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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.

The post On this day in 1959 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Navigating the Rapids appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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.

The post On this day in 1903 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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.

The post Bill to put Jackson water under regional authority dies without a vote in House appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi House, with most Democrats voting present, approved by a 75-9 margin on Wednesday a proposal to restore the ballot initiative process after it was struck down in 2021 by the state Supreme Court.

The measure required a two-thirds majority to pass.

Most Democrats did not want to go on record as defeating the legislation to restore the initiative, but at the same time did not want to vote for the latest proposal that they say would provide citizens fewer options to place issues on the ballot than the previous process that was struck down by the Supreme Court.

“You are not voting on an initiative process that the public wants. You are voting on a process a handful of legislative leaders want,” said Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens.

Thirty-four of the 122 members, all Democrats, voted present. If they all had voted no, they could have killed the legislation. They voted present because they wanted to keep the proposal alive even if it contains provisions they oppose. Based on Wednesday’s vote, the proposal will remain alive. House and Senate leaders now will try to hammer out the differences between what the two chambers passed.

Both the House and Senate proposals, in their current form, are much more cumbersome and more restrictive than the initiative process that was struck down in 2021 by the Supreme Court.

Under both proposals, the Legislature by a simple majority vote can change or repeal the initiative approved by the electorate. And the House proposal would prevent the issue of abortion from being placed on the ballot by citizens.

Rep. Daryl Porter, D-Summit, told Rep. Nick Bain, R-Corinth, who was explaining the bill to members, that the proposal “was stifling” the rights of the citizens.

Bain said he did not believe that is the case. He said he is certain that Mississippians are anti-abortion so he saw no need to allow them to vote on the issue.

“I feel that way in my heart,” Bain said. Porter said there would be no way to verify Bain’s beliefs under the initiative process offered by the leadership.

Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, said the legislation offered by the leadership is not a true initiative proposal.

“It gives the Legislature the power to change whatever the people want to do,” he said.

Rep. Hester Jackson McCray, D-Horn Lake, said the previous process that was overturned by the Supreme Court already was difficult enough for the citizens to use. She pointed out only three initiatives had been approved by the voters since it was enacted in 1992.

“The initiative process was not easy anyway. Now we as legislators are making it harder for our citizens,” said Hester McCray, who was the sponsor of an initiative to allow early voting when the Supreme Court struck down the process.

The court nullified the ballot initiative process in 2021 because it required the signatures to be gathered equally from the five congressional districts as they existed in 1990. The state lost a congressional district in 2000, making the process inoperable, the court ruled.

“The overall issue here is giving people a voice, but we want to maintain the sanctity and integrity of this body that is sent down here to make laws,” Bain said. He added it should be difficult to pass laws.

The House did quash one proposal of the House leadership on the floor Wednesday: to more than double the number of signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot. Under the proposal of House and Senate leaders, the signatures of at least 240,000 registered voters would be needed to place an issue on the ballot.

Rep. Joel Bomgar, R-Madison, successfully added an amendment to reduce the number of signatures to the same as in the process that was overturned by the Supreme Court. That process required about 110,000 or 12% of the total vote in the last gubernatorial election.

Bomgar said, “There is no possible way to gather that many signatures.”

The post Bill restoring ballot initiative remains alive, though some say it ‘stifles’ Mississippi voters appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved two bills to change the state’s school funding formula and “fully fund” the new version, but the bills may face challenges in the House and from the governor. 

The funding formula used to allocate money to public schools, the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, was established by the Legislature in 1997 and has been consistently underfunded every year since 2008. MAEP funding provides the state’s share of funding for the basic operations of local school districts, ranging from teacher salaries to textbooks to utilities.

In broad strokes, the proposed changes would change the amount some districts pay towards the formula and adjust the way inflation is calculated. Every school district except five (Carroll County, Coahoma County, Laurel, Holly Springs, and Wilkinson County) would receive more money than last year from the state under the new formula, but the state would make a one-time allocation to those five districts for the first year the new formula is enacted. 

READ MORE: Senate, Hosemann want to spend $181 million more to ‘fully fund’ public education in Mississippi

Chickasaw County School District Superintendent John Ellison called the new plan “a step in the right direction.” 

