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The federal government is restoring $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools.

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week that it would reinstate pandemic relief funds. The decision comes less than three months after the federal government revoked billions nationwide as part of Trump administration efforts to cut government spending. 

State education agencies and school districts originally had until March 2026 to spend the money, but the federal government claimed that because the pandemic was over, they had no use for the money. 

That March 2026 deadline has been reinstated following a series of injunctive orders. 

A coalition of Democratic-led states sued the federal government in April over the decision to withhold the money. Then, a federal judge granted plaintiff states injunctive orders in the case, which meant those states could continue spending their COVID-relief dollars while other states remained restricted.

But the education department decided that wasn’t fair, wrote Secretary Linda McMahon in a letter dated June 26, so the agency was restoring the money to all states, not just the ones involved in the lawsuit. 

“The original intent of the policy announced on March 28 was to treat all states consistently with regards to safeguarding and refocusing their remaining COVID-era grant funding on students,” she wrote. “The ongoing litigation has created basic fairness and uniformity problems.”

The Mississippi Department of Education notified school districts about the decision on Friday. 

In the meantime, schools and states have been requesting exemptions for individual projects, though many from across the country have been denied. 

Eleven Mississippi school districts had submitted requests to use the money to fund services such as tutoring and counseling, according to records requested by Mississippi Today, though those are now void because of the federal government’s decision. 

Starting immediately, school districts can submit new requests to the state education department to draw down their federal allocation.

Mississippi Today previously reported that about 70 school districts were relying on the federal funds to pay for a range of initiatives, including construction projects, mental health services and literacy programs. 

In 2023, almost half of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, pandemic relief money allocated to schools across the country, went to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs. A third went to operational and staff costs, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education.

Though Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said that legislative leaders might consider helping agencies that were impacted by federal funding cuts, House Speaker Jason White said Monday that he did not have an appetite for directing state funds to pandemic-era programs. 

Small school districts were already feeling the impact of the federal government’s decision to rescind the money. In May, Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board voted to terminate a contract on a school construction project funded with federal dollars. 

The litigation is ongoing, so the funding could again be rescinded.

Clarification: A previous version of this article misstated the status of school districts’ pandemic relief money.

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality announced on Friday it has lifted an extended water contact advisory for the Pearl River, which had stretched south from Byram almost as far as Monticello.

MDEQ put the warning in place on June 5 after third-party utility JXN Water notified the agency of a “catastrophic” sewer failure at the critical West Bank Interceptor.

“Recent samples of the Pearl River, within the area of the extended advisory, indicate the impact of the untreated sewage has subsided and sample results have returned to pre-incident levels,” the agency said in a press release.

A 2019 advisory for the river, which runs from Hanging Moss Creek in the northern tip of Hinds County to the Byram Swinging Bridge, is still active. It warns the public against swimming, wading, or fishing in the water because of “ongoing sanitary sewer overflows around the City of Jackson.”

JXN Water discovered the most recent failure on May 28. The malfunction led to the release of between 10 million to 20 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Pearl River each day, according to MDEQ. JXN Water stopped the overflow on June 6, nine days after discovering the issue.

The utility estimated it is spending $300,000 a month to redirect the wastewater through 4,000 feet of piping, and will need $7.5 million for long-term repairs. JXN Water said it is working with the Environmental Protection Agency to secure the funding.

These are some of the questions folks had recently for outgoing Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba – and his answers.

In 2024, Lumumba began an initiative called “Ask Antar,” in which residents could submit inquiries and concerns through the city’s website.

The city received more than 180 questions. Mississippi Today requested and reviewed them all and found that in the last year, Jacksonians have had the most curiosity and frustration about accessing services and responsiveness from City Hall, housing and homelessness, and street conditions.

Lumumba, whose two-term administration ends Tuesday, responded to about a fourth of the questions, plus more submitted through social media, across 15 video segments on the city’s YouTube page. In many videos, the mayor explained processes – such as how environmental courts determine what to do about derelict structures or why Jackson Police Department is unable to address squatting unless it receives a report from the owner of a specific property.

Another theme among his answers was that the administration is not in control of all functions people had complaints about – like in the case of water rates now governed by private manager JXN Water, or street lights on interstates that are a state responsibility. He also said the administration did not have resources to address all problems – potholes, for example.

