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Angie Thomas, Jesmyn Ward, Kiese Laymon, Rick Bragg and other noted authors will speak at the first Banned Books Festival in the state on March 25 at Millsaps College in Jackson.

The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today is sponsoring the event, along with the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute, the Millsaps Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Mississippi ACLU and Lemuria Books.

The theme of the event is “Erasing,” and the authors will talk about the dangerous trend of book banning, which has led some school districts to remove scores of library books from the shelves.

The list of banned books across the nation continues to grow, including such treasured books as “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, “A Time to Kill” by John Grisham, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck and The Bible.

Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute in Jackson, will co-host the event with Jerry Mitchell of the MCIR at Mississippi Today.

“Some of the world’s greatest writers have come from Mississippi, so it only seems appropriate that we hold the state’s first-ever Banned Books Festival here,” Evers-Everette said. “These books are being banned, because some people want to rewrite history and erase reality. This festival is taking a stand for truth for all.”

She recalled the assassination of her father “60 years ago because he dared to become the first Black Mississippian to go on television and let the world know what was really happening in this state. He took a step in courage and so must we.”

The Mississippi Banned Books Festival will kick off at 9 a.m. in Millsaps’ McMullan Lecture Hall with Mississippi Today cartoonist Marshall Ramsey interviewing Rick Bragg, whose book “All Over But the Shoutin’“ drew criticism and an effort to ban it.

In keeping with the event’s theme of “Erasing,” Cheryl W. Thompson, senior editor and investigative correspondent for National Public Radio, will interview some of the nation’s top investigative reporters on the subject of “Erasing Truth.” They include: Mississippi Today’s Anna Wolfe, who broke the story on the state’s $77 million state welfare scandal; Julie K. Brown, whose book, “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story”, is based on her exposés on Epstein; and Gilbert King, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author who exposed the wrongful conviction of Leo Schofield in his popular podcast, “Bone Valley”.

“These stories demonstrate why investigative reporting is so important, because investigative reporting holds the powerful accountable,” said Mitchell, the founder of the MCIR. “Without this kind of reporting, democracy must operate in the darkness.”

Ebony Lumumba, who serves on the advisory board to the Mississippi Book Festival, will interview Angie Thomas, whose “The Hate U Give” is among the most banned books in the nation.

For the “Erasing History” panel, Alan Huffman, author of “Mississippi in Africa”, will interview Stephanie Rolph, author of “Resisting Equality: The Citizens’ Council, 1954-1989”, historian Daphne Chamberlain, the founding director of the Civil Rights Education Center at Jackson State University and the vice president for Strategic Initiatives and Social Justice at Tougaloo College, and Ko Bragg, who wrote in the Atlantic magazine about an aging cohort of Black tour guides fighting the local erasure of the Freedom Summer killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

W. Ralph Eubanks, the author of “A Place Like Mississippi”, will interview authors Kiese Laymon and Jesmyn Ward on “Erasing Memory.”

The Mississippi Banned Books Festival is encouraging Mississippians to post videos of themselves reading passages from their favorite banned books. Students also will host read-ins at the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home and other places across Mississippi to bring attention to banned books and the need to read.

“As an institution that has produced informed, creative thinking and versatile citizens for more than 130 years and that today remains resolutely dedicated to its mission of academic excellence, open inquiry and free expression,” said Keith Dunn, provost and dean of Millsaps College. “Millsaps College believes deeply in the value and importance of all voices, even when those voices may be telling difficult stories. The college’s new strategic plan, ‘Destination 2027: Lighting the Path,’ specifically calls for us to be a place ‘known for free, courageous and bold academic discourse.’ Our support of this important event is one more way we are living into that plan.”

The post Best-selling authors will speak at the Mississippi Banned Book Festival appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Note: This editorial anchored Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive access to legislative analysis and up-to-date information about what’s happening under the Capitol dome.

Senate Republican leaders shocked the state on Feb. 28 when they announced their intention to fully fund Mississippi’s public school formula for just the third time since 2003.

