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Mississippi saw its first population decrease in 60 years, according to preliminary 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data released last month.

The data reported Mississippi’s resident population as 2,961,279 million people, marking a decrease of 6,018 since 2010. This is only the third time a population decrease in Mississippi has been recorded. The first was a decrease of 6,496 recorded in 1920, and the second was a decline of 773 recorded in 1960.

Mississippi was one of only three states to see a population decline in the 2020 census, though its decline was the smallest among them. Illinois’ population decreased by 18,124 and the state lost one of its 18 congressional seats as a result. West Virginia saw the greatest population decline, losing 59,278 residents.

The map below shows population changes by Mississippi county between 2010 and 2020, based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Population Estimates Program. More detailed 2020 Census county-by-county data will be released later this year. Hover over counties to see the population change.

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Emma McRae, a 20-year-old native of Tishomingo, left Mississippi to attend college in Dallas, Texas.

“I needed more growth to go to other colleges than the colleges down the road,” McRae said. “Dallas is an incredible city, and it has incredible opportunities for young people. I just needed to be in a place where my viewpoints would be accepted.”

Kevin Malphurs, a 38-year-old native of Jackson, left Mississippi to find work in Columbus, Ohio.

“We picked Columbus because there are a lot of jobs and major companies there,” Malphurs said. “There are no Fortune 500 companies in Mississippi. If you want to do financial analysis for a Fortune 500 company, then that type of job doesn’t exist in Mississippi, unfortunately.”

Erin Runnels, a 37-year-old native of Laurel, left Mississippi to find better culture and opportunities in Kansas City, Missouri.

“I just felt like I needed more culture. It’s not that Mississippi doesn’t have culture, but the culture is very homogenous,” Runnels said. “In Kansas City, there’s more people like me here, and there’s more opportunities here.”

Every Mississippian knows the problem: Young people, in search of high-quality education, high-paying jobs or more fulfilling lifestyles, have left Mississippi in droves in recent years. 

Thanks to newly released data, Mississippians can now better understand the full scope of the problem: In late April, the U.S. Census Bureau released preliminary 10-year data showing that Mississippi was one of just three U.S. states to lose population over the past 10 years. Only twice before had Mississippi lost residents in a 10-year span: 1920 and 1960.

But since the data was released, nearly all of the state’s most powerful elected officials — the ones responsible for setting agendas and passing policies — have failed to even acknowledge the problem, let alone offer up solutions.

Mississippi Today tried multiple times to get comment about the population decline from the state’s top three policymakers: Gov. Tate Reeves, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker of the House Philip Gunn. Hosemann was the only one to respond.

“Traveling out in the state and talking with citizens, the issues which matter to Mississippians are apparent: good schools, affordable healthcare, secure infrastructure, and jobs and opportunities for our children and grandchildren,” Hosemann said in a statement. “These are the issues we must focus on in Mississippi to keep our young people here and attract new residents to the state.”

READ MORE: Young people are running from Mississippi. We’re digging into it.

Young Mississippians have long been underrepresented in the state’s political system. Of the eight current statewide elected officials, just one is a millennial or younger: State Auditor Shad White, who is 35. A 2019 analysis showed the median age of the state’s 174 lawmakers was 56, about 18 years older than the state median.

The only recent inkling of an organized policy effort came in 2017, when seven of 174 lawmakers under the age of 40 created the Mississippi Future Caucus. That group has not been active in several years, and at least three of the members are no longer in the Legislature (Roun McNeal, who lost his 2019 reelection bid; Robert Foster, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2019; and Toby Barker, who is now the mayor of Hattiesburg).

Rep. Trey Lamar, the Senatobia Republican who is among the most powerful lawmakers, notably worked to pass a tax credit bill in 2018 aimed at helping keep young people home. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate without consideration.

Some advocates in Mississippi have held a long-standing theory about why state leaders won’t acknowledge the problem: because their own core agendas haven’t been popular or effective enough to attract or retain young people.

