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Facing new federal charges, the Madison man accused of setting fire to Mississippi’s largest synagogue pleaded not guilty again on Wednesday. 

After Stephen Spencer Pittman’s initial arraignment last month, a federal grand jury indicted the 19-year-old on two new charges last week, upping the prison time he faces if convicted. 

The superseding indictment accuses Pittman of destroying religious property “because of the religious character of that property,” a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. He was also indicted for using fire to commit a felony for allegedly burning the Beth Israel Congregation in northeast Jackson. That charge comes with a 10-year prison sentence.

Pittman, who usually goes by his middle name, was previously indicted on one count of attempting to destroy property used in religious commerce – a charge he still faces under the new indictment. Facing up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on that charge, Pittman pleaded not guilty last month. 

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate attacks on houses of worship,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release announcing the new charges last week. “This superseding indictment shows that we will investigate and we will prosecute such vicious attacks that strike at the core of our country’s long tradition of religious liberty.”

The federal government is also ordering Pittman to forfeit any property he used in the alleged arson. He is accused of driving his truck to the synagogue on Old Canton Road where, hours before dawn on Jan. 10, he allegedly used an ax to break through one of the windows, poured gasoline inside the building and used a torch lighter. 

Pittman was set to face trial in federal court later this month, but U.S. Magistrate Court Judge LaKeysha Greer Isaac entered an order this week pushing the date back to April 6. 

In state court, Pittman faces a separate first-degree arson charge with an enhancement under a Mississippi law punishing “offenses committed for discriminatory reasons.” A Hinds County grand jury swiftly indicted Pittman after he was arrested by law enforcement at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he was being treated for burns. 

Despite his attorney’s efforts, Pittman remains in jail after Isaac deemed him a threat to public safety at a detention hearing last month. Pittman – who comes from a wealthy suburb of Jackson and attended a private Catholic school – continues to be represented by a federal public defender. 

In the weeks leading up to his alleged arson attack, Pittman allegedly began making antisemitic statements and behaving in such a way that the “family pets were afraid” of him and his mother was considering “locking their bedroom doors at night,” an FBI agent testified last month.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matt Allen, Jonathan Buckner and Taylor Payne from DOJ’s civil rights division are prosecuting the case. Pittman is represented by federal public defender Michael Scott.

READ MORE: Suspect in Mississippi synagogue fire laughed as he confessed to his dad, authorities say

SOUTHAVEN – In a room of a couple hundred attendees, not one spoke in favor of a proposed air permit for an Elon Musk-owned operation in Southaven during a two-and-a-half hour public hearing.

MZX Tech LLC, a part of Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence company, applied for permits to construct and operate 41 natural gas turbines in the north Mississippi city. Those turbines would power the company’s nearby data centers, which include two just across the state line in Memphis as well as a recently announced $20 billion investment in Southaven.

Mississippi’s environmental permit board, which is made up of seven appointees from several state agencies, will decide whether to approve or deny MZX Tech’s application.

The South African-born billionaire has already funded 27 “mobile-temporary” turbines at the Stanton Road facility. Mississippi regulators maintain those turbines don’t require an air permit because of their “mobile-temporary” designation. Environmental lawyers disagree, and for months residents have complained about the turbines’ uncounted emissions and perpetual high-pitched humming.

Tuesday night’s hearing, held by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, affirmed and amplified those concerns. About 30 audience members spoke — few stayed under their allotted three minutes, and all either expressed fear of the turbines’ potential pollution, asked the agency to reject the application or requested MDEQ shut down the already operating generators.

Taylor Logsdon, a mother of three who lives less than half a mile from the plant, said two of her children have developed respiratory problems just in the few months since xAI’s temporary turbines began running over the summer. Her eczema has spread “dramatically” in the last month, which her dermatologist attributed to formaldehyde exposure, Logsdon said.

Formaldehyde is a known release from gas production, but without a permit xAI’s exact releases are unknown. Logsdon called the state’s lack of information on the turbines’ releases “irresponsible.” She and other members of a local advocacy group called the Safe and Sound Coalition donned T-shirts reading, “not all money is good money.”

“Since August, we have slowly fallen out of love with where we decided to grow our family,” she said.

Chestela Farmer, another mother who said she lives less than a half mile from the plant, said she’s recently felt increased shortness of breath and seen more frequent asthma flareups.

