OurTupelo

Terry Grassaree was dogged for years by questions about how he did his job as a law enforcement officer in Macon, Miss., a tiny, rural town near the state’s eastern border.

There were allegations of rape inside the jail that Mr. Grassaree supervised, and lawsuits claiming that he covered up the episodes. At least five people, including one of his fellow deputies, accused him of beating others or choking them with a police baton.

Mr. Grassaree survived it all, rising in the ranks of the Noxubee County Sheriff’s Department, from a deputy mopping floors, to chief deputy, to the elected position of sheriff, making him one of the most powerful figures in town.

Now, more than three years after losing an election and retiring, and 16 years after a woman first claimed that Mr. Grassaree pressured her to lie about being raped, the former sheriff faces criminal charges.

A federal indictment filed in October accuses him of committing bribery in 2019, near the end of his eight-year tenure as sheriff, and of lying to federal agents when they questioned him about whether he requested sexually explicit photographs and videos from a female inmate. Mr. Grassaree has denied the charges and pleaded not guilty.

But an investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times reveals that allegations of wrongdoing against Mr. Grassaree have been far more wide-ranging and serious than those federal charges suggest. The investigation included a review of nearly two decades of lawsuit depositions and a previously undisclosed report by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

At a minimum, the documents detail gross mismanagement at the Noxubee County jail that repeatedly put female inmates in harm’s way. At worst, they tell the story of a sheriff who operated with impunity, even as he was accused of abusing the people in his custody, turning a blind eye to women who were raped and trying to cover it up when caught.

Over nearly two decades, as allegations mounted and Noxubee County’s insurance company paid to settle lawsuits against Mr. Grassaree, state prosecutors brought no charges against him or others accused of abuses in the jail. A federal investigation dragged on for years, and led to charges last fall, a few weeks after reporters started asking authorities about the case.

Even now, no higher authority has reviewed how Mr. Grassaree ran the jail or whether his policies endangered women, because in Mississippi, as in many states, rural sheriffs are left largely to police themselves and their jails.

In 2006, after Mr. Grassaree and his staff left jail cell keys hanging openly on a wall, male inmates opened the doors to the cell of two women inmates and raped them, according to statements the women gave to state investigators. One of the women said Mr. Grassaree pressured her to sign a false statement to cover up the crimes, according to the state police report that has never been made public.

About a year later, in a lawsuit, four people who had been arrested gave sworn statements accusing Mr. Grassaree of violence. Two of the people said he choked or beat them while they were in his custody. A third said he pinned her against a wall and threatened to let a male inmate rape her.

In 2019, a jailed woman told investigators that she had been coerced into having sex with two deputies who offered her a cellphone in exchange for her compliance. Instead of punishing the deputies, she claimed in a lawsuit against the county, Mr. Grassaree demanded that she send him explicit pictures and videos of herself. The federal indictment also accuses Mr. Grassaree of using his cellphone to facilitate a bribe, which experts say could have been the perks the woman says she received.

All told, at least eight men — including four deputies and Mr. Grassaree himself — have been accused of sex abuse by women inmates who were being held in the Noxubee County jail while Mr. Grassaree was in charge.

Over the years, the accusations of rape and other misconduct at the jail have been investigated separately by the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. No rape or assault charges have been filed.

Mr. Grassaree has denied all of the allegations against him and has faced no disciplinary action. His lawyer declined to comment further.

Holding people accountable for rapes and assaults behind bars is difficult under the best of circumstances. There is little to protect incarcerated victims and witnesses from retaliation for speaking up. When they do come forward, they are often dismissed as not credible, especially if the person accused is a law enforcement officer.

What happened inside the Noxubee jail, and how the authorities responded, is a case study in how those difficulties can be even harder to surmount in rural places, where jails are the exclusive domain of a county sheriff who operates largely without oversight.

No state agency oversees Mississippi’s county jails, and no state regulator has the authority to fine a sheriff for endangering people in custody or for failing to train the staff who operate the jail. In 2017, state lawmakers stopped providing funds for jail inspections by the Mississippi Department of Health, removing even the basic requirement that the facilities meet food safety and cleanliness requirements.

“They are closed-off institutions, and the people held inside them are unpopular and politically powerless,” said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project. “That makes them ripe for neglect and abuse that is entirely foreseeable.”

Scott Colom, the elected district attorney for Noxubee County, took office in 2016 and was not involved in the investigation of the 2006 rape allegations.

After learning of the more recent allegations against Mr. Grassaree and his deputies, Mr. Colom said, he notified federal authorities and worked with them on an investigation. Although he believed the evidence against Mr. Grassaree in the case was “clear and strong,” Mr. Colom said he knew it would be tough to seat an impartial jury in Noxubee County. He has twice been forced to cancel criminal trials because there were too few potential jurors available, he said, and neither of those cases involved a public official.