“Mississippi’s leaders don’t need to come up with shiny new ideas to stop the brain drain, because the solutions are embedded in the issues that are already front and center: education, healthcare and infrastructure,” said Jake McGraw, the public policy director at the William Winter Institute who has for years compiled data about and studied the effects of the state’s outmigration.

McGraw continued: “We can keep teachers in Mississippi by paying them a competitive salary, keep doctors and nurses by expanding Medicaid and preserving rural hospitals, and keep engineers and contractors by fixing our roads and water systems.”

Mississippi Today, after receiving hundreds of survey responses from young Mississippians since the Census statistics were released last month, reached out to the three respondents quoted at the top of this article who left the state and started their lives elsewhere.

McRae acknowledged pride in “certain components of how she’s been raised,” but she said that even in parts of its neighboring state like Texas, negative associations about Mississippi still surface and “a greater mode of accountability and listening from the state” could debunk common stereotypes and curtail a fleeing young population.

Malphurs, though he left for a bigger market in financial analysis, expressed both care and hope for Mississippi when explaining that the state is “always so close to change.”

Runnels, after experiencing verbal harassment for her beliefs that differed from those she grew up around, said that Mississippi needs a safer, healthier environment for differing viewpoints where “people can talk about what’s important to them.”

While their individual reasons for leaving varied, a common thread linked their answers: Mississippi’s state leadership and political landscape has created an ideological impasse between older and younger Mississippians.

“Ignoring the problem only makes it worse, because each person Mississippi loses leaves a little bit less behind for those of us who remain,” McGraw said.

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Mississippi State and Ole Miss split the C Spire Outstanding Player Awards announced Monday in a virtual awards program co-sponsored by the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and C Spire.

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic changed so much about how college sports were played in Mississippi this past school year, it totally changed the way the C Spire awards were presented. Instead of well-attended awards banquets at the end of each season, all the awards were presented at once in a virtual program hosted by CBS television pro football analyst Charles Davis.

The winners:

Boo Ferriss Trophy: Mississippi State’s Tanner Allen, one of the nation’s leading hitters, won over Ole Miss pitching ace Doug Nikhazy, the other finalist. Allen has hit .411 in Southeastern Conference play and .387 overall and ranks in the SEC top 10 in average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, runs scored, runs batted in and hits. Allen is a finalist for the Dick Howser award as national player of the year. Other Ferriss semifinalists included Mississippi State closer Landon Sims, Ole Miss pitcher Gunnar Hoglund and Ole Miss outfielder Kevin Graham.

Charles Conerly Trophy: Ole Miss record-breaking wide receiver Elijah Moore won over finalist Emmanuel Forbes, a defensive back from Mississippi State, who led the SEC in interceptions. Moore caught 86 passes for 1,193 yards and recently was a second round draft choice of the New York Jets. Other nominees included Southern Miss offensive lineman Arvin Fletcher, Jackson State wide receiver Daylen Baldwin, Mississippi Valley State defensive end-linebacker Jerry Garner, Belhaven running back Brad Foley, Millsaps defensive back Christian Roberts, and Mississippi College running back Cole Fagan.

Bailey Howell Trophy: Ole Miss guard Devontae Shuler won over finalists Tristan Jarrett of Jackson State D. J. Stewart of Mississippi State. Shuler, a first team All-SEC selection, led the Rebels with a 15.3 points per game average and also led the team in assists and steals. He becomes Ole Miss’s sixth Howell Trophy winner over the past nine seasons.

Peggie Gillom Trophy: Ole Miss’s Shakira Austin won over a pair of Jackson State finalists, Dayzsha Rogan and Ameshya Williams. Austin, a Maryland transfer, averaged 18.6 points and 9.1 rebounds per game, shooting 52 percent from the field. She breaks a six-year run of Mississippi State players winning the Gillom.

In addition to the C Spire awards, Ole Miss’s versatile senior offensive lineman Royce Newman won the Entergy Kent Hull Trophy as the state’s most outstanding offensive lineman. Newman, who played both guard and tackle for the Rebels, was drafted in the fourth round of the NFL Draft by the Green Pay Packers.

