Power linemen and water department employees working through cold nights to restore public services to thousands of Mississippians. Road engineers getting six hours of sleep all week working to keep major interstates and highways open. Police working overtime to respond to thousands of weather-related traffic accidents.
After the historic 2021 winter storm wrecked the state of Mississippi this week, officials are welcoming the winter weather’s forecast exit on Thursday and reflecting on the week.
“I have worked with (the Mississippi Department of Transportation) over 25 years, and have never seen such an event,” MDOT engineer Mark Holley wrote on Facebook. “Some might say we were not prepared. But in reality, we were more prepared than we have ever been.”
Holley continued: “I sincerely hope that in 25 plus years from now, we are still talking about this event as the ‘worst one ever.’”
The effects of the storm on the state:
• Several state highways remain closed Thursday after many of the state’s major interstates and highways were closed at different points during the week. By Thursday late morning, every major interstate had at least one lane open in both directions.
• At least 250,000 Mississippians lost power at some point during the week, including about 170,000 who were still without power on Thursday late morning.
• Residents in dozens of Mississippi cities and towns are without water or have low water pressure.
• Hundreds of schools and colleges across the state cancelled classes. In the north part of the state, many schools have already announced cancelling classes on Friday.
While the National Weather Service has forecasted that winter precipitation will end across the state by Thursday evening, freezing temperatures could still affects water and electric systems. A hard freeze warning is in effect through Thursday night for much of the state.
“Unlike a hurricane or tornado, where the event comes furiously and then ends, this has been a slow-moving disaster,” Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted on Thursday. “We have been in response mode, not recovery, constantly. There has not been a significant break in the freeze—it just keeps coming.”
Lawmakers are trying to revamp incentives to businesses that expand or relocate to Mississippi, to simplify the process, provide more transparency and prevent boondoggles that in the past have left taxpayers holding the bag.
“This will be performance-based, not promise-based,” said Senate Economic Development Chairman David Parker, R-Olive Branch, author of Senate Bill 2822, the Mississippi Flexible Tax Incentive Act, or “MFlex.”
To qualify for MFlex incentives, a business would have to make a minimum investment of $2.5 million and create a minimum of 10 new full-time jobs. The application would be only a few pages, compared to hundreds of pages of code companies have to sift through for many current state incentive programs. A company using the MFlex program would not be able to participate in other tax incentive programs.
Scratching for jobs and development for a poor state, lawmakers over many years have created dozens of tax breaks, credits and incentives for new or expanding businesses. Many sit in the books unused by or unknown to qualified businesses. Others, economic experts have said, provide little benefit to the state. Lack of oversight on the incentives has in the past resulted in businesses taking the incentives then defaulting on providing promised jobs and investments, leaving the state on the hook for millions with little way to recoup.
Around 2010, the state gave seven “green” energy companies more than $400 million in loans and incentives on the promise of them creating at least 5,000 jobs. Instead, many of the companies failed or floundered, creating a little over 600 jobs. KiOR, a company pledging to make cheap bio-crude, received about $75 million in loans and other state incentives, but went bankrupt leaving taxpayers a $69 million bill. Nearly two decades ago, the state saw the famous “beef plant scandal,” where a Yalobusha County beef processing plant heavily subsidized by the state cost taxpayers millions when it went belly-up after just three months. The list goes on.
In its recent annual report on economic development programs on tax incentives, the state Institutions of Higher Learning reported that of 20 state incentives it examined for 2020, only nine “generated a positive return on the state’s investment and two generated a negative return.” Others had not been used in recent years, and “five could not be analyzed because of insufficient information.” It noted that the Department of Revenue had no info available on how much tax breaks for the Tourism Tax Rebate Program had cost in forgone taxes, despite 11 projects, including the Biloxi baseball stadium, a children’s museum and the King Edward Hotel, receiving the rebates.