Just a few minutes before the Senate was set to vote on the proposal on March 7, Gov. Tate Reeves took to Twitter with an eyebrow-raising warning to lawmakers.

“Be very cautious of a last minute change in funding formula that seems to have unanimous support amongst Democrats in Senate and liberal activist groups. Very very cautious,” Reeves tweeted, followed by his office sending his tweet to reporters as an official press statement. “Instead of funneling more money to the district offices — where our kids won’t see it — why not another teacher pay raise? Put it in the classroom!”

A little more than an hour later, the supermajority in the Republican state Senate, apparently unfazed by their Republican leader’s words, voted unanimously to do the exact opposite of what Reeves had warned. Every single Republican and Democrat in the Senate voted with virtually no debate to tweak the education funding formula and fully fund public schools.

The Senate plan, which would help local school districts cover basic costs such as supplies, building costs and, yes, teacher salaries, would require the state send an additional $181 million to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program per year. The proposal comes as Mississippi sits on a record revenue surplus of $3.9 billion, and more than $1 billion of that is recurring.

READ MORE: Bill to fully fund public education heads to House for consideration. Here’s what the changes would mean.

The politics of opposing full funding of public education during an election year are questionable at best. And even more problematic for Reeves is that his unprompted Twitter take dredged up his controversial record on one of the single biggest political issues of any campaign.

Reeves, at least on this issue, appears wildly out of step with Mississippi voters, including his Republican base. A new Siena College/Mississippi Today poll released today shows that a whopping 79% of Mississippians — including 73% of Republicans surveyed — believe lawmakers should fully fund public schools this session.

Democrat Brandon Presley, who is getting all sorts of statewide and national attention for his political upside against Reeves in the governor’s race later this year, pounced immediately. As one longtime political operative put it in a text message later in the day: “I hear they’re having a Field Day in Nettleton today,” referencing Presley’s hometown.

“I commend both Republicans and Democrats in the state Senate for coming together across party lines unanimously to better fund our schools,” Presley tweeted shortly after the Senate vote. “As usual, Tate Reeves is now attacking this bipartisan effort and playing politics once again. Tate Reeves has shown over and over he cares more about HIS political career than OUR students. He won’t lead. As governor, I will.”

Reeves’ tweet leads astute political observers to recall Reeves’ many black eyes from his action (or inaction) on public education related issues. If you’re interested in taking a stroll down memory lane, here are just a few of those moments:

• In eight years as lieutenant governor, when he had deep influence over the state budget, Reeves raised teacher pay just two times — both during election years. And those pay raises were so marginal that education groups and teachers publicly panned them with descriptors like “a joke”; “insufficient”; “a slap in the face’: “insulting”; and “another election-year-timed symbolic gesture.” His March 7 tweet suggested current lawmakers consider another teacher pay raise. Needless to say, that wasn’t received too well.
• The governor highlighted in his March 7 tweet that the Senate full funding effort was “last minute.” But no one, seemingly, has forgotten about perhaps the most notorious “last minute” leader in modern political history regarding education-related moves. When Reeves was lieutenant governor, he famously sneaked $2 million for private school vouchers into an unrelated appropriations bill in the 2019 election year, drawing the broad ire of every single public education group.
• In 2017, Reeves and other legislative leaders tried and failed to rewrite the state’s public education funding formula. A majority of Republican senators shot down Reeves’ plan in broad daylight. Shortly after the Senate vote, Reeves went sour grapes and blamed reporters: “I know you’re all smiling big today. You worked really hard to kill this, and you were very, very successful at doing so.” Reeves has rarely publicly discussed the failed rewrite effort since then, and he has neither tried nor proposed another rewrite effort.
• In Reeves’ last five years as lieutenant governor, the Legislature underfunded Mississippi Adequate Education Program by $1.06 billion, according to data compiled by The Parents’ Campaign. Since 2008 under the same measures, MAEP has gone underfunded by $3.35 billion, including a worst-ever stretch from 2012-2020 — the eight years Reeves served as leader of the Senate. 
• From 2015-2019, his last four years as lieutenant governor, Mississippi’s public education budgets were cut by $173.5 million ($102 million cut to Institutions of Higher Learning, $40 million cut to K-12 education, $32 million to community colleges).
• Several teacher loan forgiveness programs in 2016 received budget cuts so extreme from the Reeves-led Legislature that they had to stop forgiving loans for teachers. “It really got me thinking, ‘Well, my state’s not really on my side here,’” a north Mississippi teacher said.
• And how soon we forget one of the biggest political blunders of modern politics. In 2019, late in his heated governor’s race with Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood, Reeves released a TV ad touting his plan to raise public school teacher pay. There was just one problem: most of the ad was filmed inside a private school and featured several private school teachers. That private school, then a little-known entity, is now one of the most familiar schools in the state for all the wrong reasons. Reeves filmed the ad at New Summit School, owned by welfare and education fraudsters Nancy and Zach New, who were 2019 campaign donors of Reeves.