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Mississippi Today is pleased to announce Julia James and Richard Lake as 2021 Summer Interns.

Julia James will be serving as Investigative Reporting Intern, working closely with Mississippi Today’s poverty and investigative reporter Anna Wolfe. James is a recent graduate of the University of Mississippi, where she studied journalism and public policy. She has been published in The New York Times, Mississippi Today, and the Clarion-Ledger. James is from Mandeville, Louisiana. 

“Since moving to Mississippi, I have always been inspired by the careful and comprehensive reporting produced by the Mississippi Today newsroom,” said James. “I am excited to be able to learn from and participate in that process. I am also excited specifically to strengthen my investigative reporting skills and to have the opportunity to take the lead on larger reporting projects.”

In 2020, James interned with the Mississippi Center for Justice. From 2018-2019, James interned with the Prison-to-College Pipeline Program, teaching college classes to incarcerated persons in correctional facilities in Mississippi. During that time, she interviewed more than 30 students about their experiences in the program and created a website and newsletter for the student’s writing projects. 

“Julia will be pulling records, gathering data and conducting shoe-leather reporting for stories impacting some of the state’s most vulnerable students and workers,” said Wolfe. “I can’t wait to see what she uncovers.”

Mississippi State University rising senior Richard Lake will be serving as Audience Engagement Intern as part of his year-two placement in the Mississippi Today + NBC News Internship program. During the summer of 2019, Lake served as an intern with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports. This summer, he will work with the Mississippi Today audience team and focus on helping reach younger and more diverse audiences. Lake is the host of the Undecided podcast, an exploration of all things sports, politics, pop culture and music. 

“Being able to intern at a newsroom that focuses on transparency, integrity, and most importantly accuracy is what is most important to me,” said Lake. “I was drawn to Mississippi Today for the opportunity to continue to accurately represent this state, and its population.” 

The Mississippi Today Audience Team serves as a bridge between the editorial and business sides of the newsroom, managing a range of projects from social media, newsletters and web presentation, to community listening, engagement reporting and reader loyalty. 

“The Audience Team has some exciting projects in the works, many of which are focused on reaching younger, more diverse readers,” said Hambuchen. “Richard brings a fresh perspective to this work and we’re excited to collaborate with him on a variety of things such as our new video series, podcast projects, social media initiatives and more.”

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PONTOTOC – Sixty-year-old Terry “Harmonica” Bean is known around the world – and especially in Europe – for his down-home Mississippi blues music. In his hometown of Pontotoc, they know he plays the blues, but he is much more famous and beloved for his once-remarkable baseball skills.

Terry Bean, you say? His baseball feats in this small, hill country town are legendary.

“Oh yeah, Terry pitched both right-handed and left-handed, and that rascal was unhittable from either side,” says Bean’s former Pontotoc coach Tommy Wood. “I’ve always believed, had he stayed healthy, he would have pitched in the Major Leagues. He was that talented, that good. And he could hit the ball a country mile.”

Wood points to a building high on a steep hill, at least 40 steps behind the “345 feet” sign on the right field fence at the Pontotoc baseball field known as The Hollow. 

“Terry once hit one off that house,” Wood says. “Not many human beings can do that. He did it back in 1980.”

Ah, the spring of 1980, 41 years ago, when Terry Bean and teammate Nikki White pitched and helped hit Pontotoc to its first-ever state championship. When Nikki pitched, Terry played first base. When Terry pitched, Nikki played first base. Nikki had the only first baseman’s mitt, and he was left-handed. So Terry played first base left-handed. He hit left-handed, too.

White remembers a game against Mooreville that season.

“Terry was pitching and I was playing first,” White says. “Their leadoff hitter blooped one just out of my reach, barely in the outfield grass, for a cheap hit to start the game. Well, you could tell it made Terry angry. So he just proceeded to strike out the next 23 batters. Twenty-three straight! They couldn’t touch him. We won 1-0 in eight innings. That was the only hit they got.”