“My family shouldn’t be forced to live in fear of long-term health consequences simply because pollution is being allowed to continue and expand,” Farmer said. “I never thought after 23 years here I would have to fight for the basic right to breathe clean air in my own house.”

A number of Southaven residents complained of the noise the turbines made, a concern they raised over the summer. In November, the city’s mayor, Darren Musselwhite, a supporter of the xAI investments, said the company assured him that any noise issues would be resolved in a matter of days. Yet just before the Tuesday hearing, Mississippi Today reporters could clearly hear the constant humming near homes less than a mile away from the facility.

Devan Jenkins, whose family has lived in a nearby neighborhood for five generations, described it as a “deep, constant drone that vibrates in your house.”

No officials from the city of Southaven or xAI spoke during the hearing.

Several residents pointed to the already poor air quality in the area. Last year, the American Lung Association gave DeSoto County — where Southaven is located — an “F” grade for high ozone, or smog.

The public hearing also saw attendees from neighboring Memphis, including Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson. In 2023, the Republican-led Tennessee House expelled Pearson and another representative because of a gun protest at the capitol. They regained their seats in a special election. Pearson also co-founded Memphis Community Against Pollution, which pushed back against unpermitted xAI turbines there.

“The consequences of this air pollution are going to be in Southaven, in the Horn Lake area, but it’s also going to be in the Westwood and Whitehaven communities that I represent in Memphis,” he said. “Pollution doesn’t care about the imaginary boundary between states, which is why we have to have solidarity.”

The hearing came just days after the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, on behalf of the NAACP, sent a notice of their intent to sue over the use of the “mobile-temporary” turbines. The letter — addressed to Musk, xAI, EPA, Gov. Tate Reeves, MDEQ and others — argues the use of the turbines without a permit violates the Clean Air Act.

Update, 2/18/2026: This story has been updated with additional photos.

Curley Clark said he first became aware of the Rev. Jesse Jackson when he was a college student in Nashville and bullets were flying near his dorm as the National Guard responded to riots after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Jackson was a close aide of King and had been standing near the civil rights leader on a motel balcony in Memphis when a gunman killed King on April 4, 1968. In the immediate aftershock of the assassination, and for decades afterward, Jackson rose up as one of the nation’s strongest voices for equality.

Jackson was 84 when he died Tuesday in at his home in Chicago. His daughter, Santita Jackson, confirmed that her father, who had a rare neurological disorder, was surrounded by family in his final moments.

After Clark lived in Nashville, he moved to Chicago, attended Chicago State University and lived in the same South Shore community as Jackson. But Clark said that as a young man, he had trouble getting onboard with Jackson’s messages of nonviolent activism. 

“I remember Jesse at the time had started Operation Breadbasket in the South Side, and I was inspired by his mission of trying to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and push for racial equality,” Clark said. “But because of my temper at the time, I couldn’t fully embrace the idea of nonviolence. But I did in later years come to understand the importance of it. You can’t defeat hate with hate. Only love can defeat hate. The teachings of Jesse Jackson helped me learn those principles.”

Clark later moved to Pascagoula, where he joined the NAACP and became politically active. He’s been the president of the Moss Point-Jackson County Branch of the organization for more than 40 years. And he credits Jackson as a “monumental” inspiration for gains the organization has made there, including the ouster of the Jim Crow era system of “at-large” local city council members that had prevented Black people from being elected. 

“(Jackson) inspired me to get involved in the political arena, not as a candidate but as an activist,” said Clark, also a longtime delegate to the Democratic National Convention for Mississippi. “I’m proud to say that because of the inspiration he provided, we were able to make some monumental gains politically for the Black and underserved community in Jackson County, Mississippi.

“I’m very proud to have had the opportunity to be a follower of Jesse Jackson and be able to implement some of the ideals that he put forth,” Clark said. “Jesse Jackson made America a better place.”

Clark is among the Mississippi residents this week who are mourning the death of Jackson — a two-time presidential candidate and one of America’s foremost civil rights leaders.

Jackson frequently visited Mississippi, a state at the center of the Civil Rights Movement, to highlight issues facing poor and underrepresented communities. His advocacy in the United States and abroad included pushes to advance voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care access. 

