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HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss fans didn’t want it to end, not the Super Regional, not the season, not the final 5-0 defeat to Tennessee, and – most of all – not the coaching career of gentleman and head coach Scott Berry.

Joyous Tennessee players were still dog-piling near the pitcher’s mound after the final out, when a chant went up from the third base side of Pete Taylor Park. “Berry! Berry! Berry!” they shouted. As that faded, a chant began from the stands on the first base side. “Thank-you, 40! Thank-you, 40! Thank-you, 40!” they boomed in unison. (Berry’s jersey number is 40.)

Scott Berry, retiring at age 60, stood, his eyes glistening, and soaked it in. Then he turned to the crowd, took off the trademark batting helmet, placed it over his heart and waved to the crowd.

A few moments later, when Berry headed to left field for a final meeting with his players, Coach Tony Vitello and his Tennessee players watched and applauded as Berry crossed the infield and into the outfield. They doffed their caps to him. Later, before taking questions from reporters, Vitello would call Berry a “champion.” 

“You ask anybody who has ever played with him, anybody who has ever coached with him or against him. They’ll tell you,” Vitello said. “The game is losing a great one, but he has left his mark.”

Berry has been wearing a baseball uniform for 55 of his 60 years, long enough to learn one of the hardball sport’s harshest lessons. That is, sometimes, no matter how good you are, how hard you practice, how much you want it, and how well you play, the other team, the other guy, is just better. Monday night, Tennessee, especially its pitching, was just better.

Drew Beam, the Vols’ starter, baffled the Eagles with a sharp-breaking slider that often moved like a whiffle ball. He shut the Eagles out for six innings, striking out seven, before Aaron Combs came on to strike out the only batter he faced. Then, Vitello turned to Chase Burns, his imposing closer, who recorded the last eight outs, striking out four, with laser-like, triple-digit fastballs that topped out at 102 mph.

“Elite,” Berry called Tennessee’s pitching. “Very elite. Beam was their third starter and I thought his stuff was better than the first two. We just couldn’t string anything together.”

The Eagles actually out-hit the Vols 7-6, but all seven USM hits were singles. Tennessee landed harder punches. Zane Denton’s fifth inning three-run home run was the game’s biggest blow and Maui Ahuna also tacked on a home run in the seventh. 

Berry began his post-game press conference praising the Vols. “They work hard just like we do,” he said. “They wanted to go to Omaha just like we did. They are most deserving, and I wish them well.”

Indeed, Berry handled the disappointing defeat in his final game with utter class – the same as he has handled all else during his Southern Miss tenure. That tenure has closed with seven straight 40-victory seasons, seven straight NCAA Regionals and two straight Super Regionals. No other Division I program in the country has more than five straight 40-victory seasons. Berry’s last team finished 46-20.

Berry thanked USM fans many times over. He thanked his players, his coaches, his administration. He even thanked the media. “I want to thank you all for all the years and the relationships,” he said. “I’ve never had any issues with any of you. You’ve always been balanced.”

Listen: Berry even thanked the umpires. “They have a hard job, and this crew did a really good job,” he said. 

Someone asked Berry how he wanted to be remembered. He didn’t mention victories or championships, regionals or Super Regionals. 

“I tell our players every August in our first meeting that the batting averages, the statistics, the records will eventually fade, but you will remembered for the people you are,” Berry said, while his two captains, Justin Storm and Danny Lynch, nodded.

“People won’t remember how many home runs Matt Wallner hit. They won’t remember how many wins Nick Sandlin had. Those numbers will fade, but the person you are and the teammates you are, the coach you are, how you care for people and try to build people and try to mold people that are around you, that’s what they’ll remember the most. That’s a big part of who I am. As I’ve gotten older, I understand the big picture. The wins are part of it. The losses come with it, but it’s these guys.”

And what will Berry will remember most?

“I am going to spend the rest of my time thinking about the good times, the good wins,” he said. “I have been so blessed. … I am going to reflect on all the good times, not just as a head coach but as an assistant coaching with my buddy Corky Palmer.”

The late Corky Palmer, with Berry at his side, finished his career in Omaha in 2009 at the College World Series. Fourteen years later, Berry ended up one victory short of Omaha. But Palmer, his boss and his best friend, would surely use one of his homespun Corky-isms to congratulate Berry. My educated guess is Corky would put a hand on Berry’s shoulder, look him in the eyes, and tell him, “Scott, boy, you done good. Real good.”