It remains unclear what Reeves thought he was doing March 7 with his social media warning to lawmakers and his effective trolling of the Senate’s full funding proposal.

The Senate plan now moves to the House, where Republican leaders there have to decide whether to heed Reeves’ warning. But legislative Democrats, like Presley, are already using the moment to apply pressure.

“This appropriation would be less than 5% of our nearly $4 billion surplus and he still doesn’t want to spend it on Mississippi’s public school students,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader. “If we’re in the best financial shape in our state’s history, as the governor so often likes to remind us, why should we have to choose? If he isn’t interested in investing in public education now, will he ever be?”

Johnson continued: “If House Republicans and Tate Reeves think blocking $181 million from going into our public schools while they crow about a $4 billion surplus is a winning strategy going into an election year, then good luck to them.”

But before too long, we’ll get some clarity on how Reeves’ questionable take — effectively, “I know we have more money than we’ve ever had, but let’s actually not send additional funding to our consistently struggling public schools during this major election year” — will affect his effort to win one more term in the Governor’s Mansion.

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A federal judge rejected the claim that Grenada police officers should be protected by qualified immunity in the 2018 death of Robert Loggins in the local jail.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock moves the case one step closer to trial in Mississippi.

“The court’s decision is an important milestone in the family’s quest for justice, and they are prepared to fight for as long as it takes,” said Jacob Jordan of the Levy Konigsberg LLP law firm, the attorney for Loggins’ family.

A video obtained by the Mississippi Center of Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today shows Loggins rolling when officers and jailers piled on top of him inside the Grenada County Jail. It also shows officer kneeling on his neck.

Three and a half minutes later, they got off of him. He never moved again. More than six minutes passed before anyone checked his pulse or breathing.

Despite that, the state of Mississippi concluded Loggins’ death was an “accident.” The alleged culprit? Methamphetamine toxicity.

After viewing the video as well as the autopsy report and the photos, renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden concluded the death was a homicide. “They killed him by piling on top of him,” he said. “He absolutely died from some kind of asphyxia.”

Loggins’ death came two years before the 2020 murder of George Floyd. All the officers who played a role in Floyd’s homicide were fired and convicted on criminal charges.

Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck, was sentenced to two decades behind bars. Three other officers were each sentenced to between two and a half and three and a half years in prison, including one officer who kept bystanders away.

The Grenada officer who kneeled on Loggins’ neck has never faced any criminal charges, nor has any other officer.

Baden considers the officers’ actions in the Loggins’ case much worse. “The intentional brutality inflicted on Loggins,” he said, “who was in an acute mental crisis, having done nothing criminal, makes his death — and many, many others — so much more criminal than Floyd’s.”

Baden compared the Loggins’ case to the Jan. 10 death of Tyre Nichols, whom five Memphis police officers pepper-sprayed, kicked, punched and shocked with a Taser. A grand jury has indicted the now-fired officers on second-degree murder and other charges.