A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson rose from obscurity in the segregated South to become one of the nation’s best-known civil rights activists since King, whom Jackson counted as a confidant. Through his work with other civil rights leaders and his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, he was a towering figure in the fight for racial equality. 

Jackson ran for president twice, in 1984 and 1988. Although he lost both times, he fared better than any Black politician before Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. Jackson did well in Mississippi in 1984, although there was a dispute over the delegate count. In 1988, Jackson won Mississippi and 12 other Democratic primaries and caucuses and gave a powerful speech at the party’s national convention that year.

His trips to Mississippi put him in touch with numerous local leaders, and with everyday people. 

State Sen. Hillman Frazier of Jackson, the longest-serving Black member of the state Senate, first met Jackson at the Mississippi State Capitol in the 1980s when Frazier was serving in the House. 

“He was very open and inclusive,” Frazier said about meeting Jackson for the first time. 

Frazier said people who did not know Jackson would often criticize him for going against the status quo, but, at his core, the civil rights icon wanted to ensure everyone had a voice and a seat at the table. 

“He worked to make sure our country would become the best version of itself,” Frazier said. 

In 1965, Jackson joined the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King also dispatched him to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.

Frazier supported Jackson when he ran for president and said he was able to win delegates, caucuses and primaries because he had an “amazing ability to organize” and build coalitions.

Jackson presented Frazier with the 2012 Humanitarian of the Year Award in the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, which was a touching moment for the state lawmaker.

“He paved the way for Barack Obama and Black people serving in the Senate and Black governors.” 

Leroy Brooks was elected in 1983 as the first Black supervisor in Lowndes County and is still serving in that office. He said he met Jackson several times and was inspired to pursue a career in politics.

“We are of that generation that is not too far removed from the struggles of the ’60s, so when you got to meet someone like Jesse Jackson and others – it just left a lasting impression of, ‘I want to do that, too,’” Brooks said.

Brooks said he was about 30 years old at the time of their meetings, and “the things he had to say and the way he said them left a lasting impact.” His career fighting for equality and justice motivated an entire generation, Brooks added.

“He could motivate and captivate people with the way he communicated. And, he had a great sense of humor.”

Brooks, of Columbus, said Jackson came to his area several times over the years. Brooks also was around Jackson through their mutual friendship with U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson.

Once, at Mississippi State University, Brooks said he was picked to give an opening speech before Jackson took the stage.

“He was running a little late, and they asked me to speak before he got there,” said Brooks, who remembers that, at the time as a new politician, it was “a little nerve-racking.” 

Longtime former Mississippi state Rep. Ed Blackmon of Canton said he met Jackson twice, including when Jackson was in Mississippi in the 1980s helping with a voter registration drive.

“He was absolutely charismatic,” Blackmon said. “He was a wordsmith … well schooled in public speaking and he could just put it together, could pull people into what he was saying.”

Blackmon said Jackson’s presidential campaigns were inspirational.

“Yes, because he was Black, and he was a serious candidate,” Blackmon said. “He had huge recognition in the Black community, so he was inspiring. He was sharp on all the issues, foreign and domestic, and he won several primaries. 

“And his catch phrase was inspiring: ‘I may be Black. I may be poor, but I am somebody,’” Blackmon said. “That was something resonating across Black America. … He just had a huge impact, here and nationally and even internationally.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Thompson said he and Jackson were “in the fight together” for those whose voices too often went unheard.

“Jesse never backed down,” Thompson said. “He believed in justice, in equality, and in the power of faith to move mountains. And he carried that belief with courage every single day. We marched. We organized. We prayed. We fought for progress we knew our communities deserved. His voice may be quiet now, but his impact will echo for generations.”

Jackson Mayor John Horhn, who’s a former state senator, called Jackson a “giant of the civil rights movement and a lifelong champion for justice, equality, and opportunity.” 

“From organizing communities to opening doors for generations of leaders, his voice and vision helped shape our democracy and strengthen our collective conscience,” Horhn said in a statement. “His life reminds us that ordinary people, standing together, can create extraordinary change.”  

 Pittsboro, Mississippi was the site. It was nowhere near neutral, as was evident when the proceedings began with a prayer asking for an one-year extension for Trinidad Chambliss, the Ole Miss quarterback. The prayer was answered. The Clevelands also talk about the opening weekend of college baseball season, the Winter Olympics and a whole lot more.

Stream all episodes here.

Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson on Tuesday endorsed Scott Colom in his bid to become the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate ahead of the state’s March 10 primary. 

Thompson, Mississippi’s lone Democrat in Congress, said in a radio ad that Colom is “honest, fair, and a fighter.”

“We need a senator who will fight to lower prices, create jobs, and protect our health care and hospitals,” Thompson said. “That’s Democrat Scott Colom.”

Colom is currently the elected district attorney for the state’s 16th circuit district, which includes Lowndes, Clay, Noxubee and Oktibbeha counties. 

“​Few leaders have done more for Mississippi than Congressman Bennie Thompson,” Colom said in a statement.  “He has spent his career fighting for fairness, economic opportunity, and investment in communities that too often get overlooked.” 

Colom will compete in a three-person Democratic primary race on March 10. He faces Democrats Albert R. Littell and Priscilla W. Till. 

In the Republican primary, incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is competing against GOP challenger Sarah Adlakha. 

Much of the Republican establishment has lined up to support Hyde-Smith. Most of Mississippi’s statewide officials, dozens of state legislators and President Donald Trump have all publicly endorsed Hyde-Smith’s reelection campaign. 

The Republican and Democratic nominees will compete against independent candidate Ty Pinkins in the general election. 

The state Department of Archives and History is giving Mississippians the opportunity to explore their family history with a free beginner genealogy workshop on Saturday.

The seminar begins at 10 a.m. at the William Winter Archives and History Building.

This workshop will focus on providing basic research procedures and strategies for genealogical research, including strategies for African American genealogy. It is held every February and is open to everyone. Participants get the opportunity to sign up for a free research card.

Genealogy is the study of family history and lineage using historical documents. Archives and History has several resources for genealogical research, including fellowships and finding aids.

Joyce Dixon-Lawson, formerly the manager of research and genealogy at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, is teaching the Saturday workshop. She is now a contract worker and freelance researcher for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and has been teaching genealogy for more than 30 years.

“You can’t rely on someone else to tell you what your history is. You need to know for yourself,” she said.

Dixon-Lawson explained some of the challenges in genealogical research, especially for African Americans.

For example, many people often have to search through slaveholders’ records such as deeds, wills, probate records and more because formerly enslaved African Americans were not named on the federal census until 1870, and many changed their last names after emancipation.

Sometimes documents and records are inaccessible, lost or inaccurate. Some people discover family secrets, or just have a hard time dealing with the emotional toll of learning about their history.

“Genealogy is a lifelong project. It’s personal, sometimes heartbreaking and very addictive,” said Dixon-Lawson.

Her advice is to make a plan, get a research partner, keep digging, keep moving and verify everything.

Republican lawmakers are dealing with tensions between local elected officials and the Trump administration over moves to transform warehouses in their districts into immigrant detention centers.

Reps. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania and Paul Gosar of Arizona said they will spend their recess week meeting with leaders in their districts taken aback by the Department of Homeland Security’s purchase of three warehouses in the two states totaling $277 million. Republican lawmakers in Georgia and Mississippi, too, have been lobbying the administration to change its plans.

Meuser, who served as the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania co-chair, told NOTUS he’s been speaking with DHS officials every day about local concerns that the two facilities the agency purchased in Berks County and Schuylkill County could put a strain on public infrastructure, security and jobs.

“We’re going to work it out to make it as nonnegative of an impact and, hopefully, a very positive impact on my district,” he said.

READ MORE: Byhalia ‘ICE warehouse’ deal is canned after chat with Noem, Wicker tweets

DHS’s push to expand its detention footprint through warehouses, with plans to hold between 1,500 and 8,500 people in the GOP districts, has been met with local opposition.

During county commission meetings, officials of the Schuylkill County township, where DHS has purchased a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse, said the sewer system can’t handle an influx of thousands of people. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania wrote that his constituents are also concerned about the economic impact; the federal government’s purchase of the two warehouses translated to a combined loss of $1.6 million in tax revenue per year for the counties, Fetterman said.

“I don’t know if it’s the right location or if there’s a better location, they did all the analysis there,” Meuser said. He said he planned to visit the sites next week.

The situation has put Republican lawmakers in a tenuous yet somewhat familiar position, as they attempt to seek information and changes from the Trump administration while maintaining public support for the president’s agenda. Republican lawmakers found themselves doing the same thing when the administration’s cuts to federal funding and the federal workforce hit home. This time, however, their concerns are regarding the administration’s biggest priority: deportations.