The move to overhaul incentives is being championed by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who has in the past opined that Mississippi has lacked oversight and accountability in the tax breaks and other incentives it provides prospective businesses. Gov. Tate Reeves, who has also in the past called for more accountability on incentives, local economic development officials and the Mississippi Development Authority have all been involved in drafting the overhaul, Hosemann and Parker said.
Hosemann said the MFlex plan would help the state shift further from risky upfront incentives for businesses to rebates and credits. It would be attractive to businesses in its simplicity and ease of application, and would better protect taxpayers by providing more stringent annual accounting of jobs and investments created before companies would receive the incentives. Parker said it would also provide better “clawback” provisions for the Department of Revenue to use should a company be proved to have received more credits than it deserved.
MFlex would not create new incentives, Hosemann said, but would consolidate and simplify the process for applying for them, and require more accurate accounting of whether companies were producing the jobs and investments they promised in exchange. A “companion” bill would eliminate or change several of the dozens of incentives on the books that either are not often used or have shown not to provide a return-on-investment for taxpayers.
Both measures passed the Senate Finance and Economic Development committees on Wednesday and are expected to be taken up by the full Senate by the end of the week.
David Rumbarger, president and CEO of the Community Development Foundation in Tupelo, is among several local economic developers who helped draft the MFlex measure. He said it would not only provide more accountability but more flexibility for new and existing companies. He said the state likely loses out on business or expansion when companies can’t figure out incentives or don’t realize they exist.
“It just streamlines the system,” Rumbarger said.
MFlex tax credit basic calculations would be based on:
1.5% of the total purchase or value of all manufacturing or processing equipment for a new or expanding business
7% of the total purchase or sales price or value of all non-manufacturing equipment
2% of the total contract paid for construction or improvements
Plus, if applicable:
15% of the of the total derived by multiplying the average wage by the number of full time jobs, if the average wage is equal or more than 75% of the average state or county wage
Increased incentives if the number of full time jobs is 50 or more, the average wage is 110% more than the state or county average, and all full-time employees are offered health insurance, then 30% of the total from multiplying the average wage by the number of full-time jobs
Increased incentives if a company creates 25 or more jobs and the average wage is more than 125% of the state or county average
Companies would have to provide a full accounting of their jobs, investment and tax liability to MDA each year before receiving the credits, instead of DOR or others having to dig for such information, Parker said.
Sen. Barbara Blackmon, D-Canton, was among several lawmakers who quizzed Parker on what the program would mean for economic development statewide, and what it would cost.
“This is not a new incentive, this just makes it easier and cleaner to apply,” Parker said. “The actual dollar amount going to companies might even be a little bit less overall, but the ease of application will far outweigh that … I think it will encourage economic development and new expansions in every area of this state.”
Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said he has in the past been frustrated by the inability to look at incentives and “see if they’re working, a net positive or net negative for taxpayers.”
“There’s no way to do that presently,” Blount said. But he said he is also concerned about language in the bill that would exempt much of the MFlex transactions from the state Public Records Act.
“It looks like MDA would get the info, the governor and lieutenant governor and speaker and IHL would get the info, but nobody else – no public access,” Blount said. “… That transparency is the heart of accountability. This is a step in the right direction, but any time you’re hiding information from the public, that gets my antenna up.”
Parker promised to work with Blount and others to amend such language in the bill if needed.
“I agree with you,” Parker said. “We are trying to balance our desire to get companies here, and there is certain info they would not want shown in the public air, but I think we are both trying to reach the same result. I will continue to work on that, and I’ll be glad to meet with you on figuring that out.”
Sitting in his home in New Orleans, Andrea Lane watched in alarm as his toes began turning a dark color.
Fearful, he headed to the hospital. “My toes just busted open and started filling with pus,” Lane said.
Doctors amputated eight of his toes.
That’s when Lane, who has since returned to his native Vicksburg, learned the cost of diabetes.
One of nine children, he said his mother also had diabetes – a family history that would have put him on his doctors’ radar as being predisposed to the dangers it presented and possibly headed off the outcome.