The pathologist said Loggins’ death is “more typical of the thousands of police custody deaths of unarmed persons that have occurred without much notice.”

Since 2000, at least 342 deaths have taken place across the country after police restrained people, according to FatalEncounters.org. Many of those deaths were due to asphyxia.

In some of those deaths, officers used restraints condemned by the U.S. Department of Justice. The agency, along with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, warned officers that keeping restrained people face down increases the risk of death from asphyxia.

“As soon as the suspect is handcuffed, get him off his stomach,” the memo advises.

At 5:40 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2018, a woman in Grenada telephoned 911, saying, “Someone’s in the back of my house calling for help. Please hurry.”

Five members of the Grenada Police Department responded: Capt. Justin Gammage, Sgt. Reggie Woodall, Cpl. Edwin Merriman, Patrolman Michael Jones and Patrolman Albert Deane Tilley.

They found a Black man face down with his arms tucked beneath his body. One officer recognized Loggins, who had battled both mental issues and a drug problem.

“Although Loggins was likely guilty of trespassing and disturbing the peace, there is no real contention that he had committed any offense more serious than those,” the judge wrote. “In fact, according to the call to Grenada Police Department, Loggins was screaming for help, which would undercut any argument that he was attempting to commit some sort of serious crime under cover of night.”

In bodycam footage obtained by MCIR, officers repeatedly asked Loggins to put his hands behind his back. He refused.

“My soul belongs to Jesus Christ, my savior, my protector,” he told officers.

“Your ass belongs to us now,” one of them replied.

The judge concluded that “any fears the officers may have had must have subsided quickly. Loggins was screaming incoherently, never attempted to exert any force against them, never brandished a weapon and never even threatened to harm them.”

She wrote that Loggins refused to put his hands behind his back, which may have been because he was in an altered state.

Gammage and Woodall shocked Loggins with a Taser at least 10 times, and Woodall struck Loggins with a flashlight nine times — a degree of force that “was not justifiable under the circumstances,” the judge wrote.

After handcuffing the 5-foot-8, 190-pound man, officers carried him to a carport, where a report by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation claims that “Loggins’ disorderly behavior” kept emergency personnel from conducting “a full medical assessment.”

But bodycam video paints a different picture. As officers carry Loggins, an EMT can be heard saying, “He looks fine to me.”

Jail video shows that at 5:59 a.m. officers carried Loggins upside down into the lobby of the jail. They left him face down on the floor, handcuffed.

He seemed to be in distress, rolling from side to side, the shift supervisor, Sgt. Edna Clark, told the investigations bureau. “To me, he was trying to gasp for breath because he couldn’t breathe.”

She said she asked officers to take Loggins to the hospital but was waved off. 

After Tilley reportedly said he needed his handcuffs back, at least four officers and jailers piled on top of Loggins at 6:04 a.m. to remove the cuffs from his wrists, the video shows. When they got off Loggins more than three minutes later, he didn’t move. 

Clark noticed that he was bleeding and called 911. The dispatcher replied that EMTs had previously checked him.

“He’s bleeding from his mouth. He’s bleeding from his legs,” she told the dispatcher. “I’m not going to take him.”

At 6:14 a.m., Clark checked Loggins’ pulse and his breathing. She called 911 again.

“This man has got no heartbeat, and he’s not breathing. I want them officers back over here. I want an ambulance,” she said. “Get them over here now.”

A few minutes later, medical personnel arrived. They pounded on Loggins’ chest hoping to revive him, and when they couldn’t, they airlifted him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. 

In 2020, Loggins’ wife, Rika Jones, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, accusing the officers of assault and the medical personnel and the private jail operator of failing to provide him with proper medical treatment.

Tilley’s lawyer insists his client didn’t cause Loggins’ death or act with excessive force and is shielded by qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that says government workers can’t be held liable for what they do on the job, except in rare circumstances.

Other officers have also denied any wrongdoing, insisting that Loggins’ constitutional rights were never violated. 

The judge, however, disagreed, concluding that officers used “excessive force” and weren’t entitled to immunity from litigation.