Trying to get answers from the agency hasn’t been straightforward for all lawmakers. Gosar told NOTUS that he had given DHS officials six days as of last Tuesday to respond to his questions about the scope of the 1,500-bed processing center in Surprise, Arizona.

“I’ll climb the ladder, even talking to the president about it,” Gosar said of his next steps if DHS doesn’t respond to his list of questions about the potential strain on local infrastructure.

The Surprise city government released a statement on Jan. 30 that said its officials hadn’t been notified about the $70 million purchase of a 418,000-square-foot property.

“My thing is: ask for permission, don’t ask for forgiveness,” Gosar said.

Ultimately, Gosar said he didn’t know if he supported the warehouse in his district.

“I don’t know that. I want to see the process,” he said.

One Republican has already gotten federal officials to reverse course. In Mississippi, Sen. Roger Wicker’s opposition to a proposed 8,500-bed detention center in Byhalia led to the homeland security secretary “agreeing to look elsewhere,” the senator said in a statement on X last week, following a letter from Wicker and subsequent phone call.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency had no detention centers to announce in Mississippi.

“I relayed to her the opposition of local elected and zoning officials as well as economic development concerns,” Wicker wrote.

Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, who is running for Senate, is in a similar situation. DHS purchased a warehouse in his district in the city of Social Circle that would house double the city’s population.

Collins, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, “shares the same concerns as the residents and leaders of Social Circle that the city may not have the facilities or infrastructure this development would require,” his spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement.

“He has brokered communication between ICE and city officials so these concerns can be addressed,” the statement continued.

In a Facebook post on Feb. 4, Collins wrote that following a briefing from ICE on the proposed facility, although he was “aligned with the mission of ICE,” he had “asked DHS to continue evaluating the impacts that the facility would have on Social Circle and to ensure we can accomplish the mission without negatively impacting the community.”

A DHS spokesperson said the Social Circle detention center would bring 9,800 jobs to the area.

Democrats with proposed warehouses in their districts have been rallying against them for months, with multiple lawmakers telling NOTUS that it’s been almost impossible to get information from DHS, even after repeated requests.

At the end of January, Rep. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona told NOTUS that in response to a letter asking about rumors of a proposed new detention center in her district, DHS told her office that “they would not be sharing any plans whatsoever about what they have in the works or anywhere else in the country,” even if the plans involved her distinct.

“To what we know, there’s nothing right now, but again, we don’t really know,” Ansari said.

When asked about the concerns from GOP officials, the DHS spokesperson said in a statement: “Secretary Noem has stated that she is willing to work with officials on both sides of the aisle to expand detention space to help ICE law enforcement carry out the largest deportation effort in American history.”

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

On Jan. 1, Mississippi took an important step forward for working families. For the first time, state employees welcoming a new child have access to paid parental leave. That matters.

It matters for mothers recovering from childbirth. It matters for fathers and partners learning how to care for a brand-new life. It matters for adoptive parents building trust and connection in those first fragile weeks. It matters for babies because those early weeks are when pediatric checkups, screenings and follow-up care happen, and when parents need the time and stability to actually get their children to those appointments. And it matters for Mississippi’s workforce, which has long struggled with retention, recruitment and deep economic inequities.

The Mississippi State Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, which went into effect on Jan 1, did not happen by chance. It reflects years of advocacy, organizing and bipartisan leadership that recognized a simple truth: No parent should have to choose between caring for a new child and keeping a paycheck. As a social worker, a mother and someone who has spent decades organizing alongside Mississippi families, I know how rare and meaningful that recognition is.

But while Jan. 1 is a milestone worth celebrating, it should also be a moment of honesty.

This policy is a first step, not the finish line.

This new law provides paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child, and for the state employees who qualify, it can be life-changing.

But the reality is stark. In Mississippi, paid family leave protects only 1 in 5 workers. The other 80% – disproportionately low-wage workers and workers of color – are left with no guaranteed time to heal, no paycheck to rely on and no protection when their families need them most.

And even for those who are covered, the protections are limited.

For example, the new law does not cover workers recovering from serious illness, childbirth complications or mental health crises. It does not protect those caring for an aging parent, a partner undergoing cancer treatment or a child with ongoing medical needs.