Darren J. LaMarca, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, declined to comment on the case and so did others responsible for investigating the alleged abuses in the Noxubee County jail.

Mr. Grassaree spoke briefly in an interview about his professional history, but would not answer detailed questions about the 2006 rape cases or the more recent allegations related to his federal charges.

Mary Taylor, a retired dispatcher who worked full time at the jail from 1988 to 2017, said in a phone interview that in her years at the jail she never witnessed any sexual abuse.

She said she wasn’t working on the day the two women said the rapes took place in 2006, but that she doesn’t believe their version of events.

“My belief? They weren’t raped,” Ms. Taylor said. “They did that to get out of jail.”

She maintained that it’s “impossible for one man to rape a woman, unless she’s not moving, unless it’s a Bill Cosby thing.”

“They could have yelled out and told somebody,” she said. “You can’t rape the unwilling.”

Building a tough reputation

When Terry Grassaree was born in Macon in 1962, the idea that he could one day be sheriff seemed far-fetched.

In Macon, which briefly served as Mississippi’s capital during the Civil War, only white men worked as law enforcement officers in those days. The county had a long history of violence against African Americans, including the massacre of 13 Black Mississippians at a church, gunned down by nightriders on a single August night in 1871. The sheriff at the time arrested no one.

Though the county’s population is mostly Black, every sheriff elected in Noxubee County was white until 1988, when Albert Walker became the first Black man to hold the office. Mr. Grassaree, his handpicked successor, was the second.

Mr. Grassaree started his law enforcement career as a police officer in Macon and in nearby Brooksville, and sold insurance on the side to help make ends meet. Sheriff Walker hired him as a county deputy in 1992 and put him to work mopping floors, among other duties, at the county jail. Mr. Grassaree was also a deputy coroner, paid $85 for each body he handled.

He worked his way up to chief deputy, and took on running the jail.

Mr. Grassaree, known to keep order by issuing physical threats, said in an interview last year that he drew inspiration from the professional wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.

“Even while they were whipping him, he was still the toughest guy on the mat,” Mr. Grassaree said. “He’s like, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ No matter how long a man whips you, he will get tired. He might think he’s winning. The only thing you’ve got to do is hold out.”

This idea, he said, became the foundation for how he behaved when he put on his uniform.

Early in his career, he beefed his 6-foot-2 frame up to 230 pounds, and people started calling him “Big Dog.” Not many people crossed him after that, he said.

His reputation for being aggressive spread across town. In a 2006 letter to the editor in the local paper, a mother complained that Mr. Grassaree had threatened her 16-year-old son. The boy, she wrote, had fought with Mr. Grassaree’s son at school.

The editor of the same newspaper, The Macon Beacon, arrived to cover an arrest near a nightclub in 2000 and snapped a picture of Mr. Grassaree kneeling on a man’s neck. The photo made the front page.

People who passed through the jail describe being attacked by Mr. Grassaree when he thought they were causing trouble. Four people gave sworn statements about such attacks as part of a 2005 lawsuit against Mr. Grassaree and Noxubee County filed by former deputy Kendrick Slaughter. In the lawsuit, Mr. Slaughter claimed that Mr. Grassaree tried to bribe him not to run for City Council, and then hauled him to jail for talking to the FBI about the alleged bribe.

Noxubee County’s insurance company settled the suit for an undisclosed amount.

The four sworn statements accuse Mr. Grassaree of a number of violent acts, which he has denied committing. One man wrote that while he was handcuffed in a courtroom in 2002, Mr. Grassaree beat him until a judge came off the bench to rescue him.

Another man said in his sworn statement that Mr. Grassaree choked him with his nightstick and warned him to follow his orders. The man said Mr. Grassaree told him, “I’ll shoot you in the head! I’m the Big Dog! I’m Number One! This my jail!”

A 19-year-old woman said Mr. Grassaree hit her twice with his nightstick and threw her against a wall after accusing her of stealing potato chips from a man held in jail. Mr. Grassaree “spread my legs apart with his foot,” she said in her deposition.

Then, she said, he told her that he ought to let the inmate rape her.

A jail with no rules

The jail that Mr. Grassaree oversaw for most of his career sits frozen in time on Industrial Road on the outskirts of Macon, next to the old Purina pet food mill that now produces feed for catfish farms.

The building has been locked and empty since about 2014, when Mr. Grassaree and his deputies packed up and moved to a new facility down the street. Inside the old jail, a blackened mix of dirt, rust and mold has crept over the white iron cell doors. Bags of trash and dusty bed linens litter the remaining furniture and the floor.

When Mr. Grassaree was put in charge of this building in the 1990s, he inherited a jailhouse that essentially operated without rules. Jail workers allowed inmates to come and go from the building without logging the inmates’ movements or supervising them closely.

The only policies about the jail that appear in the 2003 Noxubee County Sheriff’s Policy Manual center on the use of force. None tell how to run the jail.