In its response, the private jail operator, Corrections Management Services, said its staff acted in good faith, with Clark advising police “multiple times that Loggins would not be accepted into the jail and that he needed medical attention.” Medical personnel have denied the suit’s allegations of failure to provide proper treatment.

When Loggins died, he was 26 — seven years younger than his mother was when she died.

Debbie Loggins died in police custody after being hogtied, another restraint that the Justice Department has condemned. 

The late pathologist who conducted her autopsy, Dr. Steven Hayne,  ruled out trauma, drugs and alcohol, concluding that she died because of advanced heatstroke, even though the sun hadn’t risen when she was arrested, the temperature was in the 70s, and officers transported her in an air-conditioned car.

Instead, Hayne — whose autopsies have been called into question — concluded her death was an accident, blaming her “excessive exertional activity.”

Loggins’ father, Robert Ford, still passes by the jail where his son breathed his last. Sometimes, he stops outside and thinks about his son.

He believes his son deserves justice. “He was murdered,” he said. “You can see it in the video.”

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Legendary television anchor Howard Ballou joins Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey for this week’s episode of Mississippi Stories. Ballou has been a fixture on Mississippi TVs for over three decades. But today, the WLBT anchor talks about his mother Maude Ballou, who was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s friend and personal secretary in Montgomery, Alabama. Howard tells stories of his mother’s time working with King, her bravery and his memories of the Civil Rights movement. 

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Imagine you’re a young teenager living with your grandmother in the 1960s, in the Georgetown neighborhood of Jackson. It’s 10 o’clock at night and quiet. Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. 

A peek through the curtains reveals a white man standing there, waiting. 

“My grandmother asked out loud and nearly simultaneously, ‘What in the world? What could this white man possibly want?’” said Dorothy Moore with a chuckle at the memory. “You know, those times back then … it was the Civil Rights era and all. So yeah, we were wondering.” 

The man was record producer Bob McRee of Epic Records. He had gotten wind of this young singer who’d caused a stir singing at the Alamo Theater on Farish Street in Jackson.

The emcee that night at the Alamo had been local radio talent Jobie Martin. 

McRee searched high and low for young Dorothy, and it had taken him all day and into the night to find her. He wanted to sign Dorothy to a record deal. 

After he explained himself, her grandmother, Minnie Mitchell, co-signed the deal.

The ensuing record deal put Dorothy into the all-girl trio, The Poppies, an R&B/pop group consisting of Dorothy, Petsye McCune and Rosemary Taylor. They had a hit in the mid 1960s called “Lullaby of Love,” which reached the middle of the Billboard Hot 100.

After a couple of years, Rosemary and Petsye went back to school. Later, Dorothy left school and became an unintentional star. 

“For me, it was just exciting and fun,” said Moore. “I just loved to sing and really wasn’t thinking about being famous, let alone becoming a star.” 

Even as a backup singer, her sultry voice got her noticed and gave her solo opportunities to sing for the label. Her voice allowed her to see the world, first as a back-up singer for renowned vocalists and groups of that era, and then, as a solo singer.

Eventually, she signed with Malaco Records in Jackson.

It was at Malaco that the song “Misty Blue” found its way to Dorothy. It was written by Bob Montgomery in Nashville and first recorded by country artist Wilma Burgess.

“I recorded that song in one take,” said Moore with pride. “Oh, and there it sat on a shelf for two years. But you know what, my friend Eddie Floyd, who was an artist at the time with Malaco too, heard it and told Malaco to release it. He told them that song was a hit.” 

Floyd was right. 

Moore was working on Mill Street in Jackson when she got word that the song had, indeed, become a hit. 

“Misty Blue” catapulted Moore into the music stratosphere, garnering her fans around the world and a Grammy Award nomination. The song has been a part of soundtracks for many popular movies. 

Since that first Grammy nod, Moore has been awarded three other Grammy nominations. In 2015, she was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame, located in Marks.

After many albums for other labels, and a respite from the music business, nowadays, Moore produces herself. 

