The state Senate Education Committee on Wednesday unanimously moved forward a $1,000 pay raise for teachers and assistants and approved a bill providing reciprocity for teachers in other states to more easily get a license to teach here.
“Hopefully this will help address our teacher shortage here in Mississippi,” said Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar Jr., R-Leakesville. “… Obviously (a teacher raise) is well deserved, and I would like to see a bigger raise, absolutely, but this is a start.”
Under Senate Bill 2001, which now heads to the full Senate, starting teachers — those with zero to three years experience with a bachelor’s degree, would see a $1,110 increase, bringing their annual pay to $37,000. This is still below the Southeastern regional average of $38,420 and national average of $40,154. A study by the National Education Association of starting teacher salaries for 2018-2019 ranked Mississippi’s pay 46th among states.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is pushing the pay raise and promising more in subsequent years — a major campaign promise in his successful campaign in 2019.
“It’s bill No. 1, after the (new state) flag,” Hosemann said, and he’s still committed to ongoing raises. “My hope is to get us up to, and then in excess of the Southern average for teachers, particularly for surrounding states that we compete with for teachers.”
House Speaker Philip Gunn has recently said he wants to provide a teacher pay raise, but state budget numbers will have to be crunched to see if the state can afford one. Gov. Tate Reeves, who also campaigned promising teacher raises, did not include one in his budget recommendation to the Legislature.
The raise would cost about $51 million a year, DeBar said. He noted that a recent report shows the state’s roughly $6 billion budget is running about $325 million above revenue estimates. He and Hosemann said state finances appear sound and the state can afford the teacher raise.
Sen. Chad McMahan, R-Guntown, a member of the Education Committee, said, “I wish it could be more, but it’s important to me as a Republican to get a raise out there this year, but also to make sure it is a raise that taxpayers can afford.”
The committee also approved Senate Bill 2267, a measure to provide license reciprocity for teachers in other states who want to move to the Magnolia State. Several lawmakers reported hearing of problems with teachers moving here getting licensed in a timely manner by the Mississippi Department of Education.
“That’s a No. 1 complaint I hear,” said Sen. Angela Burks Hill, R-Picayune, “is delays in getting licensed, and not getting paid during that time.”
Teachers licensed in other states can now receive a temporary license, but often face problems, delays and red tape in receiving a standard five-year license, lawmakers said.
“The problem here is all the requirements, all the boxes you’ve got to check, and all the other stuff you’ve got to do — it’s a real disincentive to come here from another state,” said Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, vice chairman of the committee. “Even if they don’t check every box, we would like to trust that local district and that local school board in hiring that teacher.”
DeBar recounted to his colleagues that a teacher from the Juilliard School in New York wanted to move to Mississippi and teach at the School of the Arts, “but for some reason her master’s degree wouldn’t work here and they wanted her to take more credits.”
Mississippi has for years suffered teacher shortages, particularly in poor and rural areas, and that is expected to worsen with increased costs of college tuition and a steep decline in college students completing education preparation programs.
According to a recent report released by Mississippi First, there has been a 32% decline in graduates of educator preparation programs from 2013-2014 to 2017-2018, and the out-of-state pipeline of teachers has diminished almost entirely with a 96% drop in four years.
“Kids are not going into teaching,” Hosemann said. “Part of that is economic, and we want to address that. But we are also looking at reciprocity, and looking at numerous other issues and policies to try to address that.”
In the second impeachment vote of President Donald Trump in less than a year, all three of Mississippi’s Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted with the minority Wednesday not to impeach President Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection.”
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 232-197 on Wednesday to impeach Trump after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in efforts to overturn the presidential victory of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump is one of three U.S. presidents to be impeached, and he is the first U.S. president to be impeached on two occasions. Wednesday’s precise impeachment charge, incitement of insurrection, is unprecedented in American history. The U.S. Senate will likely hear the impeachment trial later this month, after Biden is inaugurated, and decide whether to convict Trump and bar him from seeking office in the future.
Though 10 House Republicans voted on Wednesday to impeach Trump, Republican Reps. Trent Kelly of the 1st congressional district in north Mississippi; Rep. Michael Guest of the 3rd district in central Mississippi; and Steven Palazzo of the 4th district in south Mississippi all voted not to impeach the president.
