Are the kids alright?

During COVID-19, kids in Mississippi’s capital city are overcoming mammoth challenges unique from any generation before them — and doing it with grace.

Where the pandemic has illuminated historic unmet needs, it’s also put the community’s strength on display.

BY ANNA WOLFE | SEPT. 30, 2020

Kharter, a second grader at Galloway Elementary School in west Jackson, wiggles out of his seat at the Stewpot After-school Program where he’s completing a virtual grammar lesson and strikes a ninja pose.

He nails the look with the black facemask he’s wearing, not as part of a costume, but to guard against the spread of the novel coronavirus.

His classmate Khamiya finishes her schoolwork before begging the teacher to go outside, where she’ll dance on the porch on a gray, drizzly day in late September. She hopes her dad will take her shopping at “Toys R Us” later.

Down the street, Javier and Kelvi, a second and third grader, dart through a classroom at the Boys and Girls Club Capitol Street unit, snatching stacks of notebook paper strips — handmade play money — off each other’s desks. Kelvi soon loses interest in hoarding her stash and playfully tosses the fake cash, letting it shower the linoleum. Her classmates dive to scoop it up.

The last six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the deaths, layoffs, evictions and school closures, have brought immeasurable hardship and heartache, especially to Black and poor communities in Mississippi. The rippling effects seem to have altered most aspects of everyday life — except for a child’s nature.

“They’re still learning with virtual learning. They’re able to still play,” said Brooke Floyd, director of children’s services for Stewpot Community Services. “Like, I think that’s a beautiful thing, when you put kids out in the yard and they don’t have any toys or can’t use the equipment and they still have fun and you can hear the laughter.”

“To me, that’s letting us know that everything’s going to be okay.”

With more than four in ten already living in poverty, Jackson children have long felt the unmet needs — perhaps most visibly a historically underfunded and segregated school system — that the pandemic has illuminated in their communities.

Nearly every child in Jackson Public Schools is Black and lives in a low-income household, qualifying them for free or reduced lunch. School buildings never opened back up after March, spurring a frustrating fight to obtain enough E-learning technology for every student and sticking most families with tough decisions about where their kids will spend their days.

Unemployment benefits are dwindling and despite a federal moratorium, evictions have continued. And while efforts to get meals to children have been possibly the most valiant, food scarcity and affordability remains a persistent problem across the capital city.

This school year so far, the district has recorded 2,600 children — a tenth of their student body — as homeless, which usually means they are living unstably at other families’ homes. Still, about a third live in shelters or hotels. But this isn’t a COVID-19 problem: Last year, JPS had 3,100 enrollees in the federal McKinney-Vento grant to serve homeless students.

“A lot of our kids are so accustomed to going through a lot that it kind of rolls off them,” said Penney Ainsworth, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Central Mississippi. “Kids will adapt to whatever the setting is and what’s going on. But it’s a scary time. So they’re nervous, but they’re resilient.”

Playtime after a long day of virtual learning

Jackson Public Schools does not gather data showing where kids are conducting their virtual schoolwork, the district spokesperson told Mississippi Today, but many traditional afterschool programs like Stewpot Community Services and the Boys and Girls Club started operating at a lower capacity in the daytime to accommodate working parents.

Floyd normally has 40 students at her center, a bright blue house close to the city’s primary soup kitchen. The day camp is limited to 20 kids to ensure they can adhere to social distancing. These community organizations are, too, not able to offer the consistency and stability of the public schools. Just Monday Stewpot had to cancel virtual school for the day after a break-in occurred over the weekend.

“For people to expect the worst or think that the worst is going to happen, I’m not buying it. Even parents that are poor want their kids to succeed and they’re going to try their best to make it happen.”

—Brooke Floyd, director of children services for Stewpot Community Services

Some parents have jobs working from home, a separate, difficult juggle, but many are relying on grandparents, aunts, cousins, friends and neighbors to fill in the child care gaps.

Other families are simply uncomfortable with the idea of placing their children in a center during a pandemic, Floyd said, especially knowing the virus has disproportionately taken the lives of Black people. So they’ve done whatever they must, even altering their work life, to keep their kids home.

Floyd and Ainsworth said they have contact with many of the families they’re not serving during this time. They know they can call if they’re in need, Floyd said, “and they do.”

But child services coordinators also recognize there are some children falling through the cracks. Floyd recalled meeting kids over the summer that she’d never seen before while delivering bags of food to apartment complexes where her students live.