The post Vols end USM’s magical season, Berry’s remarkable career appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Sixty years later, Medgar Evers’ courage and strength remain.

The post Marshall Ramsey: The Legacy appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Two proposed charter schools have made it through the first stage of the annual application process with hopes of opening in the Delta.

This year’s application cycle saw fewer applicants at this stage than in previous years, with five applicants in 2021 and nine in 2022. 

The schools are: 

• Clarksdale Collegiate Prep, grades 7-12 in the Clarksdale Municipal School District
• Level-Up Academy Public Charter School, grades K-8 in the Greenville Public School District 

Both schools are seeking to open in the fall of 2024 and would serve fewer grades at their opening. This is not the first application for either applicant. 

The applicants that have made it to this stage will be reviewed by an outside evaluator. This year, the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board contracted with a local group of former Mississippi education officials to review the applications, which includes former Interim State Superintendent Kim Benton. Final decisions on the potential schools will be announced in September. 

Charter schools are free public schools that do not report to a school board like traditional public schools. Instead, they are governed by the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, which oversees the application process to open a new charter school. They have more flexibility for teachers and administrators when it comes to student instruction, and are funded by local school districts based on enrollment.

Charter schools can apply directly to the authorizer board if they’re planning to open in a D or F district. If an operator wants to open in an A, B, or C district, they need to get approval from the local school board. Both of the schools applying this cycle would be opening in D or F districts. 

Ten schools have been approved through this application process since it was created, with eight currently operational and two planning to open this fall in Natchez and Canton. The majority of schools are in Jackson, but schools are also located in Clarksdale and Greenwood.

The post Charter schools apply to open in Clarksdale and Greenville in 2024 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Brielan Terrell sat a few rows behind the other boys in the auditorium at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

The 18-year-old leaned forward, listening intently, as Eric Lucas Jr., a fourth-year medical student, demonstrated how to perform an ultrasound. As Lucas slid the probe across a medical manikin’s chest, he peppered his audience, about 35 young Black men clad in sports coats and bowties, with questions. 

“Can anyone tell me what a stable blood pressure is?” he asked. 

Terrell raised his hand and answered correctly: “120 over 80.”

Lucas beamed. This was exactly what he imagined three years ago when he came up with the idea for the Black Men in Health Care Empowerment Summit.

The one-day summer program saw its third cohort on Saturday, as over 100 middle and high school students from all over the state visited UMMC for tours and clinical simulations. Aimed at encouraging young Black men to pursue health care careers, Lucas pitched his idea during his first year at UMMC.

“That’s how I was raised,” he said. “When you walk through the door, you should help someone to walk in.”

Lucas, a graduate of Mississippi State University and native of Ocean Springs, always had a career in health care in his sights.

He remembers getting a microscope kit for a gift when he was 4. 

“Science has always kind of been my thing,” Lucas admitted. 

Growing up with a dentist for a mom and a critical care intensivist for a dad, Lucas always knew being a physician was a real career option. But he also knows that’s not the case for many Black kids in Mississippi, including some of his medical school classmates. 

“One day, we were all hanging out, and I was like, ‘Man, how cool would it have been if we had a summer camp that brought us through all the medical schools and just getting exposed to what it takes?’” Lucas recounted.

“If you don’t see it, you’re not going to believe it.”

And so the summit was born. 

In Mississippi, a state with one of the worst health outcomes for people of color in the country, getting more young Black people involved in health care could make all the difference.

That’s why Dr. Demondes Haynes jumped at the opportunity to make Lucas’ dream a reality at UMMC.

“Just to let students know that a career in health care is an option,” he said. “Not that everybody that’s here today will become a doctor or dentist or a nurse, but we want them to know that it is an option.”

Haynes, associate dean for admissions at UMMC, said the only demographic group that had a decrease in students applying and being admitted to medical school in the past 40 years were Black men. 

Less than 6% of doctors in the United States identify as Black or African American, though Black people make up about 12% of the population. 

Though it’s been shown that, when Black patients are treated by Black doctors, they’re happier with their health care and are more likely to get the preventative care they need, one recent study linked the prevalence of Black doctors to longer life expectancy among Black populations for the first time. 

Black men have the shortest life expectancy in the country. The potential power of increasing the number of Black men in the health care field is clear. 