Wood keeps well-preserved newspaper clippings to authenticate the legend of Terry Bean, clippings from the Pontotoc Progress and Tupelo Journal. Photos show Bean pitching both right-handed and left-handed and document him throwing no-hitters and one-hitters and slugging grand slam home runs. 

Wood remembers that no matter whether Bean pitched right-handed or left-handed, he used his right-hander’s glove. “He threw a lot harder right-handed, probably in the low 90s,” Wood says. “Left-handed, he was probably mid-80s but he had a lot more movement on the ball from the left side. He mainly pitched right-handed for us. I remember one time we were playing Okolona and had a big district game coming up, so he pitched right-handed for three innings and then left-handed for the next four. Didn’t matter; they couldn’t hit him either way.”

Pontotoc finished 26-4. Bean’s pitching record was 9-1 and he averaged more than two strikeouts per inning.

Wood first heard of Bean when Bean, as a young teen, was pitching for a semi-pro team, the Algoma Sluggers of the nearby Algoma community. “People were telling me about this little, skinny boy who threw from either side and was striking out grown-up men in a pretty good semi-pro league,” Wood says. “When Terry got to the tenth grade, I found him in the hallway and told him he needed to come play for us on the high school team, and thankfully he did.”

So, it’s about time we hear from the blues and baseball man himself, Terry Bean, and you should know on the front end that you will not meet a more upbeat, ebullient human being. Even when he talks about hardship, he says it with a smile. At 60, he retains an athletic build and looks like he could still go a few innings.

“I was born in 1961, and I never knew my mama until I was 12,” Bean says. “She left when I was a baby, and my daddy, Eddie Bean, raised me by himself. I didn’t meet my mama until I was 12 and she came back for the funeral of one of my brothers.”

That would be one of his 18 brothers. He also has six sisters. There are 24 Bean siblings in all. Terry Bean says he has 14 full siblings and 10 more by either his father or mother.

“My daddy was a full-time blues player,” Terry Bean says. “He played guitar and sang. He was also a big gambler. When I was little, he was always taking me to juke joints where he played. Back then, people brought their families to the jukes. My daddy, sometimes he’d gamble until he lost all his money, then go back out and play some more blues to make some money so he could go back and roll the dice. My daddy was a man of many talents…”

Terry pauses, as if to make his point, and then continues with a smile, “And he made a lot of children, too.”

Sometimes, Eddie Bean would bring his son up on stage with him and Terry would play along. “I remember,” Terry says, smiling, “the first time somebody tipped me a whole dollar. Thought I was rich.”

So you, as I did, might wonder: When did the baseball come in?

“I used to play ball by myself,” Terry says. “I’d throw the ball off this old smokehouse building behind the house. It had a hole in the wall and sometimes I’d try to throw it through the hole. It had to be just right to get through that hole, but I kept throwing until I could get it through that hole.”

And then, when he became bored, he started throwing it with his left arm.

“There was this one spot on that old smokehouse that was hard enough that when you hit it, the ball would come right back to you,” Terry says. “That’s how I learned to field. The harder I threw it, the harder it would come back. But Daddy got mad when I started knocking some of the planks off.”

Terry built the house where he lives on the same site where his daddy once lived. In the yard are several older pickup trucks, riding lawn mowers and a van. A self-taught mechanic, he works on those and says he can fix the older models when nobody else can. Behind his house is a one-room cottage that Terry built to store some of his things.

“You want to see it?” he says, and then searches for the right key on his ring, trying two or three before one works.

Terry opens the door and says, “My life is in this place.”

Turns out, it is a one-room museum with posters of events he has played all over the world, a drum set, photos of him pitching both left-handed and right-handed, baseball trophies, at least 20 harmonicas, souvenir baseballs of no-hitters he threw, photos of the many blues icons he has played with and a big poster of one of his heroes, Muhammad Ali.