Mississippi’s lone Democratic U.S. representative, Bennie Thompson, whose 2nd district includes much of the Delta and the Jackson area, voted with the majority to impeach the president for his role in inciting rioters who attacked the Capitol in an attempt to force lawmakers to reject the vote count overwhelmingly awarding the November election to Joe Biden.
All three of Mississippi’s House Republicans said impeachment would further divide an already divided country.
But on social media, the Democrat Thompson, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “Moving forward with impeachment is divisive, but leading a charge in domestic terrorism isn’t? I think the other side needs help with their messaging.”
Kelly, who along with Guest met with a group of Mississippians who traveled to Washington, D.C., in hopes of overthrowing the election, said, “Today’s actions in the U.S. House of Representatives are not helpful to our nation. This is a time for healing, not division.”
Palazzo echoed similar comments, saying, “I earnestly believe this (impeachment) is the most inappropriate course of action at this time … It is abundantly clear that America is experiencing a time of uncertainty and turmoil, and we do not need to add more fuel to an already burning fire. President-elect Biden will be sworn into office … and, as President Trump promised, there will be a peaceful transition of power on Jan. 20.”
Earlier Guest announced his intentions to vote against the impeachment.
It is not clear when the Senate will take up the impeachment vote, but it is almost certain that by the time the Senate does, Trump will no longer be president.
When the Senate does take up the issue, Sen. Roger Wicker of Tupelo has said he will vote no. While Hyde-Smith has not sent out a statement, in an interview she recently said, “He’s got 10 days and he will leave office and let’s get on with things.”
Hyde-Smith, a staunch Trump ally, is expected to vote against the impeachment.
Hyde-Smith and the other Republicans in the congressional delegation, with the exception of Wicker, also all voted not to certify Biden’s win in Arizona and Pennsylvania on Wednesday – the same that the Capitol was attacked, resulting in five deaths, multiple injuries and widespread destruction. Wicker voted with the majority of Congress to certify the presidential election results of all 50 states.
Late in 2019, Trump was impeached for allegations of trying to force a foreign country to conduct a criminal investigation of the Biden family in exchange for receiving financial support.
All members condemned the Capitol violence.
Many of Mississippi’s elected Republican political leaders have been staunch supporters of the outgoing president. During a news conference on Monday, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves was asked if he thought Trump should resign or be removed from office. Reeves did not answer the question directly.
“I am not dodging the question,” Reeves replied, saying he did not have a vote in the United States House or Senate. He went on to say Trump’s tenure was near the end, and “we need to move on.”
The governor called the riots on the Capitol “disastrous” and said it caused him to “self reflect” on his and others’ political rhetoric. He said people need to accept that differences in America are settled through political debate and legislative bodies, and people “must recognize that is the way our system works.”
Reeves never specifically criticized Trump by name for his actions and rhetoric that have been condemned by both Republicans and Democrats and instead said, “I personally believe the rhetoric of Speaker Pelosi and many of her allies in the House was even more divisive and unnecessary.”
In 2019, people who had touched the criminal justice system in Mississippi held $507 million in debt as a result — more than double the $243 million they owed in 2009, according to a new report by the Hope Policy Institute.
While court-ordered financial burdens grow, the minimum wage hasn’t budged and overall inflation-adjusted wages in Mississippi actually dropped in that same timeframe, according to a Mississippi Today analysis.
Even many who finish their sentences — often coined their “debt to society” — are saddled with very literal debts that prevent them from the opportunities they need to thrive outside of prison. The consequences are highly concentrated in the Deep South, the report found, where people are both incarcerated and living in poverty at higher rates. On top of this burden, people exiting jails and prisons are often shut out of financial institutions — in some cases simply as a result of a lack of identification — making it virtually impossible to build wealth for the future.
The researchers found that these people face a domino effect: Because of a lack of identification, they struggle to access traditional banking and loans, leading them to utilize high-cost loans that prevent them from building good credit, which makes it more difficult for them to get a job.
Then, in some cases, their struggle to afford payments towards their court-ordered debts results in further punishment, even re-incarceration.
The setbacks caused by the criminal justice system also overlap with other areas of government and social services, such as the child support system, Mississippi Today also investigated. One man Hope Policy Institute researchers interviewed worked to pay off all of his criminal fines so he could get his driver’s license back, only for it to be suspended three months later because he had gotten behind on child support.