“We, as a medical center, want to improve the lives of Mississippians overall,” Haynes said. “This is important because we want to invest in students to contribute to Mississippi. So our hope is that some of these will enter the healthcare field and hopefully stay in Mississippi and improve life in Mississippi for all citizens.”

Throughout the morning, Black medical students and doctors led summit participants — including Terrell — through tours, panels and lectures.

As one of the oldest students in attendance, Terrell lagged behind to talk to medical professionals and raised his hand often. The incoming freshman at the University of Southern Mississippi had a lot on his mind.

During downtime of the ultrasound session, Terrell started chatting with Jaharah Muhammad, a third-year medical student, about his interest in pharmacy.

“Are you going to stay in Mississippi?” she asked.

He answered indecisively. 

Later, moments before the students filed out of the auditorium and the next group of medical students and doctors would try to open their eyes to the possibilities of a career in health care, Muhammad shared some parting words. 

“Consider staying here,” she said. “If you want more people who look like y’all in health care, this is where it starts.”

The post ‘This is where it starts’: UMMC summit aims to increase number of Black men in health care appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A recent report from the State Auditor Shad White’s office found that Mississippi’s eight public universities spent at least $23 million on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives since July 2019. Just under half was state funding, the report states, with the remainder coming from federal or private grants. 

Much of the spending in the report covers what appears to be traditional DEI initiatives, like funding for diversity offices, affinity-based student groups and events celebrating Black History Month and Women’s History Month. DEI is generally understood to refer to programs that promote the “fair treatment” of historically marginalized people.

But it also includes programs that may not be typically seen as DEI, like legally-mandated scholarships for non-Black students attending historically Black colleges and universities, a lecture at Mississippi University for Women by the artist collective Guerilla Girls and an event at Alcorn State University called “pet-a-puppy.” 

That’s because each institution was operating off it’s own definition of diversity, not DEI. The auditor’s office did not define DEI in its report. A spokesperson told Mississippi Today it was up to the Institutions of Higher Learning and each university, not the auditor, to define DEI. 

But IHL has not approved a definition of DEI for the system or for any of the universities, a spokesperson confirmed. Instead, the agency has approved institution-specific definitions of “diversity,” or groups traditionally under-represented at each campus, for the purpose of setting diversity goals.  

So that’s the definition the auditor’s office directed IHL and each university to use, emails obtained by Mississippi Today show. 

At the state’s three historically Black colleges and universities, that means non-Black students. Programs aimed at recruiting and retaining non-Black students were included in the auditor’s report and accounted for roughly $2.3 million, or 10%, of the total budgeted dollars. 

It’s also unclear if the report is comprehensive. Jackson State University’s spending is blank for two of the four fiscal years the auditor requested; a spokesperson told Mississippi Today that was because the university did not have state-funded programs to report for those years. One fiscal year from Mississippi State University includes an accounting error that shows it spent $35,000 less than it actually did. 

The university wrote in an email to Mississippi Today that it told the auditor’s office to update the error on June 1 after the office reached out, but that hasn’t happened yet. 

Fletcher Freeman, the auditor’s spokesperson, wrote in an email the office did not audit the spreadsheets the universities submitted. 

“If a university said they spent DEI money on a program and it was listed in their survey it was included,” Freeman wrote. “We did not ‘choose’ to include one expenditure over another. If it was included in the universities DEI expenditures it was attached to the report.” 

White’s report comes as DEI on college campuses has come under fire by Republican governors. Texas is one of at least a dozen states that is poised to ban diversity-in-hiring programs at state universities. 

In a video, White said he directed his office to run this report because Mississippi taxpayers deserve to know what universities are spending on DEI. (The report, modeled off a similar review by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, did not include DEI spending at the state’s 15 community colleges.) 

“I have real concerns about taxpayer dollars being spent on DEI initiatives, particularly whether taxpayer dollars are being spent to teach ideas that tear us apart rather than bring us together,” he said. 

After the report published last week, the Institutions of Higher Learning, which worked with the auditor’s office to create the report’s spreadsheet, countered with a statement that said DEI spending is a workforce investment and represents less than 1% of the system’s state appropriations. 

“Our public universities have diverse student bodies and an obligation to support them,” the press release said. 