52 year-old Andrea Lane of Vicksburg, MS lost all toes on his left foot to the ramifications of unchecked diabetes. Without health insurance, and awaiting Medicaid approval, the turbulence of diabetes threatens Lane’s right foot, both hands and overall health. Credit: Sarah Warnock, Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting
But Lane, 52, never had a doctor. He never underwent an annual physical. He has no insurance.
Since his toes were amputated in 2019, Lane has waited to be approved for Medicaid coverage. He’s twice been turned down. Four hospitalizations ranging from five to 15 days have left him owing more than $100,000.
And like so many other Mississippians lacking health insurance, he’s turned to a patchwork of resources to save him from further complications and an early death. He’s leaned on the Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center to get the insulin he can’t afford and the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi to provide needles and glucose monitoring.
The father of three, who prepared food when he worked in New Orleans and also washed cars, saw his work history cut short by a chronic condition that caught early might have prevented the loss of his toes. He lost his food preparation job when he had difficulty standing for long periods of time.
He’s trying to save the remaining two toes on his right foot. He’s treating with betadine a sore that’s developed on the left foot where his toes were removed while dealing with the pain. “My foot like it is, I stay off of it. I use a four-legged cane,” Lane said.
He’s also now dealing with high blood pressure.
“I need wound care, but when I try to go in, the first they ask is do you have insurance,” he said.
“I need a primary care doctor,” he said.
“Diabetes can take a wrong turn. … I don’t want anybody to have to take care of me,” said Lane, who lives with a sister.
Those lacking insurance, like Lane, turn to organizations like the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi and the Health Advocacy Center Program for help.
Both try to help those who could qualify for Medicaid to enroll or direct them to free or sliding-fee clinics if they don’t.
The foundation serves as a conduit connecting diabetes patients to resources, like federal community health centers that can supply an older formulation of insulin at less than $25 a vial.
“Insulin analogs are so expensive,” Irena McClain, associate director of the Diabetes Foundation, said, referring to synthetic-made insulins.
Insulin retails at $300 to $400 a vial, she said. “A lot of oral medications are running at $600 a month. That’s out of our (the foundation’s) price range” to provide, she said.
Pharmacy companies have patient assistance programs but require a doctor’s signature.
Finding help requires knowing where to go, what to ask and education.
“When kids with a chronic illness turn 19, they lose their Medicaid,” McClain said. “But their heart condition doesn’t go away. Their diabetes doesn’t go away.”
Roy Mitchell, executive director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, said 64% of Mississippians suffer from chronic disease, such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease.
Those who fall into the coverage gap “don’t have a lot of options,” he said.
And there are plenty of Mississippians who fall in that gap. More than one in five Mississippians don’t have health insurance.
“We screen people to see if they are eligible for Medicaid or if their children are eligible for Medicaid,” Mitchell said.
“There are little-known ways to gain Medicaid eligibility that we have found over the years to find people eligible for Medicaid,” he said. “We’ve had to do a lot of Medicaid outreach. We’ve done it not just with providers but also hospitals.”
If individuals don’t qualify for Medicaid, Tammy Bullock, Medicaid consumer advocate with Mississippi Health Advocacy, said she checks to see if they can sign up under the Affordable Care Act. “But a lot of these people work part-time jobs,” she said. “In rural areas, they don’t even make enough to afford the premiums.”
She said she’ll then refer them to the few free clinics in the state or sliding-fee clinics like the federal community health centers. The sliding fees are based on household size and income. But there is no consistency in how much uninsured patients have to pay out of pocket. It may be as low as $10 a visit or, in one case, as high as $65, she said.
For specialized treatment, Bullock said she’ll connect them to financial assistance programs at hospitals. If they are still working, Vocational Rehabilitation will pay for such things as cataract removal with laser surgery, hearing aids and rotator cuff surgery. But Vocational Rehabilitation rarely covers hip and knee replacement surgery because such expensive procedures drain the agency’s funds, Bullock said.
The Mississippi Health Advocacy Program’s consumer assistance program was originally funded under the Affordable Care Act to help people enroll in the Health Marketplace. When the funding expired, the Trump administration didn’t renew it. Through private funding, the consumer program continued with a different objective, Mitchell said.