“Basically, I was behind on child support for being in prison for 2 years,” he said.
When he was on parole, he said, “They put pressure on you and try to scare you and say they’ll hold you in violation. But the thing is, I’m on good behavior and I pay my supervision fee of $55 a month for parole… I just found out that I can’t get life insurance because I’m on parole.”
The institute recommends governments and private partners address consequences of this mounting debt by waiving fines and fees within the justice system, creating a small business loan program for the formerly incarcerated and adopting programs that assist people in securing proper identification.
“It is imperative that policy makers prioritize the easing of debt collection practices and prevent the accumulation of debt during incarceration – the costs of which are disproportionately borne by people with low-incomes,” Calandra Davis, policy analyst and author of the report. “Upon re-entry, access to financial services is critical for placing people on a path towards economic security and opportunity.”
Hope Credit Union is working to remove financial barriers for folks exiting the criminal justice system by allowing family members to open accounts on behalf of inmates before their release, accepting alternative identification and non-traditional credit to open accounts and issue loans and offering financial education classes.
Mississippians aged 65 and over and those with certain pre-existing conditions are now eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, top health officials announced Tuesday.
Those pre-existing conditions, outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are: cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD, Down syndrome, heart conditions, immunocompromised conditions, obesity, pregnancy, sickle cell disease, smoking and diabetes. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs advised that those with other serious medical conditions should still consult their physician to check eligibility.
As of Tuesday, the state has administered 62,744 shots of the vaccine over the last four weeks; that total includes about 5,000 Mississippians who have received their first and second doses.
While the pace of vaccinations has skyrocketed — last week the state health department reported about 23,000 doses administered — only four states have lower rates of administered vaccines per capita than Mississippi, according to the CDC.
Dobbs also expressed concern over the racial disparity in people who’ve received doses; so far 16% of vaccinations have gone to Black Mississippians — 64% of recipients are white, and 19% are listed as “Other.”
“We need to do a better job about making sure we address the concerns about the African American community about getting the vaccine and also about making sure there’s access,” Dobbs said at Tuesday’s press conference.
Gov. Tate Reeves, who joined Dobbs at a Tuesday press conference to announce the expansion of vaccine eligibility, expressed concern over the slow rollout of shots in long-term care facilities as well as at hospitals.
Regarding LTCs, Reeves said the federal program’s partners CVS and Walgreens have attributed the issue to a “lack of personnel,” and said that many states are experiencing similar problems with the federal pharmacy partnership.
“We’re clearly disappointed in the progress in the long-term care project,” Dobbs said. He explained the rollout is taking much longer than anticipated, as some facilities aren’t scheduled to receive visits until February. Dobbs added that if CVS and Walgreens can’t reach LTCs “quickly enough,” individual facilities could be removed from the program and the state could directly provide vaccines instead.
Hospitals have received 104,000 doses, Reeves said, but have administered less than half of those so far.
“They’ve been given an allocation, and in some cases not using them, and that has to stop,” Reeves said, adding that further allocations from the federal government will depend on administration rates, and that slow rollouts at hospitals could cost the state doses. “It’s why we’ve largely supplanted them with state-run drive-thru clinics.”
Reeves added that he expects his next announcement around vaccines will be to expand eligibility to emergency first responders, firefighters, police officers and teachers.
On Tuesday, MSDH reported 98 additional COVID-19 related deaths, the most so far in a single day. Mississippi’s seven-day average for new cases reached a new high on Sunday of 2,431.
The opening of a new charter school in Jackson has been delayed for the second time because of the coronavirus pandemic, while the fate of the state’s first charter high school is unknown.
Revive Prep, a kindergarten through eighth grade school operated by RePublic Schools, planned to open in August of 2020 but received board approval in 2018 to delay the opening another year to 2021.
On Monday the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, the board that oversees charter schools in the state, again approved a request to delay opening an additional year. The school is now scheduled to open in 2022.
The authorizer board in 2018 also allowed RePublic Schools, the Tennessee-based charter school operator, to delay opening RePublic High School. RePublic High School would be the state’s first charter high school.