He shows visitors posters from festivals he has played all over Europe, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. He shows us photos from when he played at the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

The pandemic has curtailed his globe-trotting for the last 14 months, so he has had to make his money locally. He does blues gigs around the state. He works some shifts at a lumber factory. He mows yards. He stays busy while he waits for the world to open back up.

Where, he is asked, does he like best of all the world-trotting music gigs?

Bean flashes that big grin of his, “I am always most happy when I get back home.”

So, you ask, what happened to Terry Bean’s baseball career? The answer: lots. Before the state championship series, his senior season, Bean was riding on the back of a motorcycle with a cousin. The cycle skidded and crashed, Bean flew off and landed on his head. He suffered a bad concussion and apparently more.

He played – but could not pitch much – in the championship series. Says Nikki White, his teammate, “The California Angels had shown a lot of interest. We were sure they were going to draft him, but they backed off after the motorcycle accident.”

Bean suffered excruciating headaches for the next few months. Finally, on the advice of a friend, he went to see a chiropractor who told him he had suffered a pinched nerve in his neck and that he could fix it.

“He did and I never had another one of those headaches,” Terry says. “It was like magic.”

He pitched one season at Northwest Community College in Senatobia, where he compiled a 6-0 record for legendary Northwest coach Jim Miles, for whom the NWCC baseball stadium is named. 

“Terry was phenomenal,” says Miles. “He threw hard and he threw strikes, and he had a curveball that just sort of fell off the table. And what a great guy he was, always so positive. He came from a poor background and I used to loan him five dollars for gas every time he had to go back home, which was most every Friday. On Monday morning, he’d come back by my office and try to hand me a five-dollar bill. I never had another player do that.”

Bean once again caught the interest of Major League scouts before he suffered a bad knee injury in a fall scrimmage against Ole Miss later in 1981. That ended his playing days at Northwest and the interest of the professional scouts for the time being.

A few years later, when Bean was back pitching semi-pro ball – throwing shutouts and striking out everybody in sight – people kept telling him he should be pitching professionally. He headed to Greenville for a Major League tryout camp. He never got there. He was headed west. A car heading east swerved into his lane. He jerked the steering wheel, swerved right off the road, flipped three times and suffered injuries that ended his baseball playing days.

So, if you are keeping score: Head and neck injuries from a motorcycle wreck were strike one. A mangled knee from an off-season baseball injury was strike two. The horrific car accident was strike three. As far as baseball was concerned, Terry Bean was out.

But he always remembers what his daddy told him once when they were discussing his career choices: baseball or music. Says Bean, “Daddy looked at me right in the eyes and he said, ‘You can play ball and you can play the blues. But just remember, in the long run, the blues will do something for you. The blues can take you somewhere.’”

If anybody has a story that would make one sing the blues, Terry Bean surely does. “To this day, I miss playing,” Bean says. “I miss ball, I miss competing, but, really, I don’t let it bother me. The blues have taken me all over the world. Yeah, I miss ball but I have my music.”

Noted blues historian Scott Barretta, writer and researcher for the Mississippi Blues Trail, calls Bean a friend and a man “who has certainly made his mark” among the many Mississippi blues legends. Barrett has traveled with Bean to Italy and to the Chicago Blues Festival and says he admires how “Terry has forged his musical career doing it his way.”

“Terry doesn’t have a manager or an agent and never has,” Barretta says. “He’s his own man. He does things his way. He doesn’t have to reach out to festivals or venues. They reach out to him. They find him.

“Terry doesn’t drink or smoke, he’s never done drugs,” Barretta says. “He’s incredibly entrepreneurial. Anything he produces, record-wise, he’s gonna sell it. He doesn’t travel with his own band, and he doesn’t mind playing gigs with pick-up bands, but they are going to do it his way. Terry’s like Chuck Berry in that way. He just shows up, on time, and plays.”

An interviewer asks Bean: Couldn’t you make more money and wouldn’t it make it easier for you if you had an agent?