It does not reach the majority of Mississippi workers employed outside of state government. And it ignores a simple truth: Caregiving does not end after a few short weeks, and neither does the need for time to heal.

As a result, caregivers drain their savings, exhaust their sick time or leave the workforce entirely – and too often, they leave Mississippi in search of jobs and states that better support working families. These choices are not failures of personal responsibility; they are failures of policy.

Mississippi is already paying the price. We rank near the bottom nationally in workforce participation and rank at the bottom for maternal and infant health outcomes.

Paid leave goes beyond being a personal or family issue; it’s an economic issue. Paid family and medical leave delivers a strong return on investment for businesses, with studies estimating up to $2.57 in value for every $1 invested, driven by reduced turnover costs, higher productivity and stronger employee retention while communities benefit from healthier families and a more stable workforce.

In a state struggling to retain workers and compete for talent, paid leave is not a cost Mississippi can’t afford. It is an investment Mississippi can’t afford not to make.

Jan. 1 shows what is possible when we focus on families and practical solutions.

Now, lawmakers should build on this progress by expanding paid family and medical leave protections, ensuring that all workers – not just state employees – can care for themselves and their loved ones without risking financial ruin. Employers should view this policy as a model, not a ceiling. And communities must continue to uplift the lived experiences of caregivers who know firsthand what it means to fall through the cracks.

Mississippi families deserve policies that reflect the reality of their lives.

We took an important step forward this January. Let’s not stop walking.

Cassandra Welchlin is executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable. A licensed social worker, advocate and mother, she has spent more than 20 years advancing policies that strengthen economic security and health for Mississippi women and families.

Teneshia LeBran’s journey to get her associate degree hasn’t been easy. 

LeBran first enrolled at Hinds Community College in August 2019 to study early childhood education technology. She’s a young, single mother raising five small children — with another baby due in June. She has experience volunteering for Head Start committees in Hinds County, which provides free-early childhood education, nutrition and services to low-income families. She has also had to navigate federal food assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Women, Infants, and Children. 

“I want to open my own day care one day,” LeBran said. 

Different personal challenges led to her starting and stopping her education at Hinds. 

Now, she’s participating in The Learning Circle, or TLC, a pilot program Hinds Community College launched in January to lower barriers students like LeBran face to earning an associate degree or a career or technical certificate. On Tuesday nights, the Learning Circle provides child care and dinner for students. On Thursday nights, students can access tutoring and a computer lab through the program. 

If the pilot is successful, The Learning Circle will continue to expand to the community college’s five other satellite campuses, said Tiffany Moore, dean of students at Hinds’ Jackson campus. 

The college’s Jackson campus is located off Medgar Evers Boulevard and Sunset Drive, in an area Moore described as “surrounded by blight.”

The Learning Center “symbolizes a beacon of hope for many students residing in and around the neighborhood,” Moore said. “It could give one parent the support they need to move forward in life.” 

‘It takes a village’ 

The launch of The Learning Center at Hinds coincides with a time when Mississippi lawmakers and higher education officials are seeking ways to encourage more residents to obtain a degree or credential, which would boost the state’s workforce. 

Nationwide, more than 37.6 million 18- to 64-year-olds have some college but no degree as of July 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. In Mississippi, 349,410 residents — or roughly 12% of the state’s population — have some college but no degree, according to the research center. 

The state’s workforce development agency launched Ascent to 55% in 2023, a plan to get more than half of Mississippi residents the training or education needed to earn a college or degree certificate by 2030. 

As of this month, 48.8% of Mississippians ages 25 to 64 had a degree, credential or industry certification beyond high school, which is slightly lower than the nation’s average of 54.8%, according to the Lumina Foundation.

Research suggests some adult students face obstacles like financial resources, time constraints and work and family obligations when it comes to completing their education. A 2023 report from the nonprofit American Institutes for Research notes that parents who are also adult learners “must consider family expenses in addition to college expenses and make tough decisions about how to spend their time across their academic, work, and family responsibilities.”

Colleges across the country provide wraparound services such as child care, financial support, food and transportation assistance, emergency funding and mental health support, said Maria Cormier, senior research associate at Columbia University Community College Research Center.

“There’s the saying ‘It takes a village,’” Cormier said. “Colleges are now saying, ‘We want to be a part of your village and help students succeed.’” 