State law says a charter school may delay its opening for one year, but any extension beyond that requires board approval. RePublic Schools has not submitted an extension request for its planned high school, said Lisa Karmacharya, executive director of the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board.
“We don’t have all those answers yet,” Karmacharya said when asked whether RePublic will have to re-apply to open the high school. “We’re still working through those logistics because it’s a first for them and for us.”
RePublic Schools currently operates three schools in Jackson.
The group usually needs a window of 12 to 18 months to properly plan for the opening of a school, and the onset of COVID-19 threatened that timeline, said Jon Rybka, CEO of RePublic Schools.
“We were asking ourselves, ‘Do we have the bandwidth to both plan appropriately for Revive as well as figure out what we need to do for our current students?’” he said, referring to the transition to distance learning prompted by the pandemic. “We decided that doing both would be a disservice to existing families, students and staff members.”
Rybka said RePublic made the decision over the summer to delay opening Revive Prep until August of 2022. They are currently interviewing candidates for principal and plan to open the first year with kindergarteners and 5th graders. Additional grades will be added each subsequent year.
“We were thinking specifically about our students in Jackson,” said Rybka, whose organization also operates three charter schools in Nashville, Tenn. “We’ve seen the data nationwide regarding the negative effects of COVID, specifically disproportionately on African American citizens and individuals from low-income backgrounds.”
Rybka said the organization and its teachers have put maximum effort into figuring out how best to educate existing students in the face of the pandemic.
Mississippi officials said they’re aware of FBI warnings of possible armed protests at state capitols across the country and that security here is ready — although they won’t go into many details.
“Whether you see us or not, we are there and we are going to protect the integrity of our public buildings here in Mississippi,” Gov. Tate Reeves said Tuesday. “… In Mississippi we are prepared and we will be prepared.”
Reeves said he has been meeting with law enforcement, military and emergency management leaders, and state security is prepared, but, “I will not go into operational details.”
“The Office of Capitol Police is aware of the possibility of protests,” the Department of Finance and Administration, which oversees Capitol Police, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Neither the (DFA) nor the Office of Capitol Police is able to discuss specific, confidential protocols or security measures.”
Capitol Police Director Don Byington, a veteran Mississippi law officer, called last week’s attack of the U.S. Capitol “appalling.” On Tuesday, he deferred all questions about Mississippi Capitol security to DFA.
When asked if additional steps were being taken to ensure safety in the Mississippi Capitol, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, said, “Yes, but I do not want to go into that. You should anticipate we are having regular meetings with (Department of Public Safety) Commissioner Sean Tindell and the Capitol Police.”
Mississippi’s Capitol Police, with about 114 officer positions funded, provides protection and law enforcement at state facilities and grounds including the Capitol. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety and its Highway Patrol force often help provide security around the Capitol for big events.
Capitol Police also have mutual agreements with other county and metro-area law enforcement agencies for help in times of emergency.
Honor guard members of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol prepare to raise the new state flag during a flag raising ceremony at the State Capitol Monday. Credit: Vickie King, Mississippi Today
Law enforcement, primarily members of the Capitol Police Department and Mississippi Highway Patrol troopers, had a heavy presence on the Capitol grounds Monday for the ceremony raising the new state flag.
The new state flag was approved overwhelmingly by voters in November to replace the old state flag that displayed the Confederate battle emblem prominently in its design. The Confederate flag and even the old state flag were carried by some of President Donald Trump’s supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol last week aiming to prevent Democrat Joe Biden from being sworn in as the nation’s next president.
The pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6 — incited earlier that day by the president’s oldest son and other close allies of the president — assaulted U.S. Capitol Police officers, smashed windows and tore down security barricades on their way into the building, prompting officials to lock down both legislative chambers of the building and nearby congressional office buildings.
Several high-profile members of Congress were evacuated, and others were told to shelter in place during the lockdown. The electoral vote counting process was halted.
The mob — many of whom were visibly armed and carrying pro-Trump and Confederate flags — breached the Senate chamber, and others tried to break into the House chamber. Inside the House chamber, police officers drew guns to deter them from entering.
Five people, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, died in the riot.