Mississippi Today went a step further, contacting people who submitted questions. Of the two dozen who responded to the news organization, most had no idea the mayor had answered their questions.

“Why is it you replied to my email, yet I never heard from the city of Jackson?” said one person, who had asked in December about the broken stop light at the intersection of Woodrow Wilson and State Street.

For those whose questions Lumumba answered, we directed each person to the corresponding video and asked them to rate their satisfaction with the answer on a scale of 1 to 5.

Mississippi Today requested an interview with Lumumba to discuss our findings, but city spokesperson Melissa Payne said he was unavailable. Lumumba lost reelection during the April Democratic primary and was working on transitioning out of office to make way for Mayor-elect John Horhn. Lumumba’s last question-and-answer segment was posted April 20, two days before he lost in the primary runoff.

Three residents made submissions to Ask Antar seeking space to hold dance classes in the city, and recent high school graduate Javion Shed asked about what the mayor is doing to combat youth violence and introduce positive activities for teens. 

“As a teen in Jackson, you’re always plagued with, what can I do on the weekends, where can I go to just relax, have a great time, and not worry about the fear of violence or the fear of someone I know getting killed?” Shed told Mississippi Today.

In response to Shed last October, Lumumba said the city was developing a curfew center, where teens who may otherwise end up at the youth detention facility could be taken instead to receive services. Shed ranked the response a “solid 4” out of 5. Amid turmoil in the city’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery, though, the center Lumumba described has yet to open.

Several residents raised concerns with a lack of communication and listening among the administration. Referencing a three-year fight between the mayor and city council over renewing the city’s garbage contract, which led to trash pickup interruptions in 2023, one resident wrote that the mayor’s “antics and over-complication of intent” created a “4-lane thoroughfare for justified criticism of the ability of African Americans to use critical thinking analysis, and compromise to would-be detractors.” 

Another wrote, “When you become Mayor, we become Mayor was part of your campaign slogan at one point … Why can’t you listen to the recommendations from us via our Council Person?”

Others said they were unable to reach city officials to answer questions or receive basic city services. There were inquiries about getting an electrical pole removed, about repairs to a water meter and about where to drop off old paint cans “now that the household hazardous waste dropoff is closed due to fire.”

“Why don’t the traffic office answer the phone??????” one resident wrote.

One woman who submitted a question about the federal corruption allegations against Lumumba, for which he’s pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to face trial next summer, admitted her intent was to troll the mayor.

But many more of the submissions conveyed the serious and dire conditions some Jacksonians are living in.

Last July, Carlyn Cornelius submitted concerns about the unhoused population near his mother’s house in west Jackson stealing trailers and cars, burning copper and dumping antifreeze. He told Mississippi Today that a year later, the problems remain.

In his submission, Corneluis said he’d called in reports of these activities to law enforcement, the fire department, Public Works, environmental authorities and the owner of the property, but received no help.

A few days later, another person submitted to Ask Antar, “I need a place to live. I am homeless.”

Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau won the J. Oliver Emmerich Award for Editorial Excellence, and several of the newsroom’s journalists won 13 other 2024 Mississippi Press Association prizes.

The honors, awarded annually by the state’s print news association, recognize the best journalism of Mississippi’s newspapers and digital newsrooms. The 2024 prizes were announced at a Saturday luncheon in Memphis at the Tri-State Press Convention, where Mississippi’s press association joined the Tennessee and Arkansas press associations for three days of programming.

A series of Ganucheau’s 2024 editorials on the debate to expand Medicaid in Mississippi were singled out by judges as “thoughtful, accurate, and passionate.”

“If you’re not motivated to vote for Medicaid expansion by the end of each of these submissions, you haven’t read them carefully,” the judges commented. “That’s what great opinion writing should do: Take a position and argue it persuasively. Here, we get the details, the reporting and insider knowledge that provide credence to the proffered opinion … The arguments here are so well laid out and convincing that it’s hard to imagine anyone would dissent.”

Several other Mississippi Today journalists took home 2024 Mississippi Press Association awards. Below is a complete list of the winners, the awards they won and the recognized work:

Anna Wolfe, first place in the general news story category for her in-depth reporting on the Jackson mayor and Hinds County district attorney’s federal indictments.