For years, certain inmates were let out of their cells to help cook, pass out food trays and clean.

Kennedy Brewer, who entered the jail in 2002, was one of the facility’s most trusted inmates. Eyebrows were raised when he showed up at a court hearing on his own, having driven himself to the courthouse without a deputy to escort him, according to Forrest Allgood, the district attorney at the time.

Mr. Brewer spent five years at the jail waiting to be retried after DNA evidence proved he had been wrongly convicted of sexually abusing and murdering a 3-year-old girl. When prosecutors gave up on a new trial, Mr. Brewer was released, and his case was featured in the Netflix documentary series “The Innocence Files.”

Testifying under oath as a witness in a lawsuit in 2007, Mr. Brewer said he served as a jail trusty, or an inmate with special privileges, and had access to keys that opened each cell. He said he would check newly arrested people into the jail and that he once escorted an inmate to a cell with no one else present.

Mr. Grassaree has denied that inmates were allowed to use jail keys without supervision.

On a June day in 2006, Mr. Brewer had no problem getting into the women’s cell block undetected.

He grabbed the jailer’s keys off the nail hanging on the wall and slipped down the short hallway that ran the length of jail. In a building smaller than a McDonald’s, he and a fellow inmate didn’t have to go far. There were no guards patrolling the halls and no surveillance cameras to catch any movements.

When Mr. Brewer unlocked the cell door, one of the women inside was laying down for a nap.

Then Brewer was on top of her, grabbing her arms and forcing her down, according to statements the first woman later gave to state agents.

“No, I don’t want to do this,” she begged, according to her statements.

Then she looked for her cellmate, Jessie Levette Douglas. She told investigators she saw another inmate, Laterris Goodwin, on top of her.

It was all over in moments.

The woman who originally reported the rapes declined to be interviewed for this article. Ms. Douglas died of renal failure in a state prison in 2018.

When investigators interview rape victims, they are supposed to remain impartial. But when Mr. Grassaree, who was chief deputy at the time, found the woman crying on the floor, he stood over her and shouted, the woman said in a deposition taken as part of her subsequent lawsuit against the county. He and another member of the sheriff’s office yelled that she couldn’t tell anybody about the rape and that she was “going to make them lose their jobs and make the department look bad,” according to her sworn statement.

“They kept berating me as if I had done something wrong,” she said.

When state agents arrived the next day at the request of the sheriff’s office, Mr. Grassaree handed them everything they needed to dismiss the allegations, including signed statements from two of the men saying the women had invited them to have sex, and more important, a statement from Ms. Douglas saying everything she saw and experienced was consensual.

If Mr. Grassaree and his deputies had been in charge of the investigation, it might have ended there. But when state agents interviewed Ms. Douglas, her story changed.

She told investigators that she and her cellmate had been raped that day and that she lied in her first statement because Mr. Grassaree had pressured her to cover up what happened.

Mr. Grassaree “told me to tell everybody the sex was consensual and that for me to ‘help a brother,’ referring to Brewer,” Ms. Douglas wrote in a later statement. “He told me to tell everybody that we put on a freak show for the male inmates.”

In reality, Ms. Douglas told the agents, three men incarcerated at the jail — Mr. Brewer, Mr. Goodwin and Michael Slaughter — had entered her locked cell at different times on the same day and had raped her.

In statements to investigators, Mr. Slaughter, Mr. Brewer and Mr. Goodwin denied that they had raped the women, claiming that the sex was consensual.

In an interview from 2022, Mr. Brewer denied ever having sex with anyone inside the jail. Neither Mr. Slaughter nor Mr. Goodwin could be reached for comment.

Both women were given polygraph tests, and the examiner concluded that they were telling the truth, according to state investigators’ records. Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Slaughter failed polygraph tests; Mr. Brewer declined to take one.

State agents shared their findings with federal and state prosecutors, and the case was presented to a Noxubee County grand jury. The grand jury decided not to issue charges.

Legal experts say Mr. Grassaree could have been investigated for obstructing justice in the case. That never happened, and neither did an investigation of practices in the jail, where agents concluded that four rapes had taken place.

Noxubee County’s insurance company settled the woman’s lawsuit in 2009. The Macon Beacon reported that she was paid $375,000.

Sabrina Campbell said her sister, Ms. Douglas — the woman who said she was raped by three inmates and who died many years later — wanted the public to know what happened to her. “I don’t want my sister to have died in vain,” Ms. Campbell said.

The rapes devastated her sister, who never stopped battling nightmares afterward, she said. “She was scared all the time. She would tell nieces and nephews about the jail, ‘Don’t ever come here, because your life is over.’”

Another round of allegations

Allegations of sexual abuse at the Noxubee County jail did not end with the 2006 case.