“It came out of people ending up on our doorstep, people who don’t have health insurance or who are having trouble with their health insurance carrier or provider,” Mitchell said.
Like the Health Advocacy Program, the Diabetes Foundation helps people navigate the system, McClain said. “If they are on Medicaid, we get them a case worker. The durable medical equipment companies seem to change every year. We have mothers calling: ‘Who can I contact to get my child’s (insulin) pump supplies?’ ”
Even Mississippians on Medicaid are limited to what they can get, she said. “Mississippi is one of the only states that Medicaid doesn’t pay for prostheses to those who have lost a limb.”
Because there are so many Medicare providers, the foundation tries to hook patients up with the equivalent of a case manager, she said.
The foundation has helped people taken in by Medicare provider companies’ “slick commercials” that say you may not have to pay a premium or deductible, she said. “These patients may wind up in that ‘donut hole’ where they have to pay for their medical supplies.”
Under Medicare Part D, this coverage gap (donut hole) begins after the insured and his or her drug plan have spent a certain amount for covered drugs — $4,130 on covered drugs in 2021.
There has been a revolution in diabetes management with new medications, protocols, insulin pumps and glucose monitoring devices, but none of that is available to those without insurance, McClain said.
“You can have the best technology in the world, but if you can’t get it into the hands of those who need it, what good is it?” he asked. “You’ve got to have a level playing field.”
Medicaid expansion would help do that, McClain and Mitchell said.
McClain said Medicaid would decrease amputations, keeping people healthy and working.
“Medicaid expansion saves lives,” Mitchell said. “It just says how high the stakes are. Health insurance is life or death.”
State senators plan to bundle up on Wednesday morning after they slip and slide into Jackson — Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann informed lawmakers that the heat, which was out at the Capitol on Tuesday, won’t be restored until Wednesday afternoon, “hopefully.”
“Take that into consideration when you dress for tomorrow morning,” Hosemann told senators, who gaveled in Tuesday, took up no real business, voted to relax the Senate’s dress code, then gaveled out a few minutes later with plans to return Wednesday at 10 a.m..
“We appreciate everyone’s patience while we work in the cold for the citizens, literally,” Hosemann said.
The House, meanwhile, met by Zoom online briefly Tuesday for what is certainly a first in the state’s history: Speaker of the House Philip Gunn presided over the lower chamber via video call. The House plans to reconvene Wednesday at 2 p.m.
The unprecedented winter storm that has impacted most of the state has ground work of the Mississippi Legislature to a near halt.
But in terms of the legislative calendar, the winter storm came at a good time. The storm hit after legislators met the deadline of taking up bills that originated in their own chamber. If the storm had hit a week earlier, most likely multiple key pieces of legislation would have died because of the inability of many lawmakers to make it to the state Capitol to take up those bills.
Now legislators have a brief respite in their calendar.
Legislators have until March 2 to pass out of committee bills that had passed the other chamber. Before then, legislators face a key deadline of Feb. 24 to take up revenue and appropriations bills on the floor of the chamber where the bill originated.
This deadline could impact several key pieces of legislation. For instance, Gov. Tate Reeves’ proposal to phase out the income tax must be taken up on the floor of one of the two chambers by Feb. 24 to remain alive.
But later this week, both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee are expected to meet. Those are the two committees where tax bills, such as a phase out of the income tax, would originate. The Senate called a Finance Committee meeting for Wednesday.
In addition, the House and Senate Appropriations committees also are expected to meet in the coming days as work on developing a state budget intensifies to meet the Feb. 24 deadline.
But on Monday and Tuesday, there was little activity at the Capitol. The House met completely via Zoom on both Monday and Tuesday. The Senate came in both days, but disposed of motions on bills passed or killed last week on Monday and did little on Tuesday.
