Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today’s photojournalist, is one of 22 photographers from all over the world showcasing work in “Prints for Mississippi,” a print sale collaboration from the nonprofit Delta Health Center and The Raw Society.
The sale, which began May 11 and will run through May 25, is a fundraising effort for COVID-19 testing and affordable health care. All proceeds from the sale will go to DHC.
Eric’s piece, which features a member of Jackson State University’s Sonic Boom of the South band during JSU’s 2018 homecoming game, is among a collection of photographs showcasing Mississippi’s landscape and diverse population.
To learn more about the print sale fundraiser, organized by Delta-based photographer Rory Doyle, visit The Raw Society. View a gallery of the prints featured in the sale below.
Good morning everyone!! It is a mild start to the day with temperatures in the low to mid 50s under mostly clear skies. It’s a great morning to enjoy your hot cup of coffee ☕outdoors! Patchy fog will be possible in some areas this morning and should clear out around 9am. Otherwise, we will have a mix of sun and clouds with a high near 76! Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph. Tonight will remain partly cloudy, with a low around 59…It will be a great day to get outdoors & enjoy it!!
Ben Williams, 74, was a remarkable football player and a history-making individual at Ole Miss. Here, he sacks Southern Miss quarterback Jeff Bower in a 1973 game.
Ole Miss athletics
Ben Williams
They called him Gentle Ben. But Jim Carmody, who coached history-making, trail-blazing Ben Williams at both Ole Miss and then the Buffalo Bills, would like to expound on that nickname.
“When Ben Williams was on the football field and the game was on, there was not one thing gentle about him,” Carmody said. “He annihilated people. On the field, he had more than a little meanness to him. At Ole Miss, he dominated everybody he faced. And I’ll tell you something else about Ben. He was a helluva guy, too, one of my favorite people I ever coached.”
Robert Jerry “Ben” Williams, the first African American to play football at Ole Miss and one of the greatest defensive players in the school’s history, died Monday. He was 65.
Rick Cleveland
Williams, from Yazoo City, and James Reed, a running back from Meridian, were the first two African Americans recruited to play football at Ole Miss in 1971. Williams, who possessed remarkable quickness and speed to go with his brute strength, was the first to play as a freshman in the 1972 season, just 10 years after James Meredith integrated the university amid a riot. Williams started as a freshman, made All-SEC the next three years, All-American as a senior.
And this will tell you so much about Ben Williams: As a senior, in 1976, he was voted “Colonel Rebel” – equivalent to Mr. Ole Miss – by the student body.
Ole Miss athletics
Ben Williams was elected Colonel Rebel in 1976. Here he is pictured with Barbara Biggs, who was Miss Ole Miss.
“His teammates loved him, his coaches loved him,” Carmody said. “Obviously, he was really popular on campus, as well. The only people who didn’t love him were the guys who had to play against him.”
Jackson dentist Roger Parkes was a junior football player at Ole Miss when Williams and Reed signed with the Rebels making the university the last in the SEC to break the color line in football.
“Both Ben and James and were good guys as well as players, but Ben was the first to make a big contribution on the field,” Parkes said. “He was just a physically superior dude. One man was not going to block him and sometimes two people couldn’t do it. He threw people around like rag dolls.”
As it turns out, Williams was more than qualified for the moment. Williams commanded respect – not only with his superior playing ability but with his calm off-the field demeanor and personality.
“People talk about his physical skills and how he threw people around,” Carmody said. “But he was a smart player, as well. He worked at it. He knew how to use his hands and forearms. He listened. He wanted to learn. He wanted to be as good as he could be. His effort was always outstanding.”
Carmody, who coached at Ole Miss twice, at Mississippi State twice and at Southern Miss twice (as head coach and defensive coordinator), said Williams and Jerald Baylis, a nose tackle at USM, were the two best college players he ever coached.
Williams made first team All American as a senior in 1976 and was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the third round. Carmody joined him with the Bills in 1982 as the team’s defensive line coach. Williams made the Pro Bowl in 1983.
Williams and Carmody, both Mississippi Sports Hall of Famers, had a long-running joke between them.
“Ben always told me he made me the coach I was, and I guess there might have been some truth there,” Carmody said. “Players like Ben will make anyone a better coach. But I’d always remind him he didn’t make All American until I got him at Ole Miss and he didn’t make All-Pro until I went to Buffalo. We had a lot of laughs about that.”
Carmody says that during all the time he spent at Ole Miss – in two different tenures – he only went to one basketball game.
Ole Miss athletics
Ben Williams once wrestled a bear at halftime of an Ole Miss basketball game.
“Did you ever hear about the time Ben wrestled a real bear at halftime of a basketball game?” Carmody said. “That’s why I went to see that basketball game to see Ben wrestle that Bear.
“It was kind of funny really. Ben couldn’t get the bear down and the bear couldn’t put Ben down, either. It was kind of a tie. I talked to Ben afterward and he said, ‘Coach, you can’t believe how bad that bear smelled. It was awful.’ He said he never had anything to worry about, because the bear didn’t have any teeth, not a single tooth in his mouth.”
Carmody said Williams’ popularity with teammates carried over to the NFL and to the Buffalo Bills. Williams retired from the Bills in 1985 as the franchise’s all-time leader in sacks with 45.5.
“Ben was on the same defensive line with Fred Smerlas and Sherman White, two really great players,” Carmody said. “Jim Haslett, who later coached the Saints, was one of the linebackers.
“A bunch of those guys came to Jackson a few years ago to spend some time with Ben when he was having some health issues,” Carmody said. “We played golf and then had a big steak dinner at Tico’s. It was more or less a testimonial dinner for Ben. Most of those guys came a long way for that. That’s how much respect they had for Ben.”