Across Mississippi, universities such as Mississippi State, Alcorn State and Jackson State provide resources including on-campus child care for students, faculty and staff. The child care centers operate as educational, licensed facilities for students studying early childhood development. 

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Harrison County campus, Itawamba Community College and Northeast Mississippi Community College also provide low-cost child care for its parent students. These colleges also have food pantries and service programs students can access through campus and student life offices. 

“I feel it is important that the people in the Jackson community know that we see them and understand their needs and that we will do anything possible to provide them with the same opportunity that people from other areas have,” said Tiffany Gaskins, dean of career and technical education at Hinds Community College, Jackson campus. 

‘It’s convenient for me and my life’ 

This is LeBran’s third time enrolling at Hinds. With only four classes left to finish her associate degree, she hopes to graduate this spring. 

“This program was only supposed to take two years, and here I am, you know, constantly, just starting, stopping, starting, stopping,” LeBran said. “But, I love that I never lost my drive to want to go back.” 

When Tuesday nights roll around, LeBran can feel at ease.

Before participating in The Learning Circle, LeBran took classes online. It was difficult to find babysitters — trusted neighbors or family — to watch her children while she focused on her education.

Now, licensed childcare teachers at The Learning Circle care for her youngest sons on Tuesday nights, which frees up LeBran to attend in-person classes.

“I am someone who has to ask a lot of questions and it’s difficult when you’re doing online classes or thinking about who is going to watch them,”  LeBran said. “Knowing that I am able to bring them with me to class, that is really beneficial. Plus, when class is over, I can just go home and put them to bed.”

Calvin Harris said he was drawn to Hinds’ Learning Circle Series program because he could take courses in welding and cutting technology at night. 

Between 3 a.m to 4 p.m., Harris, 45, works as a sheet metal fabricator and fitter for Steel Service, a manufacturing company in Flowood. After working in the welding industry for 25 years, Harris said the introduction of new machinery and technology like robotics and lasers made him want to brush up on relevant skills. 

“It’s just convenient for me,” Harris said. “You can’t limit your mindset on just being a welder.” 

The Learning Center classes also allow him to impart wisdom to new recruits who enter into his company, he said. 

“The industry is dying out, and it’s hard to get recruits or new candidates to pick up the trade,” Harris said. “But I tell the ones who do come in, they can make a lot of money and travel. This job and these classes can be a way to get their foot in the door to a better life path.” 

By day, Gwen Green works as a substitute teacher in the Vicksburg Warren School District. She drives 30 minutes from Vicksburg every Tuesday to attend a business management technology class at The Learning Center. For Green, 63, the classes are a way to plan for her future and earn a new income after she retires.

She’s learning how to use computer software like Microsoft Word and Excel. She’s also close to retirement and wanted to earn a certificate to start a home-based business filing income taxes for neighbors and write up life insurance as an agent with Prime America. 

“Everyone deserves a second wind at life and this program and these classes help me do that,” Green said. “And my motto is: If you want something, you have to go get it.”

CHICAGO — The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after the revered leader’s assassination, died Tuesday. He was 84.

As a young organizer in Chicago, Jackson was called to meet with King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, shortly before King was killed, and he publicly positioned himself thereafter as King’s successor.

Santita Jackson confirmed that her father, who had a rare neurological disorder, died at home in Chicago, surrounded by family.

Jackson led a lifetime of crusades in the United States and abroad, advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues, including voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders, and through his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society.

And when he declared, “I am Somebody,” in a poem he often repeated, he sought to reach people of all colors. “I may be poor, but I am Somebody; I may be young; but I am Somebody; I may be on welfare, but I am Somebody,” Jackson intoned.

It was a message he took literally and personally, having risen from obscurity in the segregated South to become America’s best-known civil rights activist since King.

“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement posted online. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.”

Fellow civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said his mentor “was not simply a civil rights leader; he was a movement unto himself.”

“He taught me that protest must have purpose, that faith must have feet, and that justice is not seasonal, it is daily work,” Sharpton wrote in a statement, adding that Jackson taught “trying is as important as triumph. That you do not wait for the dream to come true; you work to make it real.”