IHL had suggested the auditor’s office ask the universities to report DEI spending as a percentage of university expenditures and state appropriations, according to emails obtained by Mississippi Today. But the auditor did not go with that suggestion. 

The auditor’s office also asked IHL to provide criteria showing how diversity outcomes factor into performance reviews for the university presidents, according to that same batch of emails. That wasn’t included in the report, though the auditor’s office may be working on an additional report due out in October, according to the emails. Freeman said he was not aware of that. 

So how do Mississippi’s universities support their diverse student bodies? 

At Delta State University, that looks like $30 spent on an event called “United in Green,” which was held to “engage students, faculty and staff in non-partisan conversations about (the) 2020 election elections.” The university also spent $1,014.66 in 2023 on a civil rights field trip to Jackson. 

At Mississippi State University, about $18,970 in state funds in 2020 were spent on a leadership conference for high school juniors who identify as underrepresented. In the spreadsheet, MSU noted that “students participating have shown a greater likelihood to enroll at Mississippi State, as well as be retained.” 

Almost every school reported spending DEI funds on programming or activities for international students.

Some of the spending even aligns with programs the state auditor has endorsed — which White did not mention in his video. Many of the universities reported spending DEI funds on events for student veterans, like approximately $33,599 in state funding that the University of Mississippi spent in 2020 on staff who support those students. 

The auditor has recommended JROTC programs as a way to reduce “fatherlessness.” 

But a significant slice of the spending that was reported covered programs that seem to have very little to do with the goals of DEI. 

In 2021, Alcorn State reported spending $2,500 on a Department of Fine Arts Strings Workshop and Master Class, $40,000 on “new student orientation” and $1,337 on programs to support student health, such as “National Go Red Day for Heart Health.” That same year, the oldest historically Black university in Mississippi also reported $150,000 of spending on $10,000 scholarships for non-Black students. 

Mississippi Valley State University also counted funds it was legally mandated to try to spend as part of the Ayers settlement on recruiting and scholarships for non-Black students as DEI funds.

One of just two DEI programs that Jackson State reported was about $6,972 in 2022 and 2023 to prevent chronic kidney disease in “equitable populations” across Mississippi. 

The post ‘Pet-a-puppy’ event, artist lectures, and support for student veterans are all DEI efforts, according to state auditor’s report appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A $400 million federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of two men allegedly beaten and tortured by Rankin County sheriff’s deputies during what attorneys say was an unlawful arrest earlier this year says the department has a pattern of excessive force against Black people. 

The 14-count lawsuit details the night of Jan. 24 when six white deputies conducting a drug investigation raided the Braxton residence where Michael Corey Jenkins, 32, and his friend Eddie Terrell Parker, 35, were living. What followed was 90 minutes of unlawful imprisonment and unjustified torture while the men were handcuffed, according to the lawsuit. 

The height of the alleged mistreatment came when a deputy placed his service weapon inside Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger, leading to a broken jaw and lacerated tongue. Jenkins’ family and attorneys said the injuries nearly killed him. 

“This lawsuit here is all about punitive damages. These acts are egregious and worthy of punishment,” said Jenkins’ attorney, Malik Shabazz, during a Monday morning news conference. 

“Why punitive damages? Why punish? Because we don’t want this to happen again,” he said. 

Defendants named in the lawsuit are the county, Sheriff Bryan Bailey, and deputies Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon and three unknown deputies. 

The lawsuit details the men’s experience: racial slurs allegedly hurled by the deputies, waterboarding, attempted sexual assault and threats of death by having guns pointed at them.  

A spokesperson from the sheriff’s department and an attorney representing the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. 

At the news conference, Jenkins and Parker declined comment due to pending civil action, but they did thank people and family for their support.  

Elward is identified in the lawsuit as the deputy who placed a gun inside Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger. As a result, Jenkins has suffered permanent physical injury such as nerve damage, numbness and risk of losing his eyesight. 

“The acts described herein, committed under the color of law, set the standard of what is wrong with policing today in America,” the lawsuit states. 

During the news conference, Shabazz showed several pictures of evidence from the scene and of the injuries Jenkins and Parker faced, including taser marks on Parker’s body. 

None of the deputies intervened or tried to stop each other from hurting Jenkins and Parker during the nearly two-hour encounter, the lawsuit alleges. 