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has faced the wrath of the Legislature, protestors and people who are mad him on Facebook during his press conferences. So instead of reading birthdays or graduates’ names to give them a boost, maybe he should just read his own name over and over to make himself feel better.
Rep. Jason White speaks about legislation that would remove Gov. Tate Reeves’ spending authority over federal coronavirus stimulus money.
One day last week during a committee meeting he was chairing, Rep. Larry Byrd, R-Petal, looked over his shoulder to see the imposing figure of House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton.
“I had a stroke,” said Byrd, the non-assuming chair of the County Affairs Committee who was not expecting the House speaker to attend the meeting.
Gunn, still catching his breath after running up four flights of Capitol stairs after attending another meeting, pulled off his mask and gave the charge he was delivering to the multiple House committees meeting throughout the building. That charge was to look for ways to efficiently and quickly distribute $1.25 billion in federal funds to help people and entities impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Legislative leaders had been fighting with Gov. Tate Reeves over who would have spending authority of the federal funds. Reeves had said legislators, stuck in a cumbersome process involving 174 members, would not be able to efficiently appropriate the funds in a timely manner to those in need.
Last week legislators worked to create and pass a program to provide $300 million in grants and funds to small businesses impacted by the coronavirus. While it took a better part of a week before the small business package was passed Wednesday after 11 p.m., it still was quite a legislative feat to create and pass a brand new program in a relatively short period of time considering the speed at which the legislative process normally operates.
Last week it was not unusual to see both presiding officers – Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Gunn – in committee meetings. It has not been unusual for Hosemann, in his first year as lieutenant governor, to attend committee meetings, but seldom if ever does the speaker participate in committee meetings – at least not before the task of legislators doling out that $1.25 billion in federal funds began.
After working together to prevent Reeves from single-handedly appropriating the funds, it would be reasonable to assume that the two presiding officers felt a bit of pressure and motivation to show they could deliver those funds in an efficient manner.
“We were motivated by the needs of the people of Mississippi and not anything else,” Hosemann contended when asked if he felt any pressure, especially since the fight over who would appropriate the funds was contentious at times.
Soon after it became apparent that the state would receive those funds – before Reeves proclaimed his sole authority to appropriate them – Hosemann said the legislative leaders began talking about where the money could do the most good.
“We recognized the urgency here was for small businesses,” said Gunn, calling them the backbone of the state’s economy.
House Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, who was one of the key negotiators on the small business program, perhaps provided more insight.
“I don’t know about pressure…about the best way to motivate me, I am just speaking for myself…, is to tell me I can’t do it,” he said on Mississippi Today’s “The Other Side” podcast.
“When the governor made those statements that the Legislature is incapable of spending, appropriating these funds in an efficient manner where we could do some good and get the funds to the people who need them quickly, then I kind of made that a personal mission of mine to help ensure that happened. I don’t think I am alone in that regard. Through the leadership with the speaker and the lieutenant governor… we sat down and man, we went to work, and I think the byproduct is something we can all be proud of.”
Whether the Legislature was actually successful in developing the program, of course, will be borne out in the coming days and weeks.
While Reeves has praised the small business legislation, as of Monday afternoon he had not signed it into law yet. And it is not clear yet when funds will be available from the program, though, there has been speculation that once the bill becomes law $2,000 checks to small businesses forced to close by the coronavirus could be sent out in the next two weeks by the Department of Revenue.
In reality, though, the effort to efficiently spend the funds is just beginning for legislators. They have more than $900 million remaining in the fund to deal with coronavirus-related costs. The states have until the end of the year to spend the funds they received through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Security Act or the money will revert to the federal government.
Legislators have talked of the need to spend the funds to help hard hit cities and counties with their costs. They also want to improve distance learning opportunities, but legislators are learning that $1 billion will not solve all the Mississippi’s rural broadband issues.
Hospitals, which have struggled to deal with the costs of the pandemic and the fact other medical procedures have been put on hold to deal with the coronavirus, thus costing them needed revenue, also have been singled out for possible help.
Reeves has said he believes some of the funds should be set aside for work force training opportunities for many of the about 50,0000 Mississippians who have lost their jobs during the economic slowdown. Related to that, he also has said some of the funds should be used to help rebuild reserves in the state’s unemployment trust fund.
Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said a large portion of the funds – about $450 million – should be used in areas related to the black community since Africans Americans have been disproportionately impacted.
The Black Caucus has proposed programs at the state’s predominately African American colleges and universities, programs to improve health outcomes in the black communities, additional pay for workers put in jeopardy through their jobs during the pandemic and other programs.
“The corona pandemic has highlighted many of the public health, socio-economic and education disparities that have long been impacting the African American community,” Turner-Ford said in a commentary sent out to the state’s media.
“The Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus calls upon the Mississippi Legislature to make conscious and deliberate efforts to address known barriers to opportunities and progress in the African American community.”
In the coming days debate will continue on spending the funds.
And perhaps the pressure on the Legislature and its leadership will grow.
Rep. Trey Lamar, a top House Republican, discusses the conflict between Gov. Tate Reeves and legislative leadership, and explains the $300 million small business relief package lawmakers passed last week.
Good Tuesday morning everyone! It is mild out the door with temperatures in the upper 50s to low 60s across the area, under partly cloudy skies. We will have a mix of sun and clouds today with a high near 73. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph. A slight chance of showers is possible during the afternoon. Our Tuesday night will be partly cloudy, with a low around 56.
Grab the umbrella as you head out the door (just in case) and have a pleasant day, friends!
It’s been a month. I know you have questions. And I hope I’ll have the answers soon. For now, I have to figure out what is happening, Please… Wait for me.
