Mississippi Today higher education reporter Molly Minta joined MSNBC’s Last Word show on Feb. 4 to discuss her recent article featuring Mississippi’s only critical race theory course.
As Mississippi Republican lawmakers push to ban critical race theory from being taught in the classroom, Minta featured Brittany Murphree, a Republican student who wrote a letter to lawmakers arguing that they had it wrong about the class.
Minta, a Florida native, covers higher education for Mississippi Today. She works in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit news organization focused on higher education. Prior to joining Mississippi Today, Molly worked for The Nation, The Appeal, and Mother Jones.
CLEVELAND — More than 150 people paid tribute to Lusia “Lucy” Stewart-Harris Saturday at Delta State University’s Walter Sillers Coliseum, the arena where the “queen of basketball” had played.
The two-hour ceremony underscored the impact that Harris, the powerful 6’3 center, had on every community she was a part of: Minter City, her hometown; Delta State University; the Mississippi Delta region; and her four children and their ten grandchildren.
Harris was remembered not only as a basketball legend, but as a humble, loving mother.
“I want everyone to know that Lucy Harris from the Mississippi Delta, land of cotton and long roads through fields, (was) the best basketball player in the world,” said Sen. David Jordan of Greenwood. “She’s the best. She’s a record maker and a record breaker.”
Lusia “Lucy” Harris
Harris passed away on Jan. 18 at age 66. Her silver coffin was adorned with colorful bouquets, and a portrait of her sat underneath the banners commemorating her three national titles.
In 1975, Harris was the only Black woman on Delta State’s Lady Statesmen when she led the team to its first national title, an achievement she’d repeat two more times before graduating. She scored the first-ever basket in Women’s Olympic basketball history, and in 1977, she became the first — and so far only — woman to receive an official offer to play for the NBA. Pregnant with her first child, Harris turned down the offer and took a job coaching basketball at Amanda Elzy High School in Greenwood, where she learned to play the game.
During the ceremony, several lawmakers presented proclamations in Harris’ honor. Inez Biles, the chairperson of Minter City, said the community plans to erect a historical marker for Harris. Christopher Stewart, Harris’ youngest child, said that Barack and Michelle Obama had sent the family a letter.
Harris was humble and gracious about her accomplishments, her children said as they shared some lessons she had taught them. Christopher talked about all the ways his mother was first for him: the first person who taught him the meaning of unconditional love, the first person who taught him to dream, to preserve and to sacrifice. Harris’ stepson Antonio Harris recalled that she had the “sneakiest little laugh.”
Christina Jordan, who is Harris’ youngest daughter, talked about the time when Harris encouraged her to pursue her love for chemistry. Crystal Washington, who is older than Christina by two minutes, said that her mother’s favorite saying was, “if you can dream it, you can do it.”
“If a kid from Minter City, Mississippi, can grow to touch millions, there is nothing that is stopping you from doing the same, okay?” Crystal said. “So farewell mother, farewell my queen.”
George Stewart, Jr., Harris’s oldest and tallest son, read a letter titled “Just Mama to Me.”
“She was a tall, strong woman,” he said. She was “generous with her time and resources, humble and confident at the same time, but just Mama to me.”
“She never boasted about her basketball playing days to us,” he said. “We saw the pictures, the newspaper clippings, and we saw her accolades, but she didn’t say much. The only thing she would say is I can go out and shoot the basketball in the hoop. She was just Mama to me.”
“She was a Delta from the Delta that went to Delta State,” he said, tearing up. “A true queen, a hall of famer, a humanitarian, a sister, an aunt, a friend, but most importantly, she was just Mama to me.”
Thousands of patients of Mississippi’s largest hospital and its clinics could be on the hook for higher out-of-pocket costs if the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi do not agree on a new contract by March 31.
The contract dispute dates back to 2018 but was temporarily resolved when an agreement was reached then between the two entities. UMMC, the state’s largest health care provider, wants Blue Cross, the state’s largest insurer, to pay higher reimbursement rates for medical services provided. BCBS has balked at that request.
The contracts negotiated between insurers and providers include massive discounts for the providers in their networks. If an agreement cannot be reached before March 31 and UMMC is forced out of the BCBS network, thousands of patients with BCBS insurance plans would have to pay the hospital’s inflated “chargemaster” prices or find health care elsewhere.