On Monday, Gunn, R-Clinton, presided over the House session from the House chamber. Rep. Bill Pigott, R-Tylertown, was the only other House member in the chamber making the trip from his home in southwest Mississippi in the midst of the winter storm. Other members were on Zoom. The Senate on Monday met at the Capitol, with some members having to hitch rides in or home afterward with those with four-wheel-drive vehicles.
On Tuesday, Gunn presided via Zoom, presumably from his Clinton home, in a very informal meeting. He said he would be back in the Capitol to preside when the House convenes Wednesday afternoon. Other members also are expected to be in the chamber, though participating via Zoom still will be an option.
House Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, said he might preside over a meeting of his committee from his home in north Mississippi later this week, especially if another winter blast impacts north Mississippi as is currently forecast.
Gunn said during Monday’s session he had proposed pushing back legislative deadlines by a week to accommodate the winter storm, but Senate leadership had rejected the proposal. Earlier this session, Gunn rejected the proposal by Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, to postpone the session because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Mississippi State Department of Health announced Monday it confirmed the first case of a COVID-19 variant in the state that is known to spread more easily and quickly than other strains. The United Kingdom first identified the strain, called B.1.1.7, last fall.
While U.K. experts reported last month that the variant may be associated with an increase risk of death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said more studies are needed to confirm that finding.
“Current available vaccines are expected to be effective against variant strains, but further research continues,” MSDH said in a release, adding that the department will expand surveillance for variants. The department said it hasn’t found any spread or international travel associated with the case but is still investigating.
MSDH advised the public to continue taking the same precautions, including wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and washing hands.
The CDC is also monitoring two other variants — one traced to South Africa and one to Brazil — both of which have less than 20 known cases in the U.S. However studies over the weekend identified several other variants that apparently originated in the U.S, the New York Times reported.
A smile can be seen behind Rep. Jim Beckett’s Ole Miss mask when he is asked if his colleagues are already coming to him to talk about the redrawing of their legislative districts.
After all, nothing is more important to most legislators than having a district in which they can be re-elected.
“A day doesn’t go by when somebody doesn’t want to share his or her opinion,” said Beckett, a Republican from Bruce. “My response is we don’t have the (Census) numbers yet. I tell them they will be given an opportunity…That is my intention to talk with the members about their districts.”
Beckett, though, stressed that he is making no promises that House members will get all they want in the process of redrawing the 122 House districts to match population shifts found by the 2020 Census.
Beckett, a small-town attorney who is in his fourth term in the House, was tabbed by Speaker Philip Gunn to head up the all-important-to-legislators task of redistricting.
On the Senate side, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is playing his cards close to his vest. He has yet to name a chair of the Senate redistricting panel.
Hosemann said he does not want to make appointments to the redistricting committee until he sees the Census numbers to ascertain what areas of the state will be the most impacted by population changes.
The states were scheduled to receive the numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau by the end of 2020 to begin the process of redrawing the district, which must be done every 10 years to ensure the principles of “one person, one vote” or equal representation. The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the receipt of those numbers. The Census data is now slated to be delivered to the states no earlier than July 30.
Fortunately for Mississippi, the Legislature has plenty of time to complete its redistricting process since state legislative elections will not be held until 2023. The Legislature most likely will redraw its districts in the 2022 session.
Ideally, Beckett said, the redrawing of the four U.S. congressional districts could be completed this fall during a one-day special session. For that to occur, though, the state would have to receive the population numbers and Hosemann would need to appoint a chair and members of the committee in a timely fashion.
Beckett said that would be ideal since the congressional elections will be held in 2022, and qualifying to run for those offices would begin in January.
The Census is not expected to result in Mississippi gaining or losing a member of the U.S. House. But, most likely, there will be some reconfiguring based on growth in certain areas of the state and population declines in other areas. But the end result most likely will be the maintaining of one African American majority district, concentrated on the Delta and including a large slice of the Jackson metro area.
As far as the Mississippi Legislature, there are currently 15 majority African American districts in the 52-member Senate and 42 in the 122-member House. The state has a Black population of about 38% based on past Census data.