In 2020, Elizabeth Layne Reed, a woman incarcerated at the jail, made explosive allegations against the men she encountered there. In a lawsuit she filed that year, she accused two deputies, Vance Phillips and Damon Clark, of coercing her into having sex.

She said the men gave her a cellphone and other perks so that she would have sexual encounters with them in remote spots around the jail or when the deputies checked her out of the facility. The deputies even put a sofa in her jail cell, she said.

Ms. Reed said in an interview that she wanted the public to know what happened to her in the hope that others would come forward. “It made me terrified to trust anybody,” she said. “Women in jail and prison need to be protected.”

According to her lawsuit, Mr. Grassaree knew all about his deputies’ “sexual contacts and shenanigans,” but did nothing to “stop the coerced sexual relationships.” Mr. Grassaree denied any knowledge of what deputies were doing. “Are you a boss?” he said. “Do your employees tell you everything they do?”

Instead of intervening, the lawsuit alleged, the sheriff “sexted” her and demanded that she use the phone the deputies had given her to send him “a continuous stream of explicit videos, photographs and texts” while she was in jail. She also alleged in the lawsuit that Mr. Grassaree touched her in a “sexual manner.”

The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

News outlets in Mississippi made brief mention of the lawsuit, but government officials at all levels, including federal and state prosecutors, were silent for two years about what, if anything, they were doing to investigate the allegations it raised, and whether they had found evidence to support them.

A review by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and The New York Times of documents filed in the lawsuit, along with documents from the preceding 2019 state investigation, reveals that Ms. Reed accused other deputies besides Mr. Phillips and Mr. Clark of sexual harassment and abuse. None of the other deputies has been charged or named publicly. It is unclear whether the FBI investigated those allegations.

The federal bureau’s investigation into Mr. Grassaree, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Clark took more than two years to yield charges, even though investigators had confessions of sexual contact from the deputies as well as text messages between the woman and the three men. In fall of 2022, several weeks after reporters began asking authorities about the case, Mr. LaMarca successfully sought indictments against Mr. Grassaree and Mr. Phillips on bribery charges. Mr. Clark has not been indicted.

Ms. Reed hoped that other deputies, including Mr. Clark, would be held accountable, she said. “They’re still walking around free, not worried about any charges.”

Ms. Reed said that she felt sick to her stomach when she found out that neither Mr. Grassaree nor Mr. Phillips had been directly charged in connection with her allegations of sex abuse. Lawyers for Mr. Phillips did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Clark could not be reached for comment.

The indictments do not mention sexual abuse. Along with bribery, Mr. Grassaree was also charged with lying to the F.B.I. in denying that he had “requested and received” nude photos and videos from Ms. Reed. A trial is scheduled for summer.

Julie Abbate, who served as the deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division from 2003 to 2018 and reviewed the allegations at the news organizations’ request, said the federal prosecutors could have explored criminal charges against Mr. Grassaree and his deputies for violating the civil rights of women in his facility.

The question of whether to bring federal charges in the case may have been complicated by guidance the Department of Justice issued in 2018, saying that law enforcement officers cannot be federally prosecuted for violating a person’s civil rights if the person “truly made a voluntary decision as to what she wanted to do with her body,” particularly if she received a benefit or special treatment in exchange for sex.

But Ms. Reed’s decisions in the episode in the Noxubee County jail were “not free-will choices,” said Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University, and the cellphone Ms. Reed received from deputies “was the vehicle by which more abuse could be directed towards her.”

Mississippi law makes it a crime for law enforcement officers to engage in sexual acts with incarcerated people. Prosecutors are not required to prove the victims were physically overpowered or even that they told their abuser to stop.

But the district attorney’s office that handles criminal cases in Noxubee County chose to pass the 2020 case on to federal prosecutors, instead of seeking charges under the state law, because of worries about getting a fair jury in the county. When asked about federal prosecutors’ decision to charge Mr. Grassaree and Mr. Phillips with bribery in the case, the district attorney, Mr. Colom, said, “I trust federal authorities to use the best statutes.”

Ms. Abbate said the allegations about abuses in the Noxubee County jail were indicative of a larger, pervasive problem at the facility and a harmful culture inside the sheriff’s office. That culture, she said, undoubtedly endangered inmates and allowed abuses to continue.

“The allegations that come to light are almost always just the tip of the iceberg,” said Ms. Abbate, who is now director of Just Detention International, an organization dedicated to ending sexual abuse in correctional facilities. Referring to the 2006 and 2020 cases, she said, “I guarantee you that these two instances are not the only ones.”

This article was co-reported by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today.

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After a push this session to fully fund public schools, districts will receive $100 million outside of the regular school funding formula because lawmakers passed a bill they say aims to put more money in the classroom. 

While superintendents say they’re grateful for the additional funds, some are pushing back on the notion that the current funding formula doesn’t directly support students.