“The music biz didn’t control me,” said Moore. “I found out that I actually love producing. And there are great musicians right here close to home that I use.”

Her latest drop, “I’m Happy with the One I’ve Got Now,” produced on her Farish Street Records of Mississippi label that she founded in 2002, is a rousing homage to her gospel and blues roots.

The post Photo essay: Mississippi music legend Dorothy Moore appeared first on Mississippi Today.

MARCH 11, 1959

A Raisin in the Sun, the first Broadway play written by a Black woman, debuted at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Lorraine Hansberry drew inspiration for her play from a Langston Hughes’ poem: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” 

Hansberry also drew on her past, her family fighting Chicago’s restrictive covenants in court and finally getting their day in court. The Broadway drama starred Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeal and Ruby Dee. It was also the first Broadway play of the modern era with a Black director, Lloyd Richards. 

The New York Drama Critics’ Circle named it the best play, and it was adapted into a 1961 film, which starred the original Broadway cast. Hansberry wrote the screenplay, and Dee won Best Supporting Actress from the National Board of Review. 
In 1973, the drama became a Broadway musical, Raisin, and it won the Tony for Best Musical. In 2010, Hansberry’s family home became a historic landmark, and the play continues to be performed on Broadway and across the nation.

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MARCH 10, 1903

Black leaders gathered at the First Baptist Church in Little Rock and demanded that Arkansas lawmakers reverse its law to have segregated streetcars. To drive their point home, they began to boycott streetcars in three Arkansas cities: Little Rock, Pine Bluff and Hot Springs. Their “We Walk” protests drew attention from newspapers and from streetcar companies, which saw the number of Black passengers plummet by as much as 90%. 

The manager of one streetcar line announced that “all the trouble we have had was from whites.” White passengers became angry after sitting in parts of the streetcar where Black passengers had been forced to ride. An Arkansas Democrat editorial bashed the law as impractical. 

Although the Jim Crow laws remained in place, Black leaders learned the power of such boycotts and used them elsewhere.

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A proposal to place Jackson’s troubled water system under a regional authority board — once it comes out from federal receivership — died on the House calendar without a vote with a Tuesday night deadline.

Senate Bill 2889 had met with fierce opposition from city leaders and most of Jackson’s delegation in the Legislature. Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, had amended the bill in House committee, an effort to appease a special federal court receiver now overseeing the system and city and legislative leaders who decried the regional water authority and other measures as a hostile state takeover of the capital city. 

But Yates said House leaders decided to let the measure die without a House floor vote this year.

“I think there were multiple issues, but I would call it Jackson fatigue,” Yates said. “I think the sentiment was that there were going to multiple fights on the floor on multiple issues, and there’s still time to deal with this next year, look at it over the summer.”

But Yates said she still “absolutely” believes Jackson’s water system, which after decades of neglect routinely leaves residents without potable water or at times any water at all, needs new governance.

The “Mississippi Capitol Region Utility Act” would have created a nonprofit authority to control the system that covers Jackson, much of Byram and parts of Ridgeland. The nonprofit board would have included four people appointed by the Jackson mayor, three appointed by the governor and two appointed by the lieutenant governor.

In the original Senate version, the new authority would own the city’s water system. Under Yates’ changes, the city would have retained ownership and the authority would have a leasehold. Any money collected beyond what was needed to run the system would have gone to the city under Yates’ proposal.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves questions bills that would take over Jackson water, create new court system

Gov. Tate Reeves had recently weighed in on the issue, saying legislative efforts at state control of Jackson’s water system are “either a little bit too late or either a little bit premature.”

Reeves said he expects the federal conservatorship now in control of Jackson’s water system will remain for years to come, making state legislative efforts to take it over moot, at least for now.

The federally appointed administrator running the system now has estimated it will take him about five years to get the system running properly.

Opponents of the regional water authority proposal said the city should control its water system and accused those of pushing the regional authority of a money grab, with the city set to receive about $800 million in federal funds to upgrade it.

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