Before the 2021 legislative session began, cameras were placed in strategic locations in the Mississippi State Capitol, and machines were recently installed to scan bags at the two main entrances to the Capitol. Currently, Capitol Police officers screen and check people as they enter the building.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Centers in New York and on the Pentagon, people had unfettered access to the Mississippi Capitol, not only through the two main entrances on the north and south sides of the building, but also through multiple side doors. After those attacks, those sides doors were closed and Capitol police were stationed at the only two entrances that remained open to the public.
Editor’s note: This story is part four in a series examining Mississippi’s child support enforcement program. Read the other stories here.
The welfare agency in Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation, manages a particularly high number of child support cases each year.
The state’s child support enforcement program oversees 267,000 cases in a state with a population of nearly 3 million, a case rate that is the highest of any state and double the national average. Arkansas, a state with a similar population to Mississippi, for example, has just over 100,000 cases.
The child support enforcement program helps mostly single moms secure support orders — the court document that spells out how much a noncustodial parent must pay to support their child each month — and collect the funds.
Compared to other states, Mississippi pushes more of its people into the program because it requires single moms to cooperate with child support enforcement to remain eligible for food benefits — a requirement that only seven states impose — or before applying for the child care voucher. And the state has a larger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program population due to its high poverty rate.
The policy also just adds complexity to the government programs, as the state is constantly identifying parents who are out of compliance with child support enforcement and kicking them off the rolls — only for them to reapply.
Within advocacy surrounding the child support program in Mississippi, challenging this policy has been the primary priority. Attempts to eliminate the requirement, including during the 2019 and 2020 legislative sessions, have failed to gain traction, dying in committee before most lawmakers had a chance to consider them.
But there are several other things agency officials or lawmakers could do to improve the fraught program, according to eight safety net policy or administration experts Mississippi Today interviewed, to benefit both participating families and the state’s overall wellbeing.
Don’t punish the poor for being poor.
Since government contractor YoungWilliams began operating the child support enforcement program statewide in 2016, it has implemented a more stringent process for bringing contempt of court complaints against noncustodial parents who are behind on child support. The process requires there be some evidence that the parent possesses the funds and is willfully refusing to pay, so that the state is not potentially jailing people for living in poverty, turning the program into a debtor’s prison.
The agency and contractor worked together to make this happen, but the state is technically required to enact its own similar safeguards in its official child support guidelines under the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement’s 2016 rule change. It has until 2022 to comply, state officials said. Doing so would help ensure that the state is following a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Turner v. Rogers, which said states must determine whether a parent is able to pay the ordered child support before incarcerating them for nonpayment.
The state could consider using the same standard before it moves to suspend a parent’s driver’s license. License suspensions may counterintuitively harm a father’s ability to get to work, and therefore his ability to pay his child support.
The state is supposed to define “ability to pay,” for purposes of deciding whether to pursue civil contempt penalties, by looking at whether the parent can presently afford to pay the entirety of what the judge ordered, not just a portion. In other words, if the state is going to jail a father for back due child support, justices in the Turner case said, he “must hold the key to the jailhouse door.”
Don’t let debts accrue behind bars.
When a person with a child support order is incarcerated, they may request a modification to their order so debts don’t pile up while they sit behind bars. But in Mississippi, a judgemay decide that the parent’s imprisonment constitutes “voluntary unemployment,” thereby denying the change.
The 2016 federal rule change prohibits this practice, but the state hasn’t yet changed its own guidelines, so it continues to occur today.
The state could also implement an administrative appeals process to suspend child support orders during incarceration outside of the court system.
Help modify unmanageable support orders.
Noncustodial parents in Mississippi’s child support enforcement program could, in the worst scenarios, be paying up to 65% of their counted income to child support, former agency officials told Mississippi Today. Especially after employment or wage loss, these parents must be able to request a modification to their order so they can make do financially. Those are all handled through the often sluggish courts.
Mississippi could create an alternative administrative system that would allow the program to handle the modification internally with an option to appeal to a judge.
Create a portal.
Human Services officials have talked about creating a portal where custodial parents can track exactly how much the noncustodial parent is paying on their case and how much they owe, as is available in other states. This could provide some comfort to moms who have complained of confusion and delays in receiving their funds.
Pay families first, not state coffers.
Currently, Mississippi holds back child support dollars intended for families receiving welfare, first paying itself back for the cash assistance it provided, meaning some families never see a cent of child support paid into the system.