Senate leaders introduced a plan in early March to give an additional $181 million to public schools by slightly modifying the state’s public school funding formula, the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), and fully funding the new version. 

The formula was established by the Legislature in 1997 and has been consistently underfunded every year since 2008. MAEP provides the state’s share of money for the basic needs of districts, such as teacher salaries, utilities, textbooks and transportation. Districts have broad discretion when it comes to spending the MAEP dollars, something school leaders say is necessary in order for each district to meet its unique needs. 

Despite the plan passing the Senate unanimously, House leadership refused to put more money into the formula, saying they believed it would be used for increased administrative spending and would not benefit students. Instead, House leaders wanted to direct additional funding into specific programs, like the capital improvements loan fund or an assistant teacher pay raise. 

“When our folks were calling their legislators repeatedly, House members were telling them ‘We want to fully fund the MAEP, everybody I know over here wants to fully fund the MAEP,’” said Nancy Loome, executive director of public school advocacy group The Parents’ Campaign. “It was Speaker (Philip) Gunn refusing to allow them to vote on a bill that would have fully funded the MAEP. If they had put a bill in front of House members like they did with senators, it absolutely would have passed.”

Neither proposal triumphed, with lawmakers eventually agreeing to give an additional $100 million to school districts outside of the funding formula with the only spending restriction that the money can’t be used to give raises to superintendents, assistant superintendents and principals. The additional funds will be distributed based on enrollment, similar to the funding formula. 

“This was a way to get a compromise,” Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar said on the Senate floor. “It’s almost the same effect as if it was in the (MAEP) formula.”

The total value of MAEP this year is $2.4 billion, a $38 million increase over last year. Both the $100 million compromise and the $240 million to fund last year’s teacher pay raise were left outside the formula. 

READ MORE: Lawmakers, debating MAEP full funding, have plenty of money to spend

Some officials and school leaders disagree with the idea the compromise is nearly the same as MAEP, since allocating the money this way bypasses the portion of MAEP that distributes money based on school need. 

“Every school district getting the same amount per pupil, there’s no equity in that,” said Todd Ivey, former chief operating officer at the Mississippi Department of Education. “That was one of the primary reasons the state went to MAEP 20+ years ago, to try to prevent an equity funding lawsuit.” 

“I would have preferred it to be put in the formula just because there’s some equity components in the formula that help out schools that maybe aren’t able to generate as much (local tax dollars) as others, accounting for longer bus routes in rural areas, students in poverty,” said Tyler Hansford, Superintendent of the Union Public School District. “But at the same time, I’m not going to complain about additional funding.” 

Robert Williams, superintendent of the Hattiesburg Public School District, said he didn’t have an opinion about how the funding was distributed, just that he was grateful to the Legislature for providing the additional money. While the exact total of how much extra each school district will get is not yet available, Williams said he hopes to hire additional school resource officers and continue to invest in counseling and social-emotional supports.

Other districts said the additional funding will save them from having to cut employees that were hired with federal pandemic relief dollars. Chris Chism, superintendent of the Pearl Public School District, said this one will be one focus area for him, the other to give the lowest-paid employees a raise to combat the impact of record inflation. Chism said increased legislative investment in public schools will continue to be critical to overcome these conditions. 

Toren Ballard, K-12 policy director for education policy organization Mississippi First, said he expects to see a more detailed conversation about revising the formula next session. 

“It seems like, at least in the House, in order to get more money for education the formula is going to have to be rewritten,” he said. 

Loome said she is “optimistic” about education funding next session. 

“I’m hoping that (House members) are having conversations right now with candidates for speaker and saying, ‘Fully funding our public schools is really important to us, it’s important to our communities,’” she said. 

Recent polling shows that full funding of MAEP is very popular, with 79% of respondents saying they support it in a recent Sienna College/Mississippi Today poll. 

Superintendent of the Kemper County School District Hilute Hudson said that while he would have liked to see full funding, he appreciates that the compromise struck this year gives schools some more money while also giving legislators more time to revisit the formula. 

He also pushed back on the notion that additional money put into the formula would have been used irresponsibly. 

“If you look across the state, (school leaders) are taking these funds and trying to put them to the best use for our students. It’s not a situation of trying to inflate salaries,” Hudson said. 

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Mississippi State and Ole Miss have won college baseball’s national championship in back-to-back seasons, rampaging through the College World Series at Omaha before crowds that seemed 98% Mississippians.

But take a quick look at the Southeastern Conference current standings and we must ask ourselves: Did the Bulldogs and Rebels make a deal with the devil to win those national crowns? And, is it now time to pay the devil? There are seven teams in the SEC’s Western Division. Mississippi State currently is in sixth place with a 3-9 league record, one game ahead of seventh place Ole Miss, which is 2-10.

Is this a case of, “Oh, how the mighty have fallen?” Or is just a case of two talented teams, off to bad starts, but still with plenty of time to turn it around?