Rep. Ed Blackmon, D-Canton, who has been a member of the House since 1980 and played a key role in redistricting battles that led to increases in the number of African Americans in the Legislature, says under court precedent it would be difficult for the number of Black majority districts to be reduced in the redistricting effort.
But in reality, Blackmon said, the Republican majority has no intention of reducing the number of Black majority districts.
“Having Blacks packed into districts serves the purposes of the Republican majority,” he said. In Mississippi, most African Americans vote Democratic and most whites vote Republican. By “packing” African Americans in districts, it limits their influence in other districts, making it easier for Republican candidates to prevail.
In 2000, when Democrats controlled the House, there were 13 House districts drawn with significant but not dominant African American influence – a Black population of more than 35% but less than a majority. During the last redistricting, after Republicans had wrestled control, that number dropped to two districts with a Black population of more than 35% but less than a majority. In the Senate, the change was even more pronounced, going from 11 districts with a Black population of more than 35% but less than a majority in 2000 to three after the 2010 Census.
At one time, as the vestiges of Jim Crow laws designed to keep African Americans from voting were more pronounced, Blackmon said it was important to construct Black super majority districts. But with African Americans now more likely to exercise their right to vote, Blackmon said the pronounced “packing” can be used to limit the influence of Black voters.
Although the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education declared public school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, schools in Yalobusha County’s two major towns clung to it for an additional 16 years.
Water Valley and Coffeeville, nestled in the state’s northern hilly region on land that was once inhabited by the Choctaw and Chickasaw indigenous people, didn’t integrate until 1970.
Community activism and another U.S. Supreme Court case in 1969 forced schools in Yalobusha County and the South as a whole to finally desegregate.
In 1954, school segregation was deemed unconstitutional after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Case. Here, the Jackson Advocate, Mississippi’s oldest continuously published member of the nation’s Black press, writes about schools remaining segregated in February 1955. Credit: Chronicling America Collection: Historic American Newspapers (Library of Congress)
The court ruled in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education that schools had to desegregate “immediately,” instead of the previous ruling of “with all deliberate speed” in Brown v. Board in 1954. By Feb. 1, 1970, schools across the state of Mississippi and in Yalobusha County finally integrated after over a decade of willful delay.
Today, 51 years since school desegregation, former teachers and students who witnessed and participated in the school integration movement still vividly remember the experience of attending all-Black schools for their entire lives until that changed in 1970.
Dorothy Kee, 75, was born and raised in Coffeeville and graduated from the then-segregated, all-Black Coffeeville High School in 1956. Kee’s father was president of the local NAACP chapter; she said she remembers seeing him lead school desegregation efforts in the community.
“My dad was a believer in civil rights to its fullest and to its fairest,” Kee said in a 2019 oral history interview. “So he became one of the leaders of the NAACP.”
Kee had already graduated from Alcorn State University in Lorman with a degree in social work and had begun her career as a teacher in Yalobusha County when she joined her father and other activists in the community who were pushing for school desegregation.
After graduating from Coffeeville High School in 1956, Dorothy Kee, a now retired educator, attended Alcorn State University and returned to her home community to teach public school for decades. Credit: Dorothy Kee/Black Families of Yalobusha County Oral History Project Archive
“I was secretary. I never participated in the marches because at the time I was pregnant with my daughter,” Kee said. “But I played (as) many roles within the community as possible, such as keeping records of what happened and things like that. I had already finished college when the most effective fight for rights was started. As a matter of fact, I almost lost my job because of my daddy’s participation.”
Kee taught school in Oakland and Coffeeville during the early years of school integration in Yalobusha County, but leading up to integration in 1970, she remembers a local boycott in the community to pressure the school board to desegregate the schools. She said the event was organized with guidance from Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, vanguard civil rights activist, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and mentor and friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“(They) became kind of worried about the situation of discrimination in Coffeeville, and one of the goals that they wanted to meet was to see (our) children or faculty members with the same treatment as white citizens. There was a lot of discrimination, and this lead to people that had the nerves and the mind to try to change things in Coffeeville,” Kee said.