Rick Cleveland, first place in the sports column category for a series of powerful columns over the course of 2024. Read the winning series here: Column 1, Column 2, Column 3.

Cleveland, first place in the game story category for his coverage of Dot Burrow’s induction into the National High School Sports Hall of Fame.

Bobby Harrison, first place in the commentary category for a series of columns over the course of 2024. Read the winning series here: Column 1, Column 2, Column 3. 

In addition to the Emmerich award, Ganucheau won first place in the editorials category for a series of editorials about the debate over Medicaid expansion in the 2024 legislative session. Read the winning series here: Editorial 1, Editorial 2, Editorial 3.

Alex Rozier, first place in the headline category for his story headlined, “Curdled creek: Kosciusko residents sour over town’s milky lagoon.” 

Wolfe, second place in the spot news category for her breaking story about Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s federal indictment.

Isabelle Taft, second place in the in-depth/investigative category for her “Committed to Jail” series.

Molly Minta, second place in the business news category for her coverage of Mississippi community colleges’ struggle to fund buildings for state workforce programs.

Cleveland, second place in the sports feature category for an insightful piece on baseball player Hughie Critz.

Geoff Pender, second place in the commentary category for a series of columns over the course of 2024. Read the winning series here: Column 1, Column 2, Column 3. 

Pender and Taylor Vance, third place in the in-depth/investigative category for their “Trey Way” series about state Rep. Trey Lamar.

Sophia Paffenroth, third place in the best news package category for her investigation of the epidemic of antipsychotic drug use in Mississippi nursing homes.

The recent announcement that state Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner Andy Gipson plans to run for governor has fueled speculation about who will be running for what office in a wide open 2027 Mississippi election cycle.

Will all or any of the combination of Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, Auditor Shad White, Attorney General Lynn Fitch enter the gubernatorial donnybrook? Who will be the Democratic Party standard bearer, and will Democrats field competitive candidates for any of the other down-ticket statewide offices that could be vacant based on who is running for governor?

Perhaps, most importantly, will billionaire businessman Thomas Duff of Hattiesburg enter the gubernatorial race after showing numerous signals that he intends to?

But before the 2027 elections roll around there will be another consequential statewide race in Mississippi: for the U.S. Senate in 2026.

Incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith will be running in her third U.S. Senate race, and she surely hopes it will be her first easy one. Her first race, a special election in 2018 after longtime Sen. Thad Cochran retired, was the closest non-party primary U.S. Senate race in modern Mississippi history. Hyde-Smith, running then as the interim appointment of former Gov. Phil Bryant, captured 53.6% of the vote compared to 46.4% for former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and congressman Mike Espy in the special election held to fill out Cochran’s term.

Trent Lott’s first race for the U.S. Senate was almost as close in 1988, when he won 53.9% to 46.1% against 4th District U.S. Rep. Wayne Dowdy. And in a 2008 special election, Republican Roger Wicker, appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour to fill a vacancy left when Lott retired, garnered 55% to 45% by former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove.

But after those relatively close elections, both Lott in 1994 and Wicker in 2012 had easier second elections.

Lott captured 69% of the vote against former state Sen. Ken Harper of Vicksburg. Wicker, on the other hand, had a little tougher race against Albert Gore, winning 57% to 40.6%. Gore was little known and underfunded, but was in many ways an attractive candidate with a noteworthy resume. Interestingly, Gore, like Wicker, was a Pontotoc County native.

In Hyde-Smith’s second race, she again faced Espy in a rare Mississippi campaign when the Democrat raised more money than the Republican. It is practically unheard of in the South — and assuredly in Mississippi — for a Democrat to raise more campaign funds than an incumbent Republican senator. Espy did.

Still, Hyde-Smith, who remains Mississippi’s only woman elected to a federal office, won 54.1% to 44.1%, but the campaign was far from easy for her.

The trend for decades has been that once a U.S. Senate seat is won in Mississippi, the incumbent holds the post for a long time with minimal opposition.

Hyde-Smith is still looking for that minimal opposition race. Will 2026 be when Hyde-Smith finally has an easy path to victory like other incumbent Mississippi senators normally have in their reelection efforts?

Perhaps hoping to ensure that easier path, President Donald Trump already has endorsed Hyde-Smith for her 2026 campaign.