It’s probably somewhere in between. Let’s take a look. Defending national champ Ole Miss is 18-13 overall. 2021 champ Mississippi State completed the Easter weekend with an overall record of 19-14. Both are five games above .500 and have played inconsistently, while displaying the potential to go on a late season run the way Ole Miss did a year ago.

Remember, the 2022 national champs were 22-17, five games above .500, at an even later juncture last year and turned it around in late April, May and June in one of the most unlikely championship runs in college baseball history. After winning just 22 of their first 39 games, the Rebels won 20 of their last 27.

It can happen.

But it has to start soon.

Neither Ole Miss, nor State, is nearly as destitute as it might have seemed when both began the SEC season by getting swept in their first two series. Ole Miss opened against Vanderbilt and Florida, both ranked among the top six teams in the country. State likewise opened against Kentucky and Vandy. If you’re not at you best against that kind of competition, the result will not be pleasant. And it wasn’t for either. Both started 0-6.

But both have played better since. Ole Miss has lost two of three to both Texas A&M and Arkansas. State lost a tough series to South Carolina, then won the series at Bama.

Both the Rebels and Bulldogs need to play far better still. And just look whom they play in their next weekend series. That would be each other. Ole Miss and State square off for a three-game series at Starkville beginning Friday at 6 p.m. Because of their slow starts, this becomes much more crucial than your normal mid-April series.

Both play mid-week games Tuesday night — State on the road at UAB and Ole Miss at home against Memphis. Then comes the showdown, which State has dominated in recent seasons.

Ole Miss has not won the annual weekend series since 2015. State has won seven of the last 10 games between the two, and 16 off the last 20. State has won six of the last nine games played at Starkville.

Important to remember is that we haven’t quite reached the halfway point of the SEC season. So, this can’t be described as a make-or-break series. State currently sits at No. 29 in RPI ratings, while Ole Miss is No. 38. State has played the nation’s second most difficult schedule, Ole Miss the 10th most difficult. Both have time to turn it around. That said, this weekend would be the optimum time to get headed in the right direction.

•••

Southern Miss coach Scott Berry earned victories Nos. 500 and 501 at the school in a weekend series at Old Dominion as the Golden Eagles took two of three from the Monarchs, who had been tied for first in the Sun Belt.

The Golden Eagles enter the week with at 19-11 overall and 7-5 in the Sun Belt – and with a No. 27 RPI against the nation’s 20th most difficult schedule. The Golden Eagles are two games out of first place with James Madison coming to town for a weekend series.

After a slow start, the Eagles have won seven of their past 10, playing most of those on the road. After 30 games a year ago, the Eagles were 22-8 and then won 25 of their last 34 games.

The schedule sets up well. Southern Miss plays four of its last six conference series at home.

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APRIL 10, 1967

Unita Blackwell, Fannie Lou Hamer and others testified about the immense poverty in the Mississippi Delta as Sen. Robert Kennedy and others listened at a Senate subcommittee hearing in Jackson. The next day, Kennedy and Sen. Joseph Clark from Pennsylvania toured the Delta with Marian Wright, seeing malnutrition they equated with Third World countries. The senators wrote a letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson, describing what they found. The press covered the story, including The New York Times and Jet and Look magazines. 

“Congress talks of poverty and how it should be dealt with,” Daniel Schorr reported on the CBS Evening News, “but rarely does it go to look at it.” More congressional hearings resulted, and reforms followed. Ellen Meacham’s book, “Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi,” tells this story.

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Mississippi Today’s political team breaks down three major issues from the 2023 legislative session that will become inescapable issues during the 2023 election cycle.

The post Podcast: The legislative issues politicians can’t escape in 2023 election appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Natalie Perkins in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Natalie is the editor of The Deer Creek Pilot and is the assistant director of the Sharkey County Emergency Management Agency. For two weeks, she has been working nearly 24 hours a day on Rolling Fork’s recovery from a monster EF-4 tornado that destroyed 85% of the town and killed 13 residents. Natalie talks about where the recovery stands and tells her own personal stories about the storm.

If you’d like to support The Deer Creek Pilot, you can contribute here.

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APRIL 9, 1939

On a blustery Easter Sunday, opera superstar Marian Anderson (“the 20^th century’s Beyoncé”) stepped on a stage constructed at the Lincoln Memorial and sang for the biggest crowd she had ever faced — more than 75,000 people. She had already sung at Carnegie Hall, but the Daughters of the American Revolution turned her away from a 1939 performance in Constitution Hall. This angered First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who resigned and asked Anderson to sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. 

At the free, open-air concert, the talented contralto began to sing, “America,” accompanied only by a piano. She changed the lyric from “I” to “we,” signaling her attempt to unify Americans. After singing an aria, she finished with three spirituals, including “My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord.” 