This week, UMMC officials sent a letter to each of its patients with commercial BCBS plans, alerting them to how their coverage could be affected by the outcome of the ongoing negotiations.
“Our negotiations with Blue Cross continue and we are hopeful that a new contract can be agreed upon before the current agreement ends,” Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC vice chancellor for health affairs, said in a statement to Mississippi Today on Friday. “It’s a top priority that all Mississippians have uninterrupted access to the physicians and other services provided by the state’s only academic medical center and no patients experience disruption to their trusted UMMC care.”
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi officials did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Even if a new agreement isn’t reached, those enrolled in the Mississippi State and School Employees’ Health Insurance Plan would not be affected. Though that plan is administered through BCBS, the current negotiations only affect the insurer’s commercial insurance plans.
Still, thousands of Mississippians would be affected because BCBS is the largest private health insurance provider in the state, with a 17.56% market share, according to data from the Mississippi Department of Insurance. Those patients would have to find a new in-network provider or face higher costs. Many wouldn’t have a choice if they were to need emergency care at UMMC, or required any of the specialized services only exclusively by the medical center.
These services include Mississippi’s only Level 1 trauma center, Level IV neonatal intensive care unit and children’s hospital, among other critical care services.
This isn’t the first time UMMC and BCBS have battled over contract negotiations. UMMC pursued higher reimbursement rates before their original 28-year-old contract with BCBS was set to expire on June 30, 2018.
That negotiation period dragged on for months and passed the expiration date, though patients with BCBS plans were still treated as being in-network while the two parties haggled.
A new contract was eventually signed in August 2018. That contract is at the center of the current dispute.
On February 9, 2022 from 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm at Fondren Guitars in Jackson, Mississippi, join Mississippi Today for a captivating live storytelling event featuring Mississippi Today journalists, music and community.
Local Live(s) is a show that brings together journalists and locals for a night of entertainment and conversation by and for the people of Mississippi. Think of it as a podcast, but live and on stage. The theme of this event is Power: Stories of Strength, Imbalance and Untapped Potential.
Journalists share stories behind their reporting, inviting readers into a world they’ve only observed from the outside. Community members also share true, unvarnished stories from their lives. The result is an entertaining, captivating event filled with new connections and suspense.
museum director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center Benjamin Saulsberry, and
comedian Merc BWilliams as emcee.
Vitamin Cea
Vibrant, refreshing, and in a league of her own, Vitamin Cea is a singer, writer and rapper from Gautier, Mississippi. Her first body of work, 2017 release, “JoyFull Noise” is a reminder to stay full of joy in spite of the noise of life. “‘Cause the noise is gonna come. You just have to be intentional about keeping your joy intact throughout it.”
Benjamin Saulsberry
Benjamin Saulsberry joined the Emmett Till Interpretive Center as Museum Director in 2016. He has spoken on race, racism, and racial reconciliation across the country on behalf of the Center, including at Harvard Law in 2017 and the University of Detroit at Mercy in 2019. He attended Mississippi Valley State University and the University of Mississippi for graduate work in music.
Merc B Williams
Jackson resident Merc B. Williams is a comedian, host, writer and speaker who is shaking things up with his Jackson resident Merc B. Williams is a comedian, host, writer and speaker who is shaking things up with his versatile comedic style that crosses all social and economic classes. This comedic gem is fresh off Comedy Central’s “Hart of The City” Season 2 created by iconic comedian Kevin Hart. He also hosts a variety of local podcasts and web series with fellow Jackson artists.
If the ticket price is at all a barrier to entry, please contact us at info@mississippitoday.org and put Local Live(s) in the email subject line.
More About Local Live(s):
This event is part of a national series Back Pocket is co-producing with local and state news organizations across the country. Other newsrooms that are a part of the Power series are: Miami Herald, Buckeye Flame, The Forward, and a collaborative event by KHOL Jackson Hole Community Radio, WyoFile, and Jackson Hole News and Guide.
Local Live(s) is sponsored by the Meta Journalism Project and is funded in part by the Brown Institute of Media Innovation
It was a Saturday in the early 1980s before then-Gov. William Winter attended a college football game at Memorial Stadium in Jackson that he ordered the statue of perhaps the state’s most vocal racist, Theodore Bilbo, be moved out of the Capitol rotunda.