To help struggling families, the Legislature could pass a law to allow a portion of the monthly child support collected — $50, $100 or $200 — to first pass through to the family before the state begins recouping the funds for itself. Twenty seven states already do some version of this, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, including two, Colorado and Minnesota, that pass all child support to the parent.
Mississippi also currently counts any child support the family does receive as income for the purposes of awarding welfare or food benefits, meaning it could lower the amount of assistance low-income families receive or kick them out of eligibility.
Mississippi could move to disregard child support as income, as 28 states already do.
Child support recoupment in Mississippi doesn’t apply to an incredibly large population because of how few families receive welfare in the first place. However, if the new Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson is successful in expanding eligibility for welfare, these could become even more crucial policies.
Be realistic about earnings.
If a noncustodial parent is unemployed or lacking wage information, the state currently uses the minimum wage — $7.25 an hour at 40 hours a week — to determine how much child support to order. They do this regardless of the parent’s realistic employability, earning history or the job prospects in their area.
The state could alter its formula to take these economic circumstances into account, so separated fathers are not saddled with monthly payments they will not be able to pay.
Make processing applications easier.
The state could modernize the child support system by allowing participants to use electronic images of birth certificates and electronic signatures, improving remote access to the program.
Mississippi’s congressional delegation is split – currently by party line – on whether to remove President Donald Trump from office, with the state’s lone Democrat supporting impeachment and two Republicans saying the focus should be on national “healing.”
At least 213 House Democrats say they support an article of impeachment charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection” after hundreds of his supporters overtook the Capitol last Wednesday in an effort to stop the process of certifying Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the November presidential election.
Democrats have privately and publicly urged Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which would force Trump to step down with a majority vote of the president’s cabinet. Pence’s reported refusal to take that step means the impeachment process could begin as early as Wednesday and move quickly.
Wicker, who was the only Republican member of the state’s congressional delegation to not challenge Biden’s overwhelming victory over Trump, said he opposes efforts to impeach Trump or to remove him through the 25th Amendment.
“In accordance with our Constitution, the orderly transfer of power will occur at noon on Jan. 20. The best way for our country to heal and move past the events of last week would be for this process to continue,” Wicker said in a statement.
In a statement, Guest said, “… I believe the resolution urging Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment against President Trump and the articles of impeachment that are being discussed in the House of Representatives would be counterproductive and divide our country even further. As we begin preparing for a transfer of power from one administration to another in less than 10 days, I believe it is vitally important to allow our nation to heal, and I believe these actions that are being pushed on the House floor would prevent our nation from beginning the healing process.
“At this decisive moment in our history, we must focus on uniting our country and avoid stoking the fiery tensions currently consuming our nation.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the only Democrat in Mississippi’s delegation, has gone on record as supporting the impeachment effort against Trump.
“Trump’s lack of character continues to show,” Thompson said this week on social media. “By not attending the Biden-Harris inauguration his legacy of being the worst president is cemented in history. Good riddance.”
Other members of the congressional delegation – Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Republican Reps. Trent Kelly and Steven Palazzo – have not gone on record about whether they support efforts to impeach or remove Trump from office.
After Trump and other allies spoke to the crowd Wednesday morning, they marched to the Capitol, where Congress was performing its constitutional duty to count the electors and to certify the results. The mob overwhelmed law enforcement, entered the building and for a period of time stopped the counting. The assault resulted in five deaths. Multiple arrests have been made, including of people who entered the building or were on the grounds with guns and explosives – some of whom allegedly threatened to kill members of the nation’s elected leadership.
I tried to make sure I knew the words. I couldn’t sing; the least I could do was know.
It won’t be long
We’ll be going home
Grandma made sure I knew. I grew up running behind her, watching every move she made. Early in the morning, we watched The Price is Right and her “stories”; and she watched me do how she said: say yes ma’am, wash your face, and tighten up your belt. Late in the evening, we watched Grandpa watch John Wayne and other things he named based on whose they were.
On Sundays, I watched church from beside Grandma behind the mourner’s bench. That’s where she taught me how to listen and hold my Bible. That’s where she made sure I knew the words to all the songs. She nodded at me when I did.
Count the years as months
Count the months as weeks
Count the weeks as days
I asked questions when I didn’t.