“Kids ran to the van. They were like, ‘Can we have a bag?’ And I was like, ‘Where’s your mama?’ ‘I don’t know,’” Floyd said through tears. “I was like, ‘Oh my god. Who are you? What’s your name?’

“They’re lost,” she said. “We help the kids right in front of us, but if you work with children, you’re like, ‘What’s happening to the other kids? Who’s helping them? Who’s checking up on them?’”

Onlookers are quick to blame parents, she added, but a longstanding lack of access to affordable childcare and the drop in unemployment benefits in August have put some working parents, especially those without family support, in impossible situations.

“If I am doing everything I can for my children to survive, unfortunately sometimes I’m going to have to leave them,” she said.

Left/top: Some of Jackson Public Schools’ fourth, fifth and sixth graders conduct their virtual learning from a classroom inside the Boys and Girls Club Capitol Street unit on Sept. 21, 2020. Right/bottom: Johnathan Thomas, a construction estimator for the Mississippi Department of Transportation, a Club volunteer and dad, oversees the class. When he first offered to facilitate, he thought he could use the time to complete his work, but a student in his class lacked a laptop and was conducting her lessons paper packets, so he’s letting her use his computer. He’ll work in the evenings to make up for it.

“I think JPS kids are well-adapted … The ones that go here, I think they’re pretty much well-rounded, well-disciplined kids … Everyone’s respectful and that’s all I can really ask for,” Thomas said.

Jackson Public Schools is still offering breakfast and lunch to students during the closures, which has been a big help for the private centers. But the district isn’t otherwise subsidizing these programs, Ainsworth said, leaving most of the physical responsibilities that usually fall on public schools — staffing, sanitizing and keeping the lights on — to a patchwork of community partners.

“School is a safe place for many of our students and not being able to be in that safe place and be around friends and share experiences and that whole social aspect of schooling has all of our hearts heavy,” said Bobby Brown, principal at Jim Hill High School in west Jackson.

Jackson’s youngest virtual learners

Even students who secured devices to use for distance learning have had trouble accessing their classes.

“We kinda have trouble getting into WiFi and stuff because it kinda shut down sometimes and we have to wait for a few minutes,” Keiyana, a fifth grader at Casey Elementary School, told Mississippi Today. “One time I missed class because of that.”

Khamiya, the 7-year-old, said doing all her schoolwork on the computer makes her tired and her hands ache.

“I don’t like online. I want to learn in the classroom. I like it (in-person) but I don’t want to get corona,” Khamiya said. “Whoever made it (the virus), I don’t know who made it, but they should have never made it.”

Kieyana, who attends the Boys and Girls Club Sykes unit in south Jackson, said virtual class is different in one way that adults might not expect: She said her teachers are less likely to yell at students over video calls “because they know that you’ll tell.” Keiyana is a good student; she said she’s getting all A’s and especially likes math and science.

When she grows up, she wants to be a pediatrician, a perfect mix of her favorite school subjects and her love of helping care for babies. She said she wishes her school had a gym like the one she plays in at the Club and that her teachers “would stop yelling every now and then.”

Top childhood development experts aren’t as worried about what the impact of COVID-19 and distance learning will be on a child’s ability to keep up with school curriculum. Susan Buttross, a professor of child development at University of Mississippi Medical Center heading up the Mississippi Thrive! Child Health Development Project, said she’s more concerned with the loss of social connections and positive adult reinforcement.

“It’s not that we think kids can’t learn in distance learning,” Buttross said. “People are struggling with making enough money to survive. They’re struggling with so many other social determinants of health, being able to access the right kind of food, and jobs and housing and all of that. So many times, the primary caregiver at home is not equipped to then be the teacher too.”

Anxiety surrounding the virus and grief over a death in the family only compounds the chronic stress children living in poverty already endure. Fleeting stress is normal, Buttross explained, but toxic stress, when a child is constantly on high alert and their stress response system becomes overwhelmed, can hinder their brain development and wreak havoc on their health.

Research shows that the toxic stress of poverty — resulting from economic hardships, racial discrimination, deaths of loved ones or living in an area where violence is prevalent, for example — affects the part of the brain used for decision-making.

Khamiya said her family recently chose to move into a new apartment complex in west Jackson that they thought was in a safer neighborhood.

“We’ve been talking about community. It’s the area where people work and play,” Khamiya said, then she answered how she felt about her west Jackson community: “It’s good, but I don’t like how be people be shooting and killing people.”

The location of prominent community service agencies, west Jackson also has a higher concentration of homeless people than other parts of the city, and therefore higher visibility to someone like Khamiya.