But Trump also endorsed her in 2018 and 2020. Those endorsements did not result in easy campaigns for Hyde-Smith. In both of those campaigns, Hyde-Smith underperformed Trump’s Mississippi results.

Democrats Ty Pinkins and Albert Littell, both of whom have military backgrounds, already have announced their candidacy for 2026. Speculation is that District Attorney Scott Colom of Columbus also will challenge Hyde-Smith. And on the Republican side, author Sarah Adlakha, a Gulf Coast resident who works in health care, also has announced her campaign.

Whether other candidates emerge remains to be seen. And whether Hyde-Smith can experience a less stressful 2026 also remains to be seen.

So far the campaigns have not been as easy for her as for other incumbent U.S. senators from Mississippi.

Mississippians next week will start paying higher taxes at the gas pump but lower taxes at the grocery store.

A new state law that raises Mississippi’s gasoline tax by 3 cents a gallon and cuts the state grocery tax by 2% will take effect on Tuesday, along with other statutes the Legislature passed and governor signed into law earlier this year. 

Mississippi currently has a flat 18.4 cents a gallon excise tax on fuel, one of the lowest gas taxes in the nation. The law will raise the tax to 21.5 cents a gallon this year, then increase it three cents a year until July 1, 2027. At completion, the state gas tax will be 27.4 cents a gallon, a 9-cent total increase. 

Proceeds from the tax will go toward building and maintaining state roads specified by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. 

Mississippi also has a 7% sales tax on non-prepared food, commonly called the grocery tax. The tax, the highest of its kind in the nation, will be reduced to 5% in July. Municipalities around the state receive a portion of this sales tax. The new law ensures cities will receive a larger diversion rate, and be “made whole” from the cut. 

“The decrease is part of House Bill 1 that passed during this year’s Regular Session of the Mississippi Legislature,” Revenue Commissioner Chris Graham said in a press release. “We are excited to be able to administer this reduction to help provide relief on the cost of groceries to Mississippi families.”

Mississippians will also see a reduction in the state income tax rate because state officials are still phasing in a 2022 law that is reducing the income tax to 4%. The Legislature this year passed a new law that will reduce the 4% tax rate in 2027 to 3% over four years. Starting in 2031, the remaining 3% tax will be eliminated over time, based on economic growth triggers. 

 In addition to the tax overhaul, other laws will also go into effect on July 1, including:

Direct wine shipment

A new law legalizes shipping some wines to Mississippians’ homes. Supporters pushed to allow direct wine shipment for over a decade before they succeeded this session. Mississippi was one of only a handful of states that didn’t allow direct shipment. 

Under the new law, shippers must obtain a permit from the Department of Revenue to ship wine, and they are capped at 12 nine-liter cases of wine annually to any one address. The measure also restricts citizens to ordering only certain specialty or rare wines that may not be available at Mississippi package stores. The law aims to generate taxes by enacting a 15.5% tax on direct wine shipments. Some of the tax revenue will fund mental health programs.

Kratom banned for people under 21

Mississippi will limit kratom purchases to people 21 and older and outlaw more potent forms of the herbal substance. The new law institutes fines for people under 21 who buy or possess kratom and retailers that sell it to them. The measure also bans synthetic kratom extracts, which are considered more dangerous than “pure” forms of the herbal substance because of their higher potency. 

More than thirty counties and cities in Mississippi already restrict or ban kratom products, which can be found widely in gas stations and tobacco or vape shops. Any ordinances that have been adopted by municipalities or counties to regulate or ban kratom will remain in effect. 

Rape kit mandate 

Mississippi hospitals will now be required to perform rape kits on sexual assault victims who come to their ERs. A new law mandates all hospitals stock rape kits, have a provider available to perform a rape kit, and that they do not turn rape victims away. 

The legislation was inspired by several cases where survivors did not receive routine treatment at hospitals, according to sexual assault advocacy organizations. 

Turkey stamps 

Mississippi hunters must obtain a turkey stamp before harvesting the wild birds, a new state law requires. The measure requires in-state hunters to purchase a $10 turkey stamp and out-of-state hunters to pay a $100 fee for the stamp. In addition to the new stamp, the law still requires hunters to obtain a normal hunting license. 

Proponents of the measure said the stamp fees would be used to maintain and improve turkey-hunting lands around the state.