What’s the difference between soon and very soon? Why would somebody leave here to go home? What do you do when you don’t know?
“You believe.” That was always her answer, always like that, even when she picked different words.
Brian Foster pictured with his grandmother.
My grandmother was born in Lee County, Mississippi nine years after Fannie Lou Hamer was born on the other side of the state, the same year Richard Wright left the South for the other part of the country. Believing without knowing—faith—helped all of them survive this place. It was by faith that Hamer stayed and organized in a Mississippi that wanted her dead. It was with faith that Wright left to write about a nation that was just like Mississippi. It is because of my grandmother’s faith that I am here, working at a university I could have barely attended if I was her son. White folks might have set bombs and started riots had I tried.
Mississippi is strange like that, especially for Black folks like us. It takes belief to stay, belief to go, and some type of belief to come back, which is hard because you will probably have to believe without knowing; which is impossible because what you don’t know is if you will survive.
Any day now
My grandmother was born in 1927. Like nearly 2 million other Black folks in the South, her parents were sharecroppers. Like Fannie Lou Hamer by the time she was old enough. Like Richard Wright’s father. Like Richard Wright’s mother, my grandmother let me read her newspapers at the kitchen table beside her, often eating something I had cooked how she taught me. Sausage patties in a cast iron skillet with grease that hurt when it popped.
The year Grandma was born, the Mississippi River flooded the Delta, leaving hundreds of thousands of sharecroppers like Fannie Lou Hamer’s family displaced; and Richard Wright a train ride away reading and writing about it all. That was the same year the U.S. Supreme Court passed a decision that affirmed the right of state institutions like hospitals to sterilize people without their consent. The next year, Mississippi passed its own sterilization law; and in 1961, under the authority of this law, doctors at the North Sunflower County Hospital performed a hysterectomy on Fannie Lou Hamer, preventing her from being able to have children. Hamer didn’t consent or know.
It was also in 1961 when Richard Wright died after having been gone from Mississippi ever since he was the same age I was when I came back after I first left. Freedom Summer was in 1961; it was about getting Black Mississippians registered to vote. The Clarksdale Christmas boycott was in 1961; it was about getting Black Mississippians opportunities to work. A Freedom Ride stopped in Jackson in 1961; it was about getting Black Mississippians the right to be in public. James Meredith applied for admission to the place where I work in 1961; it was about more than being the “first black” student to enroll. My grandmother turned 34 in 1961; that was three years older than I am now.
Since 2016, I have worked as Assistant Professor of Sociology and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. I started the job when I was 27, the same year I started writing a book about Black folks living in Mississippi with the blues; I was the same age then that Fannie Lou Hamer had been when the U.S. Supreme Court passed the Brown decision, which was summarily ignored by white elected officials across the state for a decade. That year Richard Wright published two books, one that I know well and another that I’ve never read, both probably better than any I’ll ever write.
My grandma never read that book Richard Wright wrote — or any book that wasn’t the Bible or about saying the right words in church — and she never met Fannie Lou Hamer. But their lives were entangled, like all of ours. That’s how it is in places like this for folks like us; no coincidences just the vibes of Black life folding over top and through each other, making love and tangled knots with two things that have always been. The first is that, what was promised never was. Mississippi was granted statehood in 1817. The 1820 Census says that there were more than 75,000 Mississippians then. Of them, about 45% were Black. Of those who were Black, 99% were enslaved. It never was.
It never was a time when what Freedom Summer was about was true. Today, political scientists describe Mississippi as the hardest state for folks to vote in. There is no early voting or online registration. There are felony voting restrictions that wipe away 16% of the Black electorate; and that big number is, itself, a legacy of something that never was in Mississippi, a humane approach to governance.
It never was a time when what the Clarksdale Christmas boycott was about was true. Today, the state’s unemployment numbers and lowest-paying employment options are highest where its Black residents are most, places like Clarksdale. It never was a time when what the Freedom Rides were about was true. Look anywhere in Mississippi, and you will find a highway, investigation, lawsuit, monument, oral history, prison, private academy, or public settlement that shows how difficult it is for Black Mississippians to be in Mississippi.