“Do you ever feel bad for homeless people?” she asked this reporter. “I got feeling sad because they need money. They need a house. They need to feel safe.”

Not only are Black Mississippians disproportionately impacted by the nation’s wealth imbalance — three times more likely to live in poverty than whites — they’re also grieving at a higher rate due to converging national crises.

Almost one-third of Black Americans said in a Washington Post-Ipsos survey that they personally knew someone who had died from COVID-19 — compared to less than 10 percent of whites — which coupled with a national spotlight on policy brutality has spawned a bereavement crisis in Black America, Marissa Evans writes in a recent The Atlantic article.

A pair of siblings in Floyd’s program lost their mom in June. Floyd said she was in her thirties and died in her sleep. She didn’t think the mother had been sick.

Another former student, not even 20-years-old, took his own life this summer after becoming entangled in the criminal justice system.

Right as the pandemic began, Stewpot’s bus driver died from cancer. The kids were heartbroken. And they couldn’t have a memorial service due to social distancing.

“People can’t properly grieve right now,” Floyd said. “It’s almost like, you have to just keep moving the same way you were before because if you sit still and think about it, you’re going to lose it.”

But researchers working on toxic stress have also identified the ways to bolster resiliency for kids facing adversity.

“The one factor that keeps coming out is having one adult in their life who is positive, a ray of sunshine for them,” Buttross said. “One person who encourages them and helps them along … Somebody out there who says, ‘You’re good. You’re smart. You’re awesome. You can do something.’”

“It might not be a parent,” she added. “It might be a grandparent or a teacher.”

Or a volunteer at the after-school program.

Ainsworth, the local Boys and Girls Club CEO, said she herself grew up in government housing with a single mom and eight siblings in Norfolk, Virginia.

“My four blocks of the world did not define who I was and who I was going to be. That’s my desire for my Boys and Girls Club babies,” Ainsworth said. “I need them to know that this situation that you’re in right now, it may be bleak. But if we look to your future, we keep exposing you (to opportunity) … through workforce development, college tours, and those things, the sky is the limit for you too.”

At work and play

Simultaneously, the pandemic has also produced a flood of resources and people called to help.

“Hopefully those people that are in need realize that there is almost an influx of support right now,” Floyd said.

This extends beyond the help that has come with federal pandemic relief packages, such as large investments in internet connectivity and devices for school children, increased food and unemployment benefits and extra money for housing assistance.

Jackson Public Schools received a nearly 70% increase in its annual McKinney-Vento grant to serve homeless students, some of whom also receive services at Stewpot. Faith Strong, the district’s coordinator for homeless services, said she hopes to hire more social workers who can work more directly to address individual students’ needs.

The Mississippi Food Network partnered with the district to distribute family food boxes with enough fresh and frozen foods to last a family several days. The Boys and Girls Club, the City of Jackson and Meals on Wheels partnered initially and delivered roughly 20,000 meals across the city.

“There were just churches with lines out in front of them handing out boxes to whoever showed up,” Floyd said. “I’ve been proud to watch as it’s happened.”

Even before the pandemic hit, Dole Packaged Foods, a subsidiary one of the world’s largest fruit and vegetable producers headquartered in California, chose Jackson as the first city it would bring its Sunshine for All program aimed at fighting food insecurity. The company called Mississippi’s capital city one of the largest food deserts in the nation. Dole partnered with the Boys and Girls Club and has been hosting a farmer’s market at the Capitol Street unit, where people can purchase fresh produce from local Footprint Farms.

“Me and my daughter have really benefitted from being able to come and give back on a Saturday, as well as the meals. It has been a big help to me, cause I’m a single parent,” said Ebony Yarn, a Club employee and volunteer. “I fall in the gap where I make too much to get assistance but then I don’t make enough, per se, to handle everything I need to do.”

Dole is also supporting local food hub Up in Farms’ Farm-to-Table Training Center and providing 1,000 meals to the needy; launching a virtual cooking camp that teaches kids about nutrition and cooking; and building community gardens at Boys and Girls Club locations.

“It’s truly unfair that the kids here in Jackson are limited in fresh fruits and vegetables or opportunities to go into a store and get it and it just came from the vine,” Ainsworth said, “but yet if they go down the street to Madison County, the food is being washed as it’s set down, you know? It’s fresh.”

The poverty rate in Jackson is about eight times higher than the 3.3% poverty rate in the city of Madison. For Ainsworth, these food programs are about more than nutrition.