But the transition to having white children and Black children in the same schools for the first time in history wasn’t an easy one — for Black children or for Black teachers in Yalobusha County.
“So when I went over to Oakland, the (white) students thought maybe I came from Africa or anywhere else. They didn’t know me,” Kee said.
Emma Gooch grew up in a big family in Water Valley. She was the third of 12 children born to their mother, a homemaker, and father, a World War II veteran. Gooch, now 68, attended the all-Black Davidson Elementary School and Davidson High School. She graduated in 1970 and was part of the final class of students to graduate from segregated schools in Water Valley.
Emma Gooch served nearly four decades in the United States Army. She enlisted in the service after she graduated from Davidson High School in 1970. Credit: Emma Gooch/Black Families of Yalobusha County Oral History Project Archive
As a child, Gooch’s family sharecropped, picking cotton, corn and sorghum for wealthy white plantation owners to survive and make ends meet. Like many other Black children who were raised in the South under Jim Crow segregation, Gooch’s primary education revolved around, and often came second to, sharecropping.
“I was a pretty good student. I had very strict teachers. I remember them all, how they trained us and kept us in check. And we had to go to school every day,” Gooch said in a 2019 oral history interview. “And then in the harvest season, we were released from school at noon so that we could go work in the fields…We worked in the field until the harvest was done, and then we would start going back to full day school times in late December up until school was out in May.”
Gooch began sharecropping with her family at about 5-years-old, and it wasn’t until her family moved on their own land in Water Valley when she was about 10-years-old when she and her siblings did not have to leave school to sharecrop during the harvest season.
Today, Gooch and her family live on the same property her family bought years ago.
Still, what stands out most to her when she thinks of her years in school is not the sharecropping, but the experience of attending school with a close-knit, caring community of teachers and students at Davidson High School.
“It was amazing. We had some of the strongest teachers. They were so involved in us…They knew our parents, and they could whip our butts if we did wrong,” Gooch said with a laugh.
She still has copies of all of her report cards from grade school, which she keeps in an album with a collection of family photos and documents for her memory and to share with her children and grandchildren.
Davidson High School was the all-Black school in Water Valley until the town’s public school system desegregated in 1970. Credit: Photo provided by Blackmur Memorial Library in Water Valley, Miss.
When Gooch graduated high school in 1970, she moved to the Midwest to attend a clerical training school. When she came back home to Water Valley in hopes of getting an office job, the only available employment was at the denim factory. She worked there for a few months before enlisting in the United States Army, where she remained active duty for decades while raising two sons. Gooch retired in Water Valley where she still lives today and enjoys spending time with her two grandsons, who attend Water Valley schools.
Today, there are two primary public school districts in Yalobusha County — the Water Valley School District and the Coffeeville School District.
WVSD serves a student population of about 1,000. Today 52% of the student body is white and 43% is African American, according to 2020-2021 data from the Mississippi Department of Education. The Coffeeville School District serves a total of 460 students, 80% of them African American.
Gooch said these days she focuses on taking care of herself, her family and her grandchildren and that “life is different here than it was when I grew up here.”
“Not only were we segregated in school, we were segregated in life, in town and stuff. Now, Black people live all over this town in all of the different neighborhoods and everything, and that was a big change,” Gooch said “But when I was growing up, that didn’t happen.”
Editor’s note: A full archive of photos and additional oral history interviews, like the ones mentioned in this article, are available online in The Black Families of Yalobusha County Oral History Project Archive, which emerged after Dottie Chapman Reed, Water Valley native, and author of the column “Outstanding Black Women of Yalobusha County” in the North Mississippi Herald, and Jessica Wilkerson, a former history and Southern Studies professor at the University of Mississippi, collaborated. In the spring 2020, Dr. B. Brian Foster, a sociology and Southern Studies professor at the University of Mississippi, took over as director of the project and will collaborate with UM students and Reed on its expansion in the next phase of the project known as the Mississippi Hill Country Oral History Collective.