NBC Blue carried the broadcast, which was heard by millions. Her performance cemented her status as an international star. The Chicago Defender wrote at the time that “intolerance received one of the heaviest blows of the ages” when Anderson performed, saying the crowd “all seemed to mingle with one common interest — the determination to welcome the greatest singer of this generation and to show that tolerance lives.” 

After this, the DAR reversed its position and invited her to perform many more times. Her rise was all the more amazing, given the impoverishment she grew up in after her father died when she was young. She began singing as a child at the Union Baptist Church and was so talented they nicknamed her “The Baby Contralto.” The Philadelphia Music Academy denied her entry because of her color. 

In 1925, she beat 300 competitors and sang in New York with the Philharmonic Orchestra accompanying her. When she performed three years later at Carnegie Hall, a New York Times critic gushed: “A true mezzo-soprano, she encompassed both ranges with full power, expressive feeling, dynamic contrast and utmost delicacy.” 

During World War II and the Korean War, she entertained troops in hospitals and bases. Throughout her career, she continued to break down barriers. She became the first Black American invited to perform at the White House and sang at the inaugurations of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. She also became the first Black American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. A year later, her autobiography, “My Lord, What a Morning”, became a bestseller. 

Anderson became a goodwill ambassador for the State Department, giving concerts around the world. Until her death in 1993, awards continued to pour in — the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Kennedy Center Honors and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The post On this day in 1939 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Ellisville and those who support abortion rights are two winners from Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Chair John Polk’s decision to kill legislation reviving the state’s ballot initiative process.

The initiative proposal died late in the 2023 legislative session when Polk refused to call it up for consideration before the full Senate on a key deadline day. The initiative would allow citizens to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot for voters to decide.

McDaniel, who is challenging Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in this year’s Republican primary, can hammer the incumbent for letting the initiative restoration legislation perish. Whether the death of the initiatives will be a pivotal issue in the GOP primary for the underdog McDaniel is debatable, but it at least creates an opening. And Hosemann, who is still the odds-on favorite to win re-election, can at least argue that during the final days of the session he made one last effort to revive legislation restoring the initiative. That effort, of course, was unsuccessful as House Speaker Philip Gunn refused Hosemann’s overtures to revive the process late in the session.

Polk, a Hattiesburg Republican, stressed it was his decision to allow the proposal to die. He said Hosemann supported it. But as presiding officer of the Senate, Hosemann could have assigned a committee chair other than Polk to handle the legislation. Hosemann should not be surprised by the outcome. After all, last year Polk took unusual parliamentary measures to kill the initiative, yet Hosemann sent the measure to his committee again this year, ultimately giving a senator who opposes the initiative the power over whether the process is revived.

After the Supreme Court ruled the state’s initiative process unconstitutional in May 2021 based on a technicality, both Hosemann and Gunn vowed to fix the problems cited by the Supreme Court and restore the process. Gunn even advocated at the time for the governor to call a special session to revive the initiative immediately.

“We 100% believe in the right of the people to use the initiative and referendum process to express their views on public policy,” Gunn said in May 2021. “If the legislature does not act on an issue that the people of Mississippi want, then the people need a mechanism to change the law. I support the governor calling us into a special session to protect this important right of the people.”

Yet the action of Gunn, like that of Hosemann, put the prospects of reviving the initiative in jeopardy. Gunn and his leadership team incorporated in their initiative proposal a ban on using the process to change laws that place a strict ban on abortion.

Gunn, who is retiring at the end of the year, tried to use the legislation restoring the initiative process to further one of his most ardent legislative goals — to ensure most abortions will be banned in Mississippi.

In truth, many who would otherwise support restoring the initiative process are probably at least secretly happy with Polk’s action. The initiative restoration legislation as fashioned by Gunn and his leadership team created a conundrum for many Democrats or people supporting abortion rights.

Remember, if the Legislature had passed legislation reviving the initiative, it still would have had to be approved by voters in November.

The reason for the political conundrum is that people who support abortion rights could have been conflicted on whether to vote to revive the initiative process or to vote against it because of the abortion provision.

Before casting that vote, though, people would have needed to understand that if the initiative restoration proposal was rejected by voters in November, lawmakers would have argued that the people had spoken and did not want to reinstate the process.

It is safe to assume that in their heart of hearts, many legislators are not enamored with a process that allows voters to bypass them and place issues on the ballot. They would be looking for ways to prevent that from happening.

In other words, if the initiative had reached the ballot this November and had been rejected, it is likely that voters would not for a long time have had another opportunity to restore the process.

So some Mississippians would have had to decide whether to vote for an initiative that could be used to address issues such as expanding Medicaid but not abortion, or just vote against the whole thing.

But now, thanks to Polk’s action, there can be an effort in 2024 with Gunn no longer serving in the Legislature to pass a clean ballot initiative process.

The question might be whether the presiding officers of the Senate and the House, whomever they might be, will be willing to ensure that happens.