“What I want to do is make sure that we are exposing our kids to knowing that you are worthy of any and everything that you desire,” she said.

The post Are the kids alright? How Jackson students are surviving the pandemic. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America

Joe Biden speaks to his supporters during an event at Tougaloo College’s Kroger Gymnasium on March 8, 2020.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday endorsed Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy.

“A lifelong Mississippian, Mike Espy has spent his career working to improve the lives of Mississippi’s working families,” Biden said. “From his times as the first Black congressman from Mississippi since Reconstruction to his critical leadership as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to his role helping to build a strong rural economy across the South, Mike Espy has the experience to move Mississippi forward.”

Espy said: “Joe Biden unites and heals. He has dignity and empathy. He is the leader our country needs right now to move forward … I look forward to working with President Biden and Vice President Harris to increase opportunities for all Mississippians.”

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Espy is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who defeated Espy in a special election for the Senate seat in 2018. Hyde-Smith is a close ally of President Donald Trump and he aided her 2018 campaign with in-person rallies in Tupelo and Biloxi just before her runoff with Espy.

Espy’s endorsements this cycle include the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Congressional Black Caucus PAC, Collective PAC and Stacey Abrams, Rep. Karen Bass, Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Hyde-Smith’s endorsements include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Huck PAC, Mississippi Manufacturers Association, National Rifle Association and National Right to Life Committee.

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Is social media ruining the world?

Dramatic political polarization. Rising anxiety and depression. An uptick in teen suicide rates. Misinformation that spreads like wildfire.

The common denominator of all these phenomena is that they’re fueled in part by our seemingly innocuous participation in digital social networking. But how can simple acts like sharing photos and articles, reading the news, and connecting with friends have such destructive consequences?

These are the questions explored in the new Netflix docu-drama The Social Dilemma. Directed by Jeff Orlowski, it features several former Big Tech employees speaking out against the products they once upon a time helped build. Their reflections are interspersed with scenes from a family whose two youngest children are struggling with social media addiction and its side effects. There are also news clips from the last several years where reporters decry the technology and report on some of its nefarious impacts.

Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist who co-founded the Center for Humane Technology (CHT) and has become a crusader for ethical tech, is a central figure in the movie. “When you look around you it feels like the world is going crazy,” he says near the beginning. “You have to ask yourself, is this normal? Or have we all fallen under some kind of spell?”

Also featured are Aza Raskin, who co-founded CHT with Harris, Justin Rosenstein, who co-founded Asana and is credited with having created Facebook’s “like” button, former Pinterest president Tim Kendall, and writer and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier. They and other experts talk about the way social media gets people “hooked” by exploiting the brain’s dopamine response and using machine learning algorithms to serve up the customized content most likely to keep each person scrolling/watching/clicking.

The movie veers into territory explored by its 2019 predecessor The Great Hack—which dove into the Cambridge Analytica scandal and detailed how psychometric profiles of Facebook users helped manipulate their political leanings—by having its experts talk about the billions of data points that tech companies are constantly collecting about us. “Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded,” says Jeff Siebert, a former exec at Twitter. The intelligence gleaned from those actions is then used in conjunction with our own psychological weaknesses to get us to watch more videos, share more content, see more ads, and continue driving Big Tech’s money-making engine.

“It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product,” says Lanier. “That’s the only thing there is for them to make money from: changing what you do, how you think, who you are.” The elusive “they” that Lanier and other ex-techies refer to is personified in the film by three t-shirt clad engineers working tirelessly in a control room to keep peoples’ attention on their phones at all costs.

Computer processing power, a former Nvidia product manager points out, has increased exponentially just in the last 20 years; but meanwhile, the human brain hasn’t evolved beyond the same capacity it’s had for hundreds of years. The point of this comparison seems to be that if we’re in a humans vs. computers showdown, we humans haven’t got a fighting chance.

But are we in a humans vs. computers showdown? Are the companies behind our screens really so insidious as the evil control room engineers imply, aiming to turn us all into mindless robots who are slaves to our lizard-brain impulses? Even if our brain chemistry is being exploited by the design of tools like Facebook and YouTube, doesn’t personal responsibility kick in at some point?

The Social Dilemma is a powerful, well-made film that exposes social media’s ills in a raw and immediate way. It’s a much-needed call for government regulation and for an actionable ethical reckoning within the tech industry itself.

But it overdramatizes Big Tech’s intent—these are, after all, for-profit companies who have created demand-driven products—and under-credits social media users. Yes, we fall prey to our innate need for connection and approval, and we’ll always have a propensity to become addicted to things that make us feel good. But we’re still responsible for and in control of our own choices.