The deputies did not show a search warrant or announce themselves, nor were drugs or a firearm alleged to have been pointed at a deputy were found at the scene, Shabazz said. Nonetheless, charges were filed against Jenkins and Parker, according to the lawsuit. 

As of Monday, Shabazz said he has no information whether the deputies have been suspended or reprimanded. 

The lawsuit also mentions other uses of excessive force by Rankin County sheriff’s deputies and holds Sheriff Bailey responsible for failing to properly train the deputies involved in those incidents, including the 2019 death of 31-year-old Pierre Woods in Pelahatchie and the 2021 death of Damien Cameron in Braxton. 

Rankin County is accused of acting with reckless and deliberate indifference to the rights and liberties of Jenkins and Parker, who are county residents, according to the lawsuit. 

Shabazz said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case earlier in the year, has completed its investigation and it is now up to the attorney general’s office whether to prosecute the sheriff’s deputies. 

The lawsuit comes months after the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi opened a civil rights investigation into the incident. 

In May, Shabazz asked the DOJ to prosecute the deputies on charges of hate crimes and other civil rights violations. 

This month, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke visited Mississippi and made several stops, including at Jackson State University, where she heard from Jenkins’ mother and Parker during a public forum, according to the men’s attorneys. 

Supporters of Jenkins and Parker have demonstrated at the sheriff’s department and, on Saturday, gathered at a Brandon church for a public hearing about police brutality in Rankin County.

At hearing, attorney Trent Walker, who is also representing Michael Corey Jenkins, urged citizens to share their experiences with Rankin County deputies. “It’s past time that we do something,” he said.

If nothing is done, more people will be shot, he predicted.

“Ain’t nobody coming into our neighborhood,” activist Marqwell Bridges told the crowd. “We’ve got to save ourselves.”

Several residents at the hearing urged Black residents to buy guns for self-defense. Both Kenneth Jackson and Angela Green spoke in favor of buying guns and getting trained on how to use them.

“Most of my life, I didn’t have a gun,” Green said. “Every Black person should own a gun. Yes, I have an AR-15, and I’m ready to use it. Come to my door, and you’ll know I have it.”

Mississippi Today investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell contributed to this report.

The post Rankin sheriff, deputies face $400M lawsuit in alleged torture of Black men appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi state Sen. Michael McLendon, R-Hernando, faces a driving under the influence charge in Alabama, Baldwin County Chief Deputy Anthony Lowery said.

McLendon was arrested around 10 a.m. on June 5 after being pulled over on Highway 98 near Foley, Alabama, and faces a charge of DUI combined with substance.

“That means alcohol combined with another substance,” Lowery said. “We are not alleging what that substance is at this point, and that does not necessarily mean anything nefarious — it can be cold medicine.”

McLendon did not immediately respond to a call and message seeking comment on Monday.

McLendon was released the evening of his arrest after posting a $2,500 bond and has a court date scheduled for Oct. 25.

Lowery said McLendon was “completely compliant, with no issues whatsoever” when he was arrested.

McLendon, 59, is finishing his first term in the Mississippi Legislature representing District 1 in DeSoto County and is unopposed for reelection this year.

The post State Sen. McLendon faces Alabama DUI charge appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann with a substantial lead over challenger Chris McDaniel ahead of the Aug. 8 primary, but Hosemann doesn’t crack 50% and many remain undecided.

The poll of respondents who are likely to vote in the 2023 GOP primary showed Hosemann with 47% support and McDaniel with 32%. But 21% said they don’t know who they’ll vote for or declined to answer.

The poll also surveyed favorable/unfavorable numbers for both candidates. Hosemann was at 58% favorable to 22% unfavorable, and McDaniel was at 46% favorable to 28% unfavorable.

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

With incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves’ recent semi-endorsement of McDaniel, the poll showed 41% of likely primary voters said they would rather vote for a candidate with his endorsement down ticket, 24% said they would not and 35% said they don’t know.

Both candidates appear to have loyal bases among Republican primary voters. Of those polled who voted for Hosemann in 2019, 61% plan to vote for him again. Of those who voted for McDaniel in his unsuccessful runs for U.S. Senate in 2014 or 2018, 63% plan to vote for him again.

The poll showed some wide differences in regional voter sentiment. In the northeast congressional district, Hosemann and McDaniel were a dead heat, at 36% each. In the Delta and west Mississippi, Hosemann led 60%-20% and led 50%-26% in east-central. In the southeast district which includes McDaniel’s hometown Ellisville, Hosemann polled 45% to McDaniel’s 42%.