It never was a time when I felt like the people in charge of the place where I work would ever know. They couldn’t know what Fannie Lou Hamer believed, or what Richard Wright saw. They couldn’t know what their first Black student said about why he applied, or what the Black students today feel about all the reminders of when he couldn’t. They couldn’t know what Black women faculty and staff—who have been and remain the university’s architects and most essential workers—have been saying for years and years, stuff that at least some folks have only recently found cause to believe. Any day now. They couldn’t know.
Those who know don’t say.
Yet, that is what the folks in charge of the place where I work do best. They say. A year before I came back, a former University of Mississippi student pleaded guilty for his role in placing a noose on a statute of James Meredith. There were many things that happened in the aftermath. The more time that passes, the more it seems that most of it was just saying. In my first year in my current position, I interviewed the two black women who led the movement to remove the Mississippi state flag, which at the time bore a Confederate battle emblem, from campus. They shared stories of verbal assaults, death threats, paralyzing anxiety and fear, and being followed home on more than one occasion. There were many things that happened in the aftermath. The more time that passes, the more it seems that most of it was just saying. Last year, another group of university students posed with guns beside a bullet-riddled sign marking the murder of Emmett Till, which happened the same year my grandmother’s son turned four. There was a lot that happened in the aftermath, including a panel discussion that I moderated. The more time that passes, the more it seems that most of it was just saying. We couldn’t know.
And when you don’t know, it’s easy to say things about a truth that just never was. The University of Mississippi was established in 1848. The 1850 Census says that there were about 600,000 Mississippians then. Of them, about half were Black. Of those who were Black, 99% were enslaved. Of those who were enslaved, at least 55 were held by the people in charge of the University of Mississippi, the place where I work. It just never was.
A well-intentioned truth laid over an untouched lie is still a lie.
To keep laying good intentions and empty words on unrepaired damage is to still not know. And they don’t even.
Yet, we have always believed. That is the second thing that has always been for Black Mississippians: faith.
In 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer was part of an eleven-person delegation, organized by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, that visited the west African nation of Guinea. In an interview the next year, Hamer reflected on two types of comments she heard while she was away. Some folks wished she had gone sooner. Others wanted her to not come back at all. She knew what she was to do the whole time. “It is our right to stay (in Mississippi),” she said in the interview, “and we will stay.”
“I dreamed of going,” wrote Richard Wright in Black Boy. Leaving Mississippi symbolized possibility for Wright. Leaving meant being able to see and believe what he had not been allowed to learn or know his whole life. It meant realizing a dream that “the entire educational system of the South had been rigged to stifle.” It meant learning how violent not knowing can be, how Chicago was as much Mississippi as they both are the nation that made them. Wright wouldn’t say it like this, but that was faith too, leaving one place that won’t let you be for another.
Lyvelle and Hosea Foster.
Grandma never left. For days, we watched Grandpa lie in a hospital bed without talking. She sat beside him listening every minute. That was 2004, when I was 15, the same age Fannie Lou Hamer was when she couldn’t go to school for working in the fields that Wright took that train through to get away from. I don’t remember many details from the Friday Grandpa died, except that Grandma sat on his right side, her yellow hand cuffing his black arm by his swollen right wrist, her not knowing but doing how she taught me: believing still.
The doctor kept not knowing how to say Grandpa’s name. I always said it was because the doctor could read but couldn’t listen. It was quiet when they did whatever they do when life support isn’t enough. Everybody sat waiting on it to happen. I sat doing what I had been doing my whole life: watching every move Grandma made. She raised his arm and let it fall. It was too heavy. She did it again. It did it again. The last time was the last time.
We’ll be going home
The last Census says that there are about 3 million Mississippians. Of them, 1 million are Black. Among them are the legacies of Fannie Lou Hamer who stayed as long as she could, Richard Wright who left as soon he did, and my grandma. Those of us who remain stand where they stood; and those of us who have not been robbed of the choice to choose will have to decide and believe how they did: without knowing.
That is the hard part.
If Grandma was here, I would ask her like I used to. “What do you do when you don’t know?” And she would tell me like she told me. “You believe.” And I would ask her like I never did. How do you hold belief and your breath at the same time?
That is the impossible part.
In order to survive, we must believe that the thing that is killing us won’t, all while not knowing if we’ll live long enough to see what Grandma saw on all them Sundays on the pew behind the front row, when she used to make sure I knew the words.