Neighborhood kids loved civil rights hero Medgar Evers. As he drove down the street, they called his name and begged him to play football. His daughter, Reena, was the weight on her father’s ankles when he did sit-ups. They watched “Popeye” together. 

“He would go to a record player and put on a 33 with Chubby Checker, and he would twist the night away,” Reena Evers-Everette recalled.

Those were just a few of the details shared at the Daddys’ Daughters Panel on Thursday night, an event where daughters of men killed while at the center of the civil rights movement shared intimate stories about life with their fathers.

Panelists included Reena Evers-Everette, daughter of Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers, Bettie Dahmer, daughter of Vernon Dahmer, and Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Joy Reid, political commentator and former MSNBC national correspondent, moderated the panel, one of a series of events honoring the legacy of Medgar Evers.

Reid also joined writer and professor W. Ralph Eubanks on Friday to discuss ‘The Power of the Word.’” Moderated by Ebony Lamumba, the panel explored the role of storytelling in the fight for racial justice.

All the “daughters” panelists shared memories about their fathers.  

Vernon Dahmer, who was murdered after offering to pay poll taxes for African Americans in Forrest County so they could vote, played make believe with her tea set and taught her how to drive a standard shift truck, Bettie Dahmer said. 

His house was a refuge for the local community. He hosted Fourth of July picnics and allowed Boy Scout troops to camp on his land.

“It was safe,” Bettie Dahmer said. “We had other places where kids could come and be safe.”

That was until Jan. 10, 1966, when Klansmen attacked their home near Hattiesburg while the family slept, firing guns into the home. Vernon Dahmer grabbed his shotgun and fired back, enabling his family to escape out a back window, but flames from the blaze seared his lungs. He died a day later. 

Evers-Everette, whose father was shot in the back in the driveway of their Jackson home on June 12, 1963, says she was her father’s “princess.” 

“Love is what resonates throughout my life, because that’s what I grew up with and that’s what my father instilled in us,” she said.

The panelists spent time honoring their mothers. Years after her father was murdered for fighting for voting rights, Bettie Dahmer’s mother Ellie would serve as an election commissioner. 

Evers-Everette credits her mother, Myrlie Evers, with the phrase “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” 

Myrlie Evers later served as chairman of the NAACP.

Kerry Kennedy said her father, who as U.S. attorney general enforced civil rights legislation and as a senator advocated for voting rights and against discrimination, ran towards fires started during a civil rights protest instead of watching them on TV. He was assassinated after winning the California Democratic primary for president in 1968. Kerry Kennedy argued that Americans should adopt the stance her father had about taking action.

“We need our country today to run into the flames,” said Kerry Kennedy. “Because our country is on fire.”

The daughters talked about how to continue the legacies of their fathers and mothers.

“I hope each and every one of you understands the importance of the vote. It’s not just going and doing a checkmark. It’s a checkmark for your life,” Evers-Everette said. 

She hoped attendees would “remember that.”

“If you honor them, and you honor our fathers and our mothers — do something about it,” she said.

At the Panel of the Word, Reid, who wrote a biography of Medgar and Myrlie Evers, also spoke on the Pentagon’s proposal to’ rename the Navy cargo ship USNS Medgar Evers and the renaming of the oiler USNS Harvey Milk as the USNS Oscar Peterson.

Reid described history as “a series of stories of people who, through their resilience, survived enslavement, survived Jim Crow, survived hate, survived fear, and survived the abandonment of the federal government of our communities, and their stories collectively are what make history.” 

“And so, when you don’t know the impact of those stories, it’s easy to do a thing like strip Harvey Milk’s name off of a Navy battleship…threaten to do the same to USNS Medgar Evers,” she said.

Referring to scholar Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s concept of “the single story,” Eubanks warned about anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion backlash in classrooms. “What is being imposed on us is — trying to impose on us — is a single story, and there is a real danger in that,” he said.

“I mean, think about what is happening with the DEI legislation in this state…Oxford, Mississippi, has 45 working writers, and…probably half of their work, including my own, could be banned,” he said.

Eubanks referred to the state’s new anti-DEI law, which prohibits public schools and state colleges and universities from a variety of practices related to DEI. This includes engaging in “divisive concepts.”  The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and several other civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law. A federal judge is considering issuing a restraining order to block the law from going into effect.