The post The winners of the ballot initiative demise? Chris McDaniel and abortion rights supporters appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Y’all remember the old 1970s Three Dog Night hit, “Out in the Country”? No?

Find it and give it a listen.

The song is a whimsical homage to needing space when life starts closing in. Sometimes you just need to get away. Take the road less traveled. All roads lead to somewhere. That kind of thing.

And the place to do that is The Lodge in Moselle, a get-away with safari-like tents and cottages equipped with all the comforts of home.

With theme music firmly in your head, pack a few essentials, get in your vehicle and, if leaving the Jackson metro area, hit U.S. 49 South. Keep going until you get to Collins and hook a left on Mississippi 588.

Keep going.

Enjoy the pastoral beauty of the boonies. Moo at cows and grin at your own silliness. Breathe.

Mississippi 588 becomes Moselle-Seminary Road, which becomes Mississippi 11 South. You’ll take a few more rights and a handful of lefts on a two-lane blacktop, but keep going. Trust your GPS. You lose cellphone service, but so what, that’s kind of the point.

That last turn really does put you on S w P A Road in Moselle.

You have arrived.

There’s a cute little signpost welcoming you to The Lodge at Sweetwater Studios.

Owner and operator Airon Whitt will motor out on her golf cart to greet you. It’s quite possible her two dogs Diego and Dora will greet you, too. They’re good ambassadors for where you’ll be kicking back. Both were strays and decided to stay. Don’t be surprised if the same ideas whisper to you.

Once you’ve stretched your legs and loosen up from the drive, have a listen.

Do you hear it?

That’s right. No traffic. No cellphones or televisions.

Take a deep, deep breath. Soak in the peacefulness of rustic overload — birds chirping, tree leaves rustling from a soft breeze wafting through the surrounding woods of the 26-acre property.

You’ll notice Airon waiting patiently while you soak it all in, smiling at you and the “knowing” you’ve just acquired.

“My parents are artists who traveled, honed their crafts and helped out in the communities where we lived when I was a kid. I can remember us staying in these huge tents that I thought were so cool. I told myself, I’ll have tents just like that one day. That’s the beauty of the internet. I found the exact same tents and here they are,” Whitt said, as she tidied up the sleeping area in one of the tents.

“I worked in the tourism and travel industry, in hotels and restaurants for over 15 years. I learned so much, and I discovered just how much I loved it,” Whitt said, as she vented the huge 31-foot, domed yoga tent. “That planted a few seeds, you know. I knew I wanted to live my dream of owning my own get-a-way space, hotel, something like that someday.”

“I had one of the best jobs ever… spending summers traveling the world with teenagers to places like Panama, Guatemala, Thailand, Ghana, Cambodia and Morocco. Then COVID hit. I found myself wondering just what I was going to do. It forced me to move back here. But out of that nightmare, my dream took shape. The Lodge at Sweetwater Studios was born,” Whitt said with admiration.

Yes, for the glammer-camper in you, there are private bathrooms, hot water, rainfall showers and heated blankets. Other amenities include bathrobes, beds with memory foam mattresses, heat, air conditioning, coffee makers and wine glasses. Contemplate life out on the deck and enjoy the firepit, sunrises or sunsets, your choice.

There’s a 3-acre lake and pedal boats. Work out your kinks in the 31-foot yoga tent. An art studio is available for instructor workshops. Birdwatch while hiking the nature trails in the surrounding woods.

Whitt’s father built a 5,250-foot croquet lawn, as well as a greenhouse filled with tropical plants, many grown from Airon’s unique finds from the places she visited. There’s also an 8-foot deep pool, a spa and sauna.

Whitt invites one and all to come as a group or come alone to take a load off. Relax, meditate, explore… oh, and play croquet.

The post Photo essay: The Lodge at Stillwater Studios appeared first on Mississippi Today.

APRIL 8, 1974

Despite death threats, Hank Aaron shattered Babe Ruth’s home run record while playing for the Atlanta Braves. 

He battled racism from the day he began playing baseball. “We had breakfast while we were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the (team) in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we finished eating,” he recalled. “What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they’d have washed them.” 

In the South, Jim Crow laws forced him to stay and eat in different places than the team. His brother, Herbert Jr., encouraged him to not give up. The former Negro Leaguer played in a record 24 All-Star Games and was MVP in 1957.  As he neared Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs, he received nearly 1 million pieces of mail, many of them death threats and hate mail. When he hit his record 715th run in Atlanta, he received a standing ovation. 

Baseball announcer Vin Scully declared, “What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron … And for the first time in a long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of what it must have been like to live with for the past several months.” 

Aaron finished his career with a record 755 career home runs, and the Atlanta Braves’ Turner Field now has a statue that immortalizes his record-breaking home run.

The post On this day in 1974 appeared first on Mississippi Today.