What we’re seeing with social media right now is a cycle that’s common with new technologies. For the first few years of social media’s existence, we thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now it’s on a nosedive to the other end of the spectrum—we’re condemning it and focusing on its ills and unintended consequences. The next phase is to find some kind of balance, most likely through adjustments in design and, possibly, regulation.

“The way the technology works is not a law of physics. It’s not set in stone. These are choices that human beings like myself have been making, and human beings can change those technologies,” says Rosenstein.

The issue with social media is that it’s going to be a lot trickier to fix than, say, adding seatbelts and air bags to cars. The sheer size and reach of these tools, and the way in which they overlap with issues of freedom of speech and privacy—not to mention how they’ve changed the way humans interact—means it will likely take a lot of trial and error to come out with tools that feel good for us to use without being addicting, give us only true, unbiased information in a way that’s engaging without preying on our emotions, and allow us to share content and experiences while preventing misinformation and hate speech.

In the most recent episode of his podcast Making Sense, Sam Harris talks to Tristan Harris about the movie and its implications. Tristan says, “While we’ve all been looking out for the moment when AI would overwhelm human strengths—when would we get the Singularity, when would AI take our jobs, when would it be smarter than humans—we missed this much much earlier point when technology didn’t overwhelm human strengths, but it undermined human weaknesses.”

It’s up to tech companies to re-design their products in more ethical ways to stop exploiting our weaknesses. But it’s up to us to demand that they do so, be aware of these weaknesses, and resist becoming cogs in the machine.

Image Credit: Rob Hampson on Unsplash

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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn, left, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann speak after Gov. Tate Reeves press conference in Jackson on Thursday, May 7, 2020.

The Mississippi Legislature will reconvene at 10 a.m. Thursday and is expected to remain in session Friday for what will be the last two days of the 2020 session, unless lawmakers opt to again extend the session.

Legislative sources, including House Pro-Tem Jason White, confirmed that lawmakers will reconvene Thursday to deal with funding issues related to the $1.25 billion the state received earlier this year in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds.

Federal law mandates that the CARES Act funds be spent by the end of the year. Earlier this year, the Legislature earmarked those funds in a number of areas, including grants to help small businesses impacted by COVID-19, expanding internet access and providing aid to health care providers.

One of the primary reasons the Legislature is returning, House Speaker Philip Gunn and other legislative leaders said in recent weeks, is to determine what funds have been spent and whether some of the funds might need to re-allocated to other programs.

For instance, not all of the $300 million allocated earlier this year for small business grants will not be spent.

Gunn said he expects the Legislature to keep things “focused, very narrow.”

“Every time we return, everybody wants us to do everything, those who didn’t get their bills passed want to try it again,” Gunn said last week. “I have talked with the lieutenant governor, and we are aware of some other issues out there, that are CARES related but don’t necessarily have to do with the expenditure of money. We are going to evaluate where we designated spending back in June, determine how many of those dollars have been spent and do we want to move some of those dollars around, to get the maximum return.”

Many of the programs had provisions diverting any funds not spent by late in the year to the state’s Unemployment Trust Fund, which has been depleted as the number of the state’s unemployed skyrocketed during the coronavirus.

Jackie Turner, executive director of the Mississippi Employment Security Department, said the fund had $706 million in it in early March and was considered one of the most well funded unemployment trust funds in the nation. Now it is at $422.9 million, which includes $181 million the Legislature diverted to the program in June, Turner recently told legislative leaders.

The fund would be “extremely, dangerously low” if not for the infusion of funds from the Legislature earlier this year, Turner said. Taxes on businesses fund the trust fund and might have to be increased at some point to replenish the fund unless the Legislature diverts other sources of revenue. At the time the Legislature pumped $181 million in CARES Act funds into the trust fund earlier this year, Turner and Gov. Tate Reeves were advocating for the Legislature to divert $500 million into the program.

There is a possibility that lawmakers will look at other areas of need related to the coronavirus – such as a salary supplement for font-line health care providers.

The 2020 legislative session was scheduled to end in April before lawmakers opted to extend it to deal with coronavirus-related issues. Two legislative days remain on that extension, but legislators could by a two-thirds vote opt to provide themselves more days to meet, though, leaders have said that is not likely.