Answering an audience member’s question, Reid and Eubanks both spoke on how Mississippi and the South are precursors to current national policies.

“So what’s happened is these Southern states have developed a version of what we’re now facing nationally, and so the shock is north of the Mason-Dixon line,” said Reid.

“We’re all living in Mississippi now,” said Eubanks. “Everybody in this county has at least one foot in Mississippi whether they want to admit it or not.”

The superintendents for Leake County and Hollandale school districts and a consultant have been indicted on four federal counts of conspiracy to commit embezzlement, theft and bribery.

According to the indictment, Earl Joe Nelson, while superintendent of Clarksdale Municipal School District and now Leake County School District, and Mario D. Willis, as superintendent of Hollandale School District, allegedly paid each other tens of thousands of dollars in school funds for consultant services that were never rendered from November 2021 until at least June 2023.

Additionally, the duo is accused of stealing U.S. Department of Education funds that were intended for their respective districts. 

A St. Louis-based consultant and teacher, Moneka M. Smith-Taylor, has also been indicted on bribery charges in connection with the case. She allegedly received more than $250,000 from Willis for consulting services that were never provided over the course of two years.

She returned part of that money to Willis in the form of a cash kickback in return for the consulting contract, the indictment says.

A spokesperson for the Mississippi State Department of Education directed Mississippi Today to local school boards, who make personnel decisions for their respective districts, for comment.

The job status of the two superintendents is unclear. District officials could not be reached by presstime, but Willis is still listed as the superintendent of Hollandale School District and Nelson is still listed as the superintendent of Leake County School District in the state education department’s online directory.

It’s also unclear whether the defendants have a lawyer who could speak on their behalf.

Editor’s note: This essay is being published on the 10-year anniversary of the week that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled there is a constitutional right to gay marriage. The essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

“I don’t want you to have a hard life.” Those were my mother’s words to me as we stood in the hallway of my parents’ home in Leland in 2008. At the time, I was a 20-year-old college student, home that weekend from Ole Miss.

My mother had sensed that I had been growing distant, reluctant to talk to her on the phone, and pulling away generally from my family. She knew — as mothers often know — that to become fully myself I thought I needed to leave my family behind. I thought they wouldn’t understand.

She stopped me in the hallway and asked what seemed like a simple question: “Eric, are you gay?” In the ensuing conversation, I officially came out to my mother, who like my father, brother and sister, had known all along. Though she was not surprised by the confirmed knowledge of her middle child being gay, what she said next surprised me. “I don’t want you to have a hard life.”

I recoiled from her words at that moment. I did not appreciate the link she made between me being gay and my life being harder as a result. Knowing her work in healthcare, I did not appreciate what I assumed was her subtle link between being gay and adverse health outcomes. I wanted to believe then — as I still do now — that to be gay does not immediately equate a harder life. I wasn’t naive enough to think that life wasn’t hard, but I believed in my bones that the fact of one’s sexuality shouldn’t be a primary reason for it. I believed that to be gay was no different than one’s eye color or height: an inescapable and unavoidable biological fact.

Since that 2008 conversation, living an “out” life seems to have gotten a bit easier as reflected in national numbers. A 2024 Gallup poll found that nearly one in 10 Americans identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. All in all, in the 12 years that Gallup has tracked LGBTQ+ identification in the United States, the rate of self-identification has nearly tripled.

While there are various explanations for this statistical change, many queer people prior to this administration believed our lives would not be made harder by being who we are and living our lives openly and authentically.

These national numbers reverberate locally. Recent numbers indicate that there are 93,300 LGBTQ+ adults in Mississippi, around 4.1% of the state’s total population. Further, despite a history of exclusion, LGBTQ+ folks in Mississippi raise and sustain families.

In a 2022 article for Mississippi Today, Nigel Dent related how “the percentage of same-sex parents in Mississippi is higher than the nation at 25.7% in Mississippi versus 17.2% nationally.” In 2022, Mississippi had the nation’s highest rate of same-sex couples raising children, an inversion of statistical realities that often place our state at the bottom of lists. The unexpected fact that same-sex couples in Mississippi are raising families at such rates should be a banner of pride for our state.