“That’s what people tell me,” Bean responds. “But I am my own man. I like to be me. I do it my way. Several agents have talked to me but I like to make decisions for myself. I want to be in control of what I do. Sometimes, I’ll make 10 or 20 thousand dollars on a gig overseas and somebody’ll say, well, that’s not really that much money. You could make a lot of money if you got an agent. Well, that’s a lot of money for me.

“Maybe I’m not rich, but I am rich in spirit,” he says. “I am happy being me.”

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I held back tears last weekend as I said goodbye to two close friends who, after a few years of commitment to Mississippi, just couldn’t do it anymore. They’re moving to a large, vibrant city in the South, excited for the bigger and better opportunities ahead.

A couple days later, I had an emotional conversation with another friend who is saving up money to do the same thing. She doesn’t have a timeline, but she has a plan.

I’ve seen and heard it literally all my life: At first chance, so many young Mississippians run from their home state to start their lives and build their careers, never to return. Often, if they don’t have the opportunity to leave, they abide here and dream constantly about the day it can happen.

My friends are among tens of thousands who have done this in recent years. A month ago, we learned Mississippi was one of just three U.S. states to lose population over the past 10 years. Only twice before had Mississippi lost residents during a 10-year span: 1920 and 1960. Now, we add 2020 to the list.

More and more, other states reap the benefits of our minds, our energy, our passion. Meanwhile, Mississippi can’t get off the bottom. It’s a tragic cycle that certainly isn’t limited to just our young people. But as a member myself of the next large generation of Mississippi’s workers, voters and citizens, it’s become too hard to stomach.

On May 25, we’re launching a long-term reporting project called NextGen Mississippi. We’re hiring a full-time reporter for this, and we’re committing much of our existing newsroom’s energy to several things.

First, we want to clearly define the problem, working to answer questions like: How many young people are leaving? Why are they leaving? What could convince them to stay? Why have many young people stayed? What are they doing, and what are they sacrificing to stay? What more can we do for them?

Next, we want to examine the implications of the problem, answering questions like: What does this increasing exodus of young Mississippians mean for Mississippi? For the states they’re settling in? What are we missing out on because of it? How is our state’s future affected by the problem?

Finally, we want to engage Mississippians — everyone from the young people afflicted by the problem to our elected officials who have the responsibility to do something about it. We want to hear from anyone and everyone about how we can, together, keep more of our young people at home and create a better future for Mississippi.

All the while, we’ll make a concerted effort to regularly showcase the great things that so many young Mississippians are up to here. That’s as big a part of this story as anything.

I love my home state, and I can speak for everyone at Mississippi Today in saying the same. We choose to be here ourselves, committed to playing our small role in trying to make it better.

This new project isn’t about me or us, but it is personal. It’s personal in the way that it’s personal for every single Mississippian: We miss our friends who left. We miss our family members who left. We want our home to be better. We know something — anything — more has to be done, and we’re trying to do just that.

If you’re a young Mississippian who stayed, we’re happy you’re here. Too few people, especially those in leadership positions, understand that staying here requires sacrifices. Staying can be so difficult, and the refusal of people who have the ability to make things better to even acknowledge there is a problem takes a toll. We want to hear from you about all this.

If you’re a young Mississippian who left, we don’t blame you. You made the choice that was best for you, and we know it’s one you think about constantly. No matter why you left or how happy you might be elsewhere, we want to hear from you about all this.

If you’re a not-so-young Mississippian, we still want to hear from you. We understand you have seen this problem play out here longer, and these questions certainly transcend generations, races, regions and socioeconomic backgrounds.

To get involved immediately, spend some time with our survey here. We’ve already received hundreds of responses, and the more information and perspectives we have, the better informed our reporting will be. To follow our regular coverage, signup for our NextGen Mississippi email list here:

Please reach out to me directly with any question, concerns or suggestions you may have (for real, please send any and all story ideas!). My email address is adam@mississippitoday.org, or you can fill out our “Letter to the Editor” form below.

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Mississippi Today’s political team analyzes the wide-ranging political and policy implications of the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the medical marijuana program and the ballot initiative process.

Stream the episode here.

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