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Ricky Fields

High School Student Marchellos Scott, Jr. (center) holds sign in sheet as he helps register a first-time voter in Clarksdale

CLARKSDALE — Students in Brett Wilson’s high school history class said until recently, no one taught them about voting or voter registration. That is, until Wilson helped launch the Clarksdale High School Future Leaders Club, a student social club to help them learn about civic engagement.

With an election looming this school year, Wilson and his colleague Ricky Fields started the club so students and the community they live in can become better informed about the importance of voting and the process.

“Did I really know anything about voting and voter education in my high school years? If not, why? Why did we not have those conversations? Why was that not included in the curriculum or even just small conversations in class?” Wilson said over a Zoom call.  “This is nonpartisan … because voting affects all the sides. We want everyone to have access to that.”

Aallyah Wright, Mississippi Today

Clarksdale High School history teachers Brett Wilson (left to right) and Ricky Fields post during the voter registration event.

The teachers’ efforts empowered Clarksdale students to host a community-wide voter registration drive on Sept. 26. 

“The hope is to bring in the change (and) make sure that everyone knows how important it is, and how important it plays into our future,” said Marchellos Scott, a 17-year-old Clarksdale senior. 

“When it comes to voting, people don’t know, or my peers don’t know how big of an impact and how much of a difference that it really makes,” Scott continued. “But if we don’t fully educate ourselves on those (candidates), how can they accommodate our needs?” 

READ MORE: Mississippi Today Voter Guide

With the Oct. 5 voter registration deadline days away, communities across the state are finding ways to engage prospective and current voters.

In Hinds County, circuit clerk Zack Wallace hosted a socially distanced safer absentee initiative during the week of Sept. 21. This consisted of food vendors, music, and tables with information about the election process and absentee voting. 

“A lot of people are confused about the pandemic, mail-in ballots, and absentee voting. This (event) is to calm people’s concerns during this pandemic,” Wallace said in a phone call with Mississippi Today on Sept. 16. 

Mississippi is one of few states which does not allow people to vote early by mail or in person. The exception is only for people 65 and older, those away from home on Election Day, and those who have a disability. 

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if a person has a pre-existing health condition that places them at greater risk from COVID-19, it does not mean the person can vote early. This leaves local circuit clerks to make decisions on who can or can’t vote early.

“With the pandemic, we don’t know what it’s gonna look like in the next 30 to 40 days… folks having to stand in line for long times, if a major outbreak occurs, that’s a fear,” said Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the Mississippi affiliate of the ACLU. “Fear there are precincts that may be changed.”

Conor Dowling, associate professor of American politics at the University of Mississippi, said the more confusion there is, the increased chances of low voter turnout.

“The quicker lingering court cases are settled, the better. That way, accurate and consistent information can be disseminated to voters from then on until Election Day,” he said in an email response.

The coronavirus pandemic makes it more difficult to reach voters and build on a younger electorate, but this hasn’t deterred community members from taking action, said N’Spire Walker, a school teacher and community activist.

“That’s why we go to their living areas. We can walk up and catch them when they’re coming out of the house,” Walker said. “The main ones who need to vote are the ones you got to go to or meet them where they’re going.”

Walker, a middle school science teacher and founder of Dream Team of the South, a Meridian-based nonprofit, initially focused her efforts on registering voters. She soon realized some voters were inactive. Others were unsure of how to check their status.

“My main thing now is making sure the people who think they’re registered make sure they’re active and making sure ones who are registered take action,” she said. 

Dr. Thessalia Merivaki, American Politics professor at Mississippi State University

Voter registration drives are usually successful, said Thessalia Merivaki, assistant professor in American politics at Mississippi State University. Incorrect information on registration forms and voters unaware of their rights and options can hinder the process, she said. This can be resolved through outreach and education. 

This is why voter education is essential to the process. If it is not done, especially for the high school and college electorate, it exacerbates inequities in access to information, Merivaki added. For example, if a student comes from a household that is less likely to vote, it is likely the student won’t cast a ballot as opposed to a student in a civically active household, she said.

“This is another population that we know very little about, and it’s very hard to reach,” Merivaki said. “If we track this path towards college, that’s how we can explain why there’s so many students who are very unfamiliar with the process. The first time voters start college and they’re overwhelmed.” 

In spite of challenges posed during this election cycle, exercising the right to vote keeps Clarksdale High School students and other communities motivated.

“By educating our students and bringing them along, they could also bring along their parents, their peers, and other family members that may not have that understanding (of voting),” Fields said. “There are adults my age that don’t understand the voting process.”

The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 5. Election Day is Nov. 3. To learn more about the candidates and voting process, visit Mississippi Today’s Voter Guide.

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