Mississippi is not an anomaly in the South. In 2023, the Williams Institute found that 35.9% of all of those who identify as LGBT (the center’s chosen acronym), more than five million people, live in the U.S. Southeast, more than any other region in the country. Chances are most Southerners today know someone who is lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender. Beyond those of us who are LGBTQ+ in Mississippi, many of us have brothers or sons, sisters or daughters, mothers or fathers, cousins or chosen kin, who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.

LGBTQ+ Mississippians are woven into the fabric of many of our daily lives, contributing to our economy, our culture, our sense of place, our ideas of community, family and home. The rainbow connection we create is being felt across the state.

In Jackson, Mississippi Capital City Pride hosts year-round events covering the state’s queer history and culture and the Jack Myers house opened in 2024 as the first LGBTQIA+ shelter in Mississippi. Since 2008, Tupelo has hosted a Pride parade as does the Biloxi-based Gulf Coast Association of Pride.

College towns such as Hattiesburg (Pine Belt Pride), Oxford (Oxford Pride), and Starkville (Starkville Pride) also host annual pride events and year-round programming. I attended this year’s Oxford Pride, where hundreds marched in full technicolor despite changing political dynamics and institutional support. In Water Valley, Violet Valley Bookstore is one of the nation’s most revered LGBTQ+ independent bookstores and is annually featured in a graphic from Oprah Daily.

Across many fields and walks of life, we are shaping our home state, creating and making the lives of all Mississippians better, easier, more beautiful and fulfilling. Why would we want to listen to rhetoric and support policy that makes the lives of any group of Mississippians harder? Why would we want to make the lives of LGBTQ+ Mississippians harder? Why would you want to make your son’s or your daughter’s or your friend’s or your co-worker’s life harder? What purpose does that serve? Whose purposes does it serve?

Today politicians across the country feel emboldened to advocate to make my life and the lives of folks like me harder in this politically divisive moment. Political leaders are positioning themselves to pass legislation that would strip away rights already codified and set a foundation for further intrusion into the lives and freedoms of LGBTQ+ Americans.

The following is but a sampling of our current moment: on March 8, 2025, Donald Trump posted a crossed-out pink triangle on his Truth Social, evoking the Nazi persecution of gay men. Republican leaders in five states—Michigan, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota—have suggested the Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage. Idaho and North Dakota have already passed such legislation. Four additional states—Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas—have introduced legislation that would create a separate category of legal marriage called “covenant marriage,” that could only take place between a man and a woman.

On June 10, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, approved a resolution calling for the overturning of Obergefell as they deem it “def[ies] God’s design for marriage and family.”

Executive orders have forced the National Park Service to remove “transgender” and “queer” from the Stonewall monument website irrespective of any consideration of the historic facts pertaining to that site. Transgender flags are no longer allowed at Stonewall “officially,” though visitors continue to bring trans flags to leave at the site.

With the fate of Medicaid in limbo, some insurance companies now feel comfortable denying coverage for PrEP, or Pre-exposure Prophylaxis, a routine treatment that significantly lessens one’s risk of contracting HIV. With the defunding of the federal USAID and PEPFAR in the balance, access to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention protocols has been interrupted globally.

As with any virus, HIV does not discriminate based upon gender or sexual identity, and an HIV diagnosis, while no longer fatal for most in the United States, does indeed make life more difficult for whoever it impacts.

Under the new leadership of Kristi Noem, Homeland Security has quietly moved to eliminate a ban on surveillance based on sexual orientation and gender identity leading many to speculate that the agency will now increase targeted surveillance on gender and sexual minorities.

Finally, executive orders, policy reversals and legislation targeting trans Americans are too many for one list to capture. Regarding the executive order against trans people serving in the US Military and using the pronouns of their choice in such service, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes called the policy “unadulterated animus.” Absolute hostility: a policy reversal that exists for no other reason than for one group to be hostile toward another group of fellow Americans.

Aren’t we better than this?

In Mississippi, some state officials continue to vilify groups of fellow Mississippians without regard for expertise or diligently consulting established facts on a given issue. Adding fuel to the flames of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment without any grounding in evidence, such leaders strive to make the lives of a group of fellow Mississippians harder for no other reason than political utility.