“I was with him when he did it,” said Andy Mullins, who at the time was a special assistant to the governor.
The Bilbo statue, which has rested in room 113 of the state Capitol since that fateful football Saturday in the early 1980s, has mysteriously disappeared, Mississippi Today reported this week.
As of Friday afternoon, no one had publicly claimed credit for the removal of the statue, and its whereabouts are still not known.
Bilbo served two terms as Mississippi governor in the 1920s and 30s and was later elected three times as U.S. senator. Among his many egregiously racist actions, he advocated for the deportation of Black Americans to Africa and fought national efforts to pass anti lynching legislation.
The bronze, allegedly life-size statue of Bilbo had been prominently displayed in the Capitol rotunda beginning in the 1950s. But it was the early 1980s when the statue experienced its first upheaval.
At that time, the Capitol building was closed for a massive renovation. The Legislature, during the renovation, was meeting a few blocks away in Jackson at the old Central High School.
On the way to a football game in the early 80s, Mullins recalled, then-Gov. Winter said he wanted to stop by the Capitol to check on the renovation. Mullins said Winter walked into the Capitol, looked at the Bilbo statue in the rotunda and told the workers he wanted it moved to another, less visible location.
“Those workers looked at him like he was crazy,” said Mullins, now an Oxford resident, retired after serving in various education-related capacities in state government including chief of staff to the University of Mississippi chancellor.
“The governor told the workers he wanted the statue moved by the time he came back by after the football game,” Mullins said. “It was not moved when he stopped back by. He called the building commissioner … and told him he wanted the statue moved.”
When the Capitol reopened in 1982, the Bilbo statue was no longer in the prime location in the rotunda. Instead, it was placed in room 113, the largest House committee room — though in the early 1980s, room 113 was used substantially less than it is now with the growth of legislative committee action.
Bilbo died of throat cancer in 1947 in the midst of efforts by his colleague to not seat him in the Senate after his most recent election victory. Soon after Bilbo’s death, a joint resolution adopted by the Mississippi Legislature in 1948 established a commission to memorialize the former governor who, according to the resolution, “worked unceasingly and often alone to preserve Southern customs and traditions and in so doing sought to preserve the true American way of life…and particularly his efforts to preserve this state and nation by his successful fight against the enactment of national legislation, which would have destroyed the United State of America, if the same had been enacted.”
The resolution called for the statue to be placed “in a prominent place on the first floor of the new Capitol building.”
Based on newspaper accounts, Rep. Walter Ray of Madison County was selected to chair the Bilbo statue commission. State funds were appropriated and private funds raised for the effort. Long-time Secretary of State Heber Ladner, who like Bilbo hailed from Pearl River County, served as finance chair for the effort.
A German artist, Fritz Behn, was commissioned to sculpt the allegedly life-size bronze statue of Bilbo, who according to accounts stood about 5 feet 2 inches.
The statue was unveiled in the Capitol on April 12, 1954. Ladner gave the memorial address.
Interestingly, Ladner’s long tenure as secretary of state had just ended when Winter became governor and took the bold action of moving the statue. Mullins said Winter, who years later apologized for some of his own earlier segregationist views, knew Bilbo and heard Bilbo speak on the political trail.
“Gov. Winter was no fan (of Bilbo),” Mullins said.
On the U.S. Senate floor, Bilbo once proclaimed: “The Germans appreciate the importance of race values. They understand that racial improvement is the greatest asset that any country can have … They know, as few other nations have realized, that the impoverishment of race values contributes more to the impairment and destruction of a civilization than any other agency.”
While all governors have portraits in the Capitol, Bilbo and Thomas Bailey were the only two governors with statues. There was a bust of Bailey in room 113 before it was returned recently to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi, a state where natural gas dominates the energy supply, may soon be turning a corner in its transition to clean and renewable energy. But amid a global effort to reduce the future impacts of climate change, the state is letting the market, not emissions, dictate that shift.