Despite profound health challenges in his final years, including the disorder that affected his ability to move and speak, Jackson continued protesting against racial injustice into the era of Black Lives Matter. In 2024, he appeared at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and at a City Council meeting to show support for a resolution backing a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

“Even if we win,” he told marchers in Minneapolis before the officer whose knee kept George Floyd from breathing was convicted of murder, “it’s relief, not victory. They’re still killing our people. Stop the violence, save the children. Keep hope alive.”

Calls to action, delivered in a memorable voice

Jackson’s voice, infused with the stirring cadences and powerful insistence of the Black church, demanded attention. On the campaign trail and elsewhere, he used rhyming and slogans such as “Hope not dope” and “If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it,” to deliver his messages.

Jackson had his share of critics, both within and outside of the Black community. Some considered him a grandstander, too eager to seek the spotlight. Looking back on his life and legacy, Jackson told The Associated Press in 2011 that he felt blessed to be able to continue the service of other leaders before him and to lay a foundation for those to come.

“A part of our life’s work was to tear down walls and build bridges, and in a half century of work, we’ve basically torn down walls,” Jackson said. “Sometimes when you tear down walls, you’re scarred by falling debris, but your mission is to open up holes so others behind you can run through.”

In his final months, as he received 24-hour care, he lost his ability to speak, communicating with family and visitors by holding their hands and squeezing.

“I get very emotional knowing that these speeches belong to the ages now,” his son, Jesse Jackson Jr., told the AP in October.

A student athlete drawn to the Civil Rights Movement

Jesse Louis Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of high school student Helen Burns and Noah Louis Robinson, a married man who lived next door. Jackson was later adopted by Charles Henry Jackson, who married his mother.

Jackson was a star quarterback on the football team at Sterling High School in Greenville, and he accepted a football scholarship from the University of Illinois. But after reportedly being told that Black people couldn’t play quarterback, he transferred to North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, where he became the first-string quarterback, an honor student in sociology and economics, and student body president.

Arriving on the historically Black campus in 1960 just months after students there launched sit-ins at a whites-only lunch counter, Jackson immersed himself in the blossoming Civil Rights Movement.

By 1965, he joined the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King dispatched him to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.

Jackson called his time with King “a phenomenal four years of work.”

Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was slain. Jackson’s account of the assassination was that King died in his arms.

Sharpton said he “always wondered how much trauma that must have been” for Jackson to witness King’s death. “He never would talk about it too much, but it drove him,” Sharpton said Tuesday. “He said, ‘We’ve got to keep Dr. King’s legacy alive.’”

With his flair for the dramatic, Jackson wore a turtleneck he said was soaked with King’s blood for two days, including at a King memorial service held by the Chicago City Council, where he said: “I come here with a heavy heart because on my chest is the stain of blood from Dr. King’s head.”

However, several King aides, including speechwriter Alfred Duckett, questioned whether Jackson could have gotten King’s blood on his clothing. There are no images of Jackson in pictures taken shortly after the assassination.

In 1971, Jackson broke with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to form Operation PUSH, originally named People United to Save Humanity. The organization based on Chicago’s South Side declared a sweeping mission, from diversifying workforces to registering voters in communities of color nationwide. Using lawsuits and threats of boycotts, Jackson pressured top corporations to spend millions and publicly commit to hiring more diverse employees.

The constant campaigns often left his wife, Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, the college sweetheart he married in 1963, taking the lead in raising their five children: Santita Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson Jr., and two future members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Jonathan Luther Jackson and Jesse L. Jackson Jr., who resigned in 2012 but is seeking reelection in the 2026 midterms.

The elder Jackson, who was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1968 and earned his master’s of divinity degree in 2000, also acknowledged fathering a child, Ashley Jackson, with one of his employees at Rainbow/PUSH, Karen L. Stanford. He said he understood what it means to be born out of wedlock and supported her emotionally and financially.

Presidential aspirations fall short but help ‘keep hope alive’

Despite once telling a Black audience he would not run for president “because white people are incapable of appreciating me,” Jackson ran twice and did better than any Black politician had before President Barack Obama, winning 13 primaries and caucuses for the Democratic nomination in 1988, four years after his first failed attempt.

His successes left supporters chanting another Jackson slogan, “Keep hope alive.”

“I was able to run for the presidency twice and redefine what was possible; it raised the lid for women and other people of color,” he told the AP. “Part of my job was to sow seeds of the possibilities.”

U.S