20 million elsewhere for the resilience hub, a concept she said is growing around the country, such as in New Orleans. The idea, she explained, is to provide shelter both during emergencies but also during general times of need.

“ This is a place where people can come, stay overnight, have access to energy, be in healthy conditions,” Parry said.

Features would include a tornado shelter, 150 beds, showers and charging stations, as well as job training and community spaces. Parry added the facility would be self-sustainable with an independent well water system as well as solar panels with battery storage. Working with Jackson nonprofit Voice of Calvary Ministries, Parry secured a site for the hub at a former church in west Jackson.

The microparks project, which she discussed with Mississippi Today last year, seeks to take on both blight and flooding by turning dilapidated properties in flood zones into communal green spaces with public art and gardens. Despite having already selected the locations and cleared the land for the parks to live in, Parry said she’s had to pause the project since the EPA’s termination. She was optimistic that funding could come from elsewhere, but it’s unclear how long that would take.

Without the grant money, Parry’s unsure if her organization as a whole can survive. Already, she said, she’s had to start working for free as well as reduce her employee’s salaries.

“Losing that funding is a pretty existential change to our functioning,” she said.

In a separate project, 2C Mississippi secured a $1.5 million federal grant for a recently unveiled green space on Farish Street.

“So far we’ve been incredibly grateful and lucky that we were able to keep delivering and build trust, and now the idea we are going to go and tell people we don’t have the funds, that weighs on me,” Parry said. “People in Jackson have been promised many, many things that never happened.”

Other Mississippi groups whose grants were terminated include the Gulfport-based Steps Coalition and Jackson State University. Steps Coalition, according to federal data, received just $122,000 of a $500,000 grant to engage residents in local land-use and leadership training. JSU received about $60,000 of $100,000 from two EPA grants to train water technicians, support grant writing in underserved communities, and provide water to a garden at Blackburn Middle School in Jackson.

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

On the evening of April 5, my phone and our community’s emergency siren both started screaming at once, jarring my husband and me to our feet. I clicked my phone and heard an automated voice begin to speak, warning of a tornado near Oxford. 

My husband, emergency bag in hand, called for the dogs to follow as we hurried down the stairs to our “safe place,” a windowless storage room in the basement. Even there, we could see angry bursts of lightning and hear the siren as it continued to wail. 

My family — as do others across the state — knows how to respond to the severe storms and dangerous tornados that interrupt our lives, often with devastating results. 

In the past, the federal government, through FEMA, has also responded. But now the Federal Emergency Management Agency is threatened by an administration that wants to overhaul it. President Trump has said he wants to “fix a terribly broken system” by shifting emergency disaster response to the backs of the states. 

Together with Congress, we need to insist, as we’ve repeatedly done in the past, that the executive branch work alongside us when disaster strikes our communities. 

*

The Trump administration is not the first to downplay its role in providing emergency relief to Americans during disasters. President Calvin Coolidge took a similar stance during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. 

That year, months of persistent rain combined with runoff from melting snow pushed levees that had been engineered to constrain the Mississippi River beyond their limits. Beginning in mid-April, levees from Illinois to Louisiana began to crumble, and as they did, waves of turbulent water flooded fields and swept through towns. 

While numbers hint at the destruction –hundreds of souls lost, hundreds of thousands of people displaced and thousands of square miles flooded — they don’t reflect the agony or suffering of those whose lives were capsized during the flood.

*

In late April of 1927, President Coolidge created a commission, headed by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, to respond to the massive flooding that had by then spread across at least seven states. Unwilling to allocate any federal money to the effort, Coolidge instead called on the American public to donate $5 million. 

Hoover, an engineer by training, leveraged the public’s donations with the capacity of the American National Red Cross. Their volunteers provided food, clothing, medical care and temporary housing to those whose homes were destroyed. 

Meanwhile, the president stood steadfast, refusing to use federal tax dollars to provide relief. 

Or rebuild bridges or roads that had been swept away. 

Or invest in future flood-control efforts.

Newspapers up and down the Mississippi River Valley criticized President Coolidge’s insistence that the states absorb the cost of rebuilding their communities while also bracing for seasonal floods that would occur again. 

“It seems obvious,” wrote the Memphis Commercial Appeal, “that neither the head of the nation or any one of his responsible advisors realizes either the nature or the immensity of the problem.” 

The paper went on to question how a nation as wealthy as the United States could impose the “burden of tremendous loss, sacrifices, agonies and destruction,” on individual states. 

In Jackson, the Clarion-Ledger also questioned the government’s response, particularly since President Coolidge had repeatedly refused to witness the flooding in person. “Not a dime has the government appropriated. The truth of the matter is that it has been necessary to school President Coolidge day by day a bit more towards the realization of the immensity of the catastrophe.”

The public and Congress continued to demand that the federal government assume a new responsibility for its citizens, one that included disaster relief, recovery and prevention. 

Eventually, Coolidge struck a deal with Congress and in May 1928, Congress enacted the 1928 Flood Control Act. The law authorized the Corps of Engineers to design and construct projects that would control flooding on the Mississippi River and the Sacramento River in California. 

The new law also ended the philosophy that regional disasters were solely the responsibility of the states. Instead, it acknowledged that the wealth of the country would be used to alleviate the suffering of its citizens. 

In 1950, the Federal Disaster Relief Act created the pathway for states to ask the president for federal help during crises.  This was followed by the establishment of FEMA in 1979.

*

So far this year, more than 60 people have lost their lives due to tornados in the United States, including at least seven people in Mississippi. Though storms have uprooted trees, flooded streets and caused property damage in Oxford, our community has largely been spared the heartache these deadly tornadoes caused elsewhere. 

We don’t know what the future holds for FEMA. In April, President Trump appointed former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to a council charged with recommending changes that may overhaul the agency. 

But as tornado season rolls into hurricane season, we know that the destruction caused by these severe storms is more than any of us can bear alone. We must insist that the federal government keep its sleeves rolled up and support our communities during times of disaster.

Bio: Shirley Wimbish Gray lives in Oxford. A retired writing instructor and science editor, she writes about what is often overlooked or forgotten, particularly in the American South. Her recent essays have appeared in Earth Island, Brevity Blog and Persimmon Tree. 

Before he became a Hall of Fame football coach and won 297 games, Mike Justice played on Mississippi’s first integrated high school football team in Fulton. Justice talks about that and a lot more.

Stream all episodes here.

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Marshall Ramsey tours the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument with Reena Evers-Everette.

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