What tangible benefit is there for a straight Mississippian to tell a trans Mississippian that they don’t exist? There is none. It is the politics of cruelty, plain and simple, a refusal, as Jane Fonda stated at the SAG awards earlier this year, to “give a damn” about someone different from you.

In Mississippi, only five cities — Clarksdale, Holly Springs, Jackson, Magnolia, Rosedale — and no county have passed ordinances to protect LGBTQ+ Mississippians from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations. If federal mandates are removed or held in the limbo of ongoing legal challenges, then, only 6% of LGBTQ+ Mississippians will be protected from discrimination under local law.

With recent rhetoric and proposed actions from federal and local governments, one can only imagine how the lives of LGBTQ+ Mississippians may be about to get harder. And to be clear, some folks within our community will be hit harder than others.

“I don’t want you to have a hard life.” Seventeen years later, I understand now where my mom was coming from. She was coming from a place of care and concern for her child. Her words were not about who her son was but who other people were. She knew in her wisdom and experience that she would not be able to control how my life would be made manifestly more difficult by the actions of others who did not see, love and know me as unconditionally as she did. She knew people feared what they could not understand and that the so-called “marginal” among us will always be our most vulnerable.

My mother has been a healthcare provider since she was 15 years old in our native Mississippi Delta. She has often repeated a mantra attributed to Hippocrates, known best to us as the author of the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. In a medical setting, such advice is often more idealistic than practical. Doctors and nurses must often react to extraordinary situations comparing risk and benefit for a myriad of treatments. Many treatments — such as those for cancer — often cause significant short-term harm in service of hoped-for long-term healing.

But the point is that many healthcare providers like my mother operate under the basic assumption that they should not cause further harm to their patients. That to heal, one must first aim not to make the problem worse.

I’ve been thinking in the last few months of the words harm and hard in conjunction. What if we simply told our politicians and representatives not to make it harder? No matter what you do — no matter what mistakes you may make in the process — no matter what ideological system aligns with your personal values — no matter from whom comes your campaign financing — no matter what your political party — can you first promise to not make it harder for any of us?

Can that be your first guiding principle and most basic commitment to all of your constituents? It would be nice to believe that public servants get into that line of work because they already adhere to that foundational ethic.

“I don’t want you to have a hard life.” Life is hard. I know of few people from all walks of life who have not gone through hard times. But we should expect our leaders not to go out of their way to make it harder for any one of us.

We should hold our leaders accountable when they attempt to target any group of us in ways that will make life harder for that group and, by the way, do little if anything at all to benefit those of us who are not in the targeted, oft-marginalized, group.

As a native Mississippian, my life hasn’t always been easy. But who I am in my full authenticity has prepared me to weather the hard times and cherish the easy ones.

In March of 2025, I attended my cousin’s marriage in Pass Christian; there, she married her long-term boyfriend. The weekend after, my partner and I attended his cousin’s marriage in Georgia. There, his cousin married his long-term girlfriend. Two straight-marriages in two weekends. Good times. Easy times. Fun times. Family time.

When I was growing up, I never dreamed that the legal path for me to marry the man I now call my partner would be as easy as it has been since 2015, since the Obergefell ruling. As my partner and I watched our cousins walk down the aisle to meet their beloveds and commit to them to weather life’s storms, for better or for worse, I prayed that option remains viable for us, two men who by the grace of God found each other. I pray, too, that marriage remains a legal option for all couples like us well into our nation’s future. Life is so much easier when you walk it with someone you love by your side. Love should be enough.

In 2008, a few months after I officially came out to my mother in that hallway conversation, my older sister got married. The easiest conversation I ever had about being gay was with my sister. The conversation was easy because it never took place. My sister knew; she knows. And yet, she didn’t need me to go through the hard part — the difficult step — of having that conversation where I described my supposed difference in contrast to her assumed normalcy.

My sister made it easy because all that mattered to her is that I’m her younger brother. For her, that was, and is, enough. No need to make it any harder than that.

Eric Solomon, PhD, is a graduate of Emory University and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. He grew up in the Mississippi Delta and is a lifelong Southerner. His work has been featured in Southern Cultures, Southern Spaces, south, South Atlantic Review, Studies in the Literary Imagination, Mississippi Quarterly, the North Carolina Literary Review, among others. Solomon is an instructor of English and Southern Studies at Ole Miss.