The U.S. as a whole generates about 20% of its power from renewables, which includes wind, hydropower, solar and biomass, such as wood or plants. Renewable energy sources replenish themselves more quickly than traditional energy sources like oil, gas and coal, and significantly reduce emissions that are harmful to the environment.
But in Mississippi, renewable energy generates little, if any, political excitement: A little over 2% of the net electricity utilities generate comes from renewable sources, according to the latest federal data from 2021. State lawmakers have largely ignored the climate debate, even while other state legislatures tackle the issue directly.
But all that is slowly changing in this deeply conservative state. Last November, the state’s largest utility company — Entergy Mississippi — committed to source almost a third of its power from renewables by 2027.
Entergy and other power companies are embracing such a drastic shift largely because producing renewables, especially solar energy, costs a small fraction of what it did just a decade ago. Since 2009, solar power costs have dropped about 90%, and are now cheaper than natural gas, coal and nuclear energy production.
The state’s Public Service Commission has approved several new solar projects since 2020, which combined would more than double the state’s solar capacity. The PSC is also developing programs to give renters and homeowners the ability to generate and sell their own solar power — it’s currently taking comments on an expanded net metering rule until Feb. 8, and is also starting the process to create a new community solar program.
Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, said he’s encouraged by the PSC’s recent work around renewables, which includes requiring utilities to submit annual forecasts of their future energy needs, also called Integrated Resource Plans. Mahan believes that Mississippi could soon set itself apart from other Southeastern states in its transition.
“Had you and I had this conversation a year ago, things would be really different,” he said. “But now we’re starting to see things really take off in the state, in part again because we’ve got good commissioners in Mississippi, we’ve just gone through a good process, and utilities are starting to really value renewables.
“Mississippi isn’t a (renewable energy) leader just yet, but it’s on its way.”
But clean energy advocates argue that the market-based approach is not enough, and that emissions need to play a bigger role in the state’s energy decision-making.
Jennifer Crosslin, a regional organizer for the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, explained that data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows the need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to avoid the worst effects of global warming. In the U.S., a quarter of those emissions come from the energy sector.
“We are way behind nationally, and then we look within the nation, we’re even further behind as a state,” Crosslin said.
She pointed to the way investor-owned utilities, including Entergy and Mississippi Power are structured, where their profit comes from what they spend on new projects, and lacks incentives to lower emissions.
“The way that (investor-owned utilities) are currently structured is not moving the needle fast enough,” she said. “That market-based approach is not working at all. It’s time for the state to step in.”
Looking at rising sea-levels and more powerful storms, studies project that Mississippi, along with the other Gulf states, will be one of the hardest-hit parts of the country when it comes to climate change.
Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, the longest-serving of the three elected PSC leaders, explained that the economy, not environmental impacts, will always steer the conversation in Mississippi.
“You have a better chance of getting these projects done because of the economic development side of it than trying to argue the merits of emissions,” Presley said.
Credit: Mississippi Power
Last month, Presley approved a new solar facility in Union County, which will power a Toyota manufacturing plant in Blue Springs.
Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey, a Republican, echoed his Democrat colleague’s sentiment.
“You do get the environmental aspect as well,” Bailey said, “but being in Mississippi, you know that’s not the primary driver for a lot of this, in my view. It’s always going to get back to the economic benefits first.”
Most states, as well as the District of Columbia, have what’s called a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), which requires that a certain share of its power generated comes from renewable sources by a certain date. Thirty states have an RPS, and another eight have a non-enforceable version of it. Mississippi is one of twelve states, including all of its neighbors and most of the South, with neither.
Presley contended that trying to pass an RPS in Mississippi is, politically speaking, a pointless effort. In most cases, RPS’ are adopted through the state Legislature.
“It wasn’t politically, practically, going to happen,” he said. “If it wasn’t going to get done, why would we waste time chasing rabbits we’re not going to catch?”
Presley added that the state was at a disadvantage in terms of being an early renewable adopter; creating new facilities often means costs get passed down to customers, which in Mississippi means spreading those costs among fewer and poorer ratepayers than in most states.
Mahan, who works with renewable developers across the Southeast, said RPS’ in other states are in part why renewable costs are so much lower now. Such a policy forces utilities to consider environmental benefits, and not just cost, he added; as it stands in Mississippi, no part of the state’s future resource planning requires power companies to weigh the emissions of different sources.