READ MORE: Top GOP brass works to keep peace after Gov. Tate Reeves opines on lieutenant governor primary

Of those surveyed, 31% said they would vote for a candidate considered part of the far-right wing of the GOP, while 45% said they would support a moderate Republican and 24% said they don’t know.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 646 registered voters was conducted June 4-7, 2023, and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

Editor’s note: The methodology and crosstabs document linked directly above this note was updated to accurately portray the makeup of the survey sample.

The post Poll: Hosemann leads McDaniel in lieutenant governor primary, but many voters undecided appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Lawsuits alleging that Mississippi’s legislative and judicial districts dilute Black voter strength could be bolstered by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

In a surprise ruling last week, the nation’s highest court found that the seven U.S. House seats in Alabama were unconstitutional and violated the federal Voting Rights Act because they diluted Black voter strength. Presumably, that ruling will force the congressional districts to be redrawn in Alabama and perhaps in other states and could impact the balance of power in the U.S. House.

The ruling could also have an impact in Mississippi. In February the U.S. Supreme Court refused an effort to continue a decades-old lawsuit that placed congressional redistricting in Mississippi under the jurisdiction of a three-judge federal panel. The federal panel had overseen the drawing of Mississippi’s congressional districts since the early 2000s. But with the state Legislature redrawing the districts in 2022 after the 2020 Census, the federal panel opted to end its jurisdiction. A group challenged the decision to end the lawsuit, claiming the districts drawn by the Legislature still diluted Black voter strength.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused the effort to keep congressional redistricting under the jurisdiction of the three-judge panel. Theoretically, the decision in the Alabama case could leads to groups again challenging whether the congressional district in Mississippi dilute Black voter strength.

The decision in the Alabama case also could impact lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the drawing of the 174 Mississippi House and Senate districts and the three districts used to elect Mississippi Supreme Court justices and commissioners to the Public Service Commission and the Transportation Commission.

Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the Mississippi ACLU, said the Supreme Court decision in the Alabama case “affirmed the (federal) Voting Rights Act (and) prevents states from packing or cracking Black communities in a way that limits their ability to elect candidates of their choice.”

“This is exactly why the ACLU of MS is challenging Mississippi’s recently enacted legislative districts and the decades-old state Supreme Court district lines,” Dortch said.

READ MORE: Lawmakers face redistricting lawsuit during 2023 election cycle

The groups filing the lawsuits challenging the legislative districts and the judicial districts include the ACLU of Mississippi and the national chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the national and state chapter of the NAACP, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the law firm of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, the Mississippi Center for Justice and others.

The groups filing the lawsuit have asked the three judge federal panel hearing the case to set an expedited trial date so that if they prevail a special election could be set for November 2024 to elect legislators under new districts. The groups are not trying to hold a trial quick enough to have new legislative districts drawn, should they prevail, for the regularly scheduled legislative elections in November of this year.

The lawsuit says the state Legislature’s redrawing of the House and Senate districts in 2022 to match population shifts gleaned from the 2020 Census “packed” Black voters in a limited number of districts to dilute their electoral impact.

Carroll Rhodes of Hazlehurst, a longtime civil rights attorney who is involved in the lawsuit, has said the new legislative districts violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution by “packing” Black voters in a smaller number of districts to dilute their strength.

Rhodes and others claim that a new redistricting plan could generate more Black majority districts in addition to increasing the number of African Americans in other districts to provide them more impact in non-minority majority districts.

Dortch pointed out that in 2010, there were 12 House districts that had Black populations of over 40% but not a majority, meaning they could have a significant impact in those districts. But under the maps drawn in 2022 by the Legislature, there is only one district in that category. 

A separate lawsuit says the three Supreme Court districts that have not been redrawn in more than 35 years also are unconstitutional.

The state, which has an African American population of about 38%, has nine Supreme Court justices — just one of whom is Black.

Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, who is running for governor as a Democrat, said the ruling in the Alabama case “was a victory for the Voting Rights Act — and the generations of Southern organizers who made it a reality. Instead of shutting the door on Black and minority communities, those of us in elected office must protect this fundamental right and work to bring new voters into our democracy.”

Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves did not comment on the case on social media.

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