“We got so far from full funding, it was almost like ‘How are we ever going to get there?’ So to me this was kind of a meet in the middle,” he said. “It probably has lowered the ceiling some on what full funding of MAEP looks like, but at the same time, it’s given most of us an increase in funding for next year, so that’s always a good thing for us. The other positive, too, is if they change the formula to where it’s more likely to be fully funded, then we know what to bank on each year.”

The changes to the formula do not alter the calculation of the base student cost, or the amount of money that is necessary to “adequately” educate a student, which some advocates have lauded. The base student cost is recalculated every four years and receives an adjustment for inflation each year in the intervening years — this inflation adjustment is one of the two aspects of the formula that the Senate plan changes. Under the new plan, inflation will be calculated using a 20-year average instead of current inflation rates, and the amount of costs subject to the inflation adjustment will be reduced.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leaksville, said the changes in inflation calculation will provide more stability for both the Legislature and school districts. Since the year-to-year cost of full funding will fluctuate less with the shift to a 20-year average, it will be easier for the Legislature to anticipate how much fully funding MAEP will cost. 

“By fully funding it, which is what districts are mostly going to be keen on, I think districts can work with fluctuations in actual inflation as long as we are fully funding it,” he told Mississippi Today. 

The bill would also change the portion that must be covered locally. Under the current formula, there is a provision known as the “27% rule,” which states that no school district shall bear more than 27% of the cost of public education for its schools. The new proposal would alter the percentage to 29.5%. This change would slightly increase the contribution by wealthier districts, since their property taxes generate more funds and they are the districts who benefit from this cap. 

DeBar said for full funding of MAEP to be possible, some districts need to be more honest about the level of local funding they already provide, since most school districts levy property taxes above the required amount. 

“In any scenario that increases the 27% threshold, by any degree, even if it’s just 2.5%, what you’re saying is, those property-wealthy districts that were benefiting from this loophole are going to benefit a little less,” said Zahava Stadler of New America, a national think tank. “It frees up state money … to be sent to districts that actually need the aid.”

Stadler said while she sees this change as positive progress, the existence of the 27% rule is still very unusual nationally. She said most states only pay the portion of their formula that local districts cannot cover through property taxes, or guarantee to cover a much smaller portion of the cost. 

DeBar said this revision of the formula is “the beginning,” and the formula should be reviewed for tweaks more often, possibly each time the base student cost is recalculated. 

“It’s going to be hard to make changes to the formula if we’re not fully funding it upfront,” he said. 

For school districts, the biggest impact of the funding increase will be the ability to avoid budget cuts or update neglected facilities. 

Adrian Hammitte, superintendent of the Jefferson County School District, said this money will save his district from making cuts to protect new curriculum resources and allow him to address damages to buildings from severe weather events over the last few years. 

“Those additional funds will help us to continue to make sure that students have a safe, warm, and welcoming school environment,” he said.

DeBar emphasized the work the Senate has done over the last three years to build relationships with the education community, including advocates, administrators, and teachers as a vital part of the success of these changes. 

“I think that (the unanimous passage) shows the work we put into bringing this forward, having everybody on board, has paid off,” he said.

While the proposal may have passed the Senate unanimously, the governor and some House members have expressed frustration that the proposal is being brought forward relatively late in the session. 

“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,” Reeves tweeted. “Very very cautious.”

When asked about these concerns, DeBar said that he understands people are only now getting to look at the proposal and review it, but hopes they will engage with him on any concerns they have. 

“Most, if not all, of us have campaigned on being supporters of education and fully funding MAEP, and this is the vehicle that we have before us,” he said. “Is the formula perfect at this point? Some may say no, but it’s an honest effort to begin the conversation.” 

The post Bill to fully fund public education heads to House for consideration. Here’s what the changes would mean. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The House of Representatives in a mostly partisan and racially divided vote on Wednesday revived its measure to expand the area inside Jackson where state-run Capitol Police can patrol to include neighborhoods where most of the capital city’s white citizens live.

After lengthy debate on Wednesday that served to highlight ongoing racial tension under the dome this session, the House passed Senate Bill 2343, which leaders overhauled with language that died earlier in the session that would expand the state police jurisdiction to only a specific district within Jackson, the Blackest large city in America.

The final vote was 67-45, with most white, Republican, non-Jacksonians voting for it, and all Black lawmakers, Democrats and all but one member of the Jackson delegation voting against. A few white Republicans also voted against the measure, most on grounds it would expand state government spending and state police powers.

Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson and the only “yea” vote from Jackson’s delegation on Wednesday, said her legislation is aimed at curbing crime in northeast Jackson and helping an understaffed Jackson Police Department.

“This is simply a response to Jackson residents who live in this proposed district who want more police. That’s it,” Yates said.

The Senate passed a separate measure on Tuesday that would give Capitol Police jurisdiction inside the whole capital city, not just in a limited district like the House measure passed on Wednesday. The leaders of the two chambers would have to iron out that disagreement as the 2023 legislative session enters its final three weeks.

READ MORE: Senate passes House Bill 1020 over opposition from Jackson lawmakers

Meanwhile, bitter debate continues over several other measures that Jackson leaders, advocates and national media have labeled a hostile state takeover of governance of a majority Black city by a majority white state Legislature.

“This is the most depressing legislative session I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them,” Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Canton Democrat who has served in the Legislature for 40 years, said on Wednesday. “…The uncomfortable truth is, this has nothing to do with solving crime.”

Yates, who lives in a neighborhood already patrolled by Capitol Police after its jurisdiction was expanded last year, panned the overburdened and understaffed local Jackson Police Department during debate. She did not directly answer several questions from her fellow Jackson lawmakers about why the state has not appropriated funding for the city’s struggling police department.

“Right now, if you call 9-1-1 in Jackson, you will not get anyone at all … you will more than likely not get an answer,” Yates said in response to a question about the need for the bill.

Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson, held a phone aloft during the House debate and told Yates, “We just called 9-1-1 and got an answer right away.”

“You’re lucky,” Yates responded.

READ MORE: ‘Only in Mississippi’: House votes to create white-appointed court system for Blackest city in America

Opponents of the bills to take over policing, infrastructure and other functions in Jackson say the state should provide the city resources to deal with a decades long loss of tax base, not take away its local sovereignty and create a separate police force and cordon off more white areas of the city. They say lawmakers have not, and would not, force such measures on other cities, and that such moves are a knock on Black governance.

Several Jackson lawmakers continue to point out that their white colleagues pushing this legislation have not brought them to the table to discuss how to address the city’s crime problems.

Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader from Natchez, said Capitol Police, once a small force mainly charged with security in and around state office buildings downtown, doesn’t have homicide detectives, holding facilities, a 9-1-1 system or other infrastructure to police one-third of Mississippi’s largest city. He said the agency will be asking lawmakers for millions of taxpayer dollars to boost their existing presence and processes — funds he argued should go to the city or elsewhere in the state budget.

Proponents of the bills, though, say the state is trying to help with soaring crime rates, water and sewerage and other issues that have reached crisis levels.

During floor debate of her Capitol Police measure on Wednesday, Yates called it a “last-ditch effort.”

“I have constituents who will leave Jackson,” she said.

READ MORE: Constitutionality of House Bill 1020 comes into focus

The post House revives state police expansion and bitter fight over Jackson ‘takeover’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Supporters of transgender youth rally and express their opposition of House Bill 1125 at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023.

READ MORE: Reeves signs bill banning gender-affirming care for trans minors

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The post The Pulse: Supporters of transgender youth rally and express their opposition of House Bill 1125 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A host of elected officials and attorneys who are increasingly scrutinizing House Bill 1020 say the original version of the legislation is likely unconstitutional — a point looming over lawmakers as they continue to debate and change the bill at the Capitol.

The bill, which passed the state House last month after four hours of debate, received national attention for seeking to create an appointed judiciary within the Blackest large city in the nation while all other similar judicial posts in the state are elected. It would also have broadly expanded jurisdiction of the white appointed state police department inside the Jackson city limits.

Many lawmakers have publicly argued the bill violates the U.S. Constitution because it denies a right to vote to the city’s 80%-plus Black population and allows the judges to be appointed by a white chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

“Only in Mississippi would we have a bill like this … where we say solving the problem requires removing the vote from Black people,” Rep. Ed Blackmon, D-Jackson.

READ MORE: ‘Only in Mississippi’: House votes to create white-appointed court system for Blackest city in America

But Jackson Attorney Luther Munford, who specializes in constitutional law and previously served as the head of former Gov. Ray Mabus’ judicial nominating committee, recently opined the bill is unconstitutional on another level. He argues it creates a judicial system that is not allowed by the Mississippi Constitution.

“The Mississippi Constitution does not allow the displacement of elected judges. To be constitutional, the new court would have to be ‘inferior’ to elected judges and subject to their review,” Munford wrote in a recent Northside Sun op-ed. “Moreover, there is nothing in the Mississippi Constitution that would allow the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court or anyone else to do what the bill asks, i.e. to appoint its members. The constitution does not contemplate filling any permanent judicial office by appointment, and the temporary appointing powers it gives belong exclusively to the governor.”

The permanent, appointed judiciary section recently was stripped completely from the House bill by the Senate. The Senate passed its version of the bill Tuesday, only including temporarily appointed judges to cover all of Hinds County, not just the Capitol Complex district.

The Senate version now goes back to the House, where leaders can choose to accept the Senate changes or invite conference to try to work out the differences.

READ MORE: Senate passes House Bill 1020 over opposition from Jackson lawmakers

Even though the Senate stripped the language creating the separate judicial district with the appointed judges, those provisions will remain alive this session and could be reinserted in the bill later in the process with the agreement of Senate leaders.

At one point, even Gov. Tate Reeves, who often has been critical of the elected leadership in Jackson and has brashly highlighted the city’s crime problems, seemed to question the constitutionality of the bill after it passed the House.

Reeves said in February his office was working with legislative leaders “to get to the point” where the bill provides “safety and security to the citizens of Jackson while at the same time meet(ing) constitutional muster and otherwise.” He said there was still work to do on the legislation.

But a few days later after the Senate Judiciary A Committee stripped the appointed, permanent judges from the bill, the Republican governor seemed less pleased with the proposal.

“The bill that was amended in the Senate I thought took a pretty big step back in terms of just sending money to the same entities and institutions that exist now, and I don’t think that is the right approach,” Reeves said.

When was asked if he would sign the bill in the version that passed the Senate Judiciary A Committee, Reeves said he hopes work continues on the legislation.

“I am hopeful a bill gets to me I can sign, but I don’t think it would be that one,” he said.

The Senate proposal would continue to allow judges appointed by Chief Justice Michael Randolph to hear cases in Hinds County through the end of 2026. But in 2026, a new judge would be elected and the appointed judges would be removed.

The effort is being undertaken, Republican leaders say, to help deal with crime and a backlog of criminal cases in Hinds County.

There already exists in the city of Jackson a legislatively created Capital Complex Improvement District where a state police force has jurisdiction. The House proposal would expand the district to cover more affluent and whiter areas of Jackson.

Instead of expanding the district, the Senate proposal would provide the state police jurisdiction throughout the city and require city officials and Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell to reach agreement on how that jurisdiction would work.

Many Jackson elected officials say a major problem with the Senate proposal is that it gives the final say over police jurisdiction to the state and not the city. Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who oversees the Jackson Police Department, has said he will not sign a contract with the state if the current Senate proposal passes.

The author of the original House version is House Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, a Repubnlican from Senatobia. He has reiterated there is no racist intent with the legislation.

“The Mississippi House is trying to help, not hurt, Jackson,” said Lamar on social media. Just two of the 38 Black members of the House voted in favor of the original proposal. No Black member of the Senate voted for the amended proposal.

Lamar argued the bill is constitutional. He said the Mississippi Constitution allows the Legislature to create “inferior courts,” and under his legislation the rulings of the appointed judges would be subject to review by the four existing elected judges in Hinds County.

But Munford said the process of appealing decisions of the appointed judges to the elected judges, as spelled out in the bill, is unworkable. Plus, the state constitution gives only the governor the authority to appoint judges — when a vacancy occurs and then only to the next election.

Lamar pointed out that state law does give the chief justice the authority to appoint judges in certain instances, such as to hear election challenges or when the judges in a district recuse themselves from the case.

The post Constitutionality of House Bill 1020 comes into focus appeared first on Mississippi Today.