But he also said Mississippi is moving in the right direction regardless. Georgia, for instance, is seeing a surge in renewable capacity despite no legislated mandates.
“The renewable industry has shown up in the state because we believe it’s going to be a good state to do business in,” he said. “Could it have been faster with an RPS? Maybe. But again, the economics of the projects alone is what’s driving the interest in the state and the growth in Mississippi.”
Commissioner Bailey, who’s spent time visiting different schools in his district that have added rooftop solar panels, admitted that he hasn't had much discussion with state lawmakers about creating new renewable incentives. Rather, he feels confident about the market-driven approach, and is excited about the economic spark renewables could bring to Mississippi.
“We’re excited about the opportunity, we’re excited about the investments at the local level, the revenues that can be obtained from that, and hopefully leveraging and attracting new industry to the state,” he said. “You want your state, your community, your area to be seen as innovative, and I think these are some measures that allow that.”
The Mississippi Arts Commission event will be held at the Two Mississippi Museums on Feb. 10.
Acclaimed costume designer Myrna Colley-Lee was in her late 20s when she got her start in New York alongside Hazel J. Bryant, a fellow trailblazer in black theater who produced hundreds of musicals and plays and founded the Richard Allen Center of Culture and Art.
“We forged a path for black theatre in the mid- to late-1960s,” Colley-Lee, a Charleston resident, recalls. “We were doing amazing shows, many written by and featuring African American writers and actors,” including Langston Hughes. Using her art background, Colley-Lee began designing posters and flyers for the productions, then graduated to scenery and finally costumes, where she found her niche.
On February 10, Colley-Lee will accept her latest honor, a Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence in Costume Design & Arts Patron, at the 34th Governor’s Arts Awards ceremony. The Mississippi Arts Commission will host the event at the auditorium at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson at 6 p.m., preceded by a reception at 4:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
The lineup for the awards ceremony also features the five-time Grammy-nominated Williams Brothers, a gospel singing group started in 1960 in Amite County that has recorded 43 albums and was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1999. Brothers Doug and Melvin Williams, along with Andre Tate, will perform during the ceremony and take home the award for Lifetime Achievement in Music.
In the Arts in Community category, the ceremony will honor Alcorn State University Jazz Festival. Under the direction of David Miller, the festival has brought internationally renowned musicians Branford Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding, Chick Corea and Max Roach and many others to Vicksburg, where the festival is held. Miller will also perform during the ceremony.
Longtime event curator Holly Lange of Ridgeland will receive the Governor’s Choice Award. Lange, who founded the Mississippi Book Festival and has produced opening events for the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center and more, has dedicated much of her career to showcasing Mississippi’s cultural history.
“So many of us want to shine positive attention on our state and make people feel good about where they live,” says Lange, “and that’s what the Governor’s Arts Awards does. It draws attention to those who have had some success with their talent and helps expose them to a broader audience at the same time.”
Belzoni native and filmmaker Larry Gordon will receive the award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures & Television. Gordon is best known for production the Oscar-nominated drama “Field of Dreams,” as well as action movies like “Die Hard,” “48 Hrs.,” “Predator” and “Point Break.”
Abstract artist and arts educator Mary Lovelace O’Neal, a Jackson native, will be honored for Excellence in Visual Art. O’Neal’s work has been exhibited at the Mnuchin Gallery in New York and abroad in Italy, France, Chile, Senegal and Nigeria. The professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, has received the Artist En France Award and was selected to represent Mississippi in the Committees Exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Due to Covid-19, some recipients will deliver their acceptance remarks via a video recording. In addition to the live event, Mississippi Public Broadcasting will air the ceremony on February 18.
“We are attempting to reach an agreement on a global plea that includes his two unindicted cases,” said District Attorney Steven Kilgore, referring to the charges that resulted from the alleged rape and attempt to run over his ex-girlfriend, Kizzetta McClendon, with a car in Forest.
Tony Boyd’s next court date is Feb. 14. At that point he will indicate whether he will accept a plea offer or go to trial.
Kilgore also said he never filed a motion to revoke Boyd’s bond because he had a “hold” placed on him in jail. He said a “hold” on an incarcerated person is an internal designation by the jail to contact the sheriff before the individual is released.
Boyd was indicted on an aggravated assault domestic violence charge after allegedly shooting McClendon in Morton in March 2020. Over the course of a year and a half after the shooting, McClendon says she has been repeatedly attacked. Boyd allegedly attempted to run McClendon over with a car. Months later, he raped her in a grocery store parking lot, according to police documents.
After all three alleged violent crimes, Boyd was granted a bond by a municipal court judge and given the ability to walk free— despite the fact the Mississippi Constitution requires judges to revoke a person’s bond if he commits a felony while out on bond for a previous felony.
Kilgore had told Mississippi Today in January he would be filing a motion to revoke Boyd’s most current bond of $150,000, but when he found out there was a hold on Boyd, he did not.
“I made sure he wasn’t going to be out before this term of court,” Kilgore said.
The statue of one of Mississippi’s most outspoken segregationist politicians, former Gov. Theodore Bilbo, has quietly been removed from public view in the state Capitol.
The bronze, allegedly life-size statue of the diminutive Bilbo, standing with his right hand pointing toward the sky as if delivering one of his fiery speeches, apparently has been missing for the entire legislative session which began Jan. 4, though its disappearance was not noticed by most people until this week.
On Thursday, no one would publicly take credit for the removal. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said he did not know the statue had been removed. A spokesperson for the state Department of Finance and Administration referred questions to House members since it was in a House committee room.
“I don’t have any idea,” House Speaker Philip Gunn said Thursday afternoon. “I heard about it at lunch.” Gunn said he would investigate.
House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, who chairs the Management Committee that administers House staff and the House’s portion of the state Capitol, also said he did not know about the disappearance.
Rep. Lee Yancey surmised that the removal of the statue was not an easy task.
“He is 5-foot-2 and weighs 1,000 pounds, so he did not go willingly,” Yancey, R-Brandon, said. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“I guess it is like where’s Waldo,” said Rep. Tom Miles, D-Forest. “That is the mystery.”
The controversial Bilbo, who fought off bribery charges to be elected governor twice and later to the U.S. Senate, died in 1947 in the midst of a standoff on whether his fellow senators would seat him after his re-election.
During a filibuster to try to block Senate passage of an anti lynching bill, Bilbo said, ”If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.”
Some said they hope the statue ends up in a museum.
“I haven’t heard anything about it being gone,” said Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, whose father, Robert, broke barriers in 1967 when he became the first African American elected to the Legislature since the 1800s. “Hopefully, he has been removed to a museum where he belongs.”
While no one would take credit for the removal of the statue, whispers from various sources indicated that it is still in the Capitol.
State Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, who hails from Bilbo’s home county of Pearl River, said on social media, “It was removed by a House staff member without the authority to do so from what I gather.”
A joint legislative resolution passed in the early 1950s called for the statue to be displayed prominently on the first floor of the Capitol. Clark said his father recalled when the statue was located in the Capitol rotunda.
“It was the first thing you saw when you walked in,” Clark said.
But in the early 1980s, the Capitol was closed for renovation. During that time, the Legislature met in the old Central High School building blocks from the Capitol. When the building was reopened, then-Gov. William Winter — or at least his administration — had moved the statue to room 113, the largest House committee room in the building.
Multiple legislators who had attended committee meetings in room 113 this session said they did not realize it was missing. A bust of Thomas Bailey, who served as governor in the 1940s, is also missing from room 113. But apparently it had been returned to the Department of Archives and History, which owns the bust.
Besides room 113 being used for House committee meetings, the Republican caucus of the House and the Legislative Black Caucus often meet in the space.
“The Black Caucus for years has asked that the statue be removed,” said Rep. Robert Johnson of Natchez, the House Democratic leader. “We have never gotten a response.”
Johnson added, “We do not need a statue of Theodore Gilmore Bilbo, or whatever his name is, who said Blacks should not be educated and who reveled in racism in a place of prominence after we have changed the state flag and after all the progress we have made.”
Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, said, “Every time I go in room 113, I look at the statue of former Gov. Bilbo, and I say to him as if he can hear me: ‘I am meant to be here and you can’t stop me.’”
Summers nor anyone else can tell him that at the time of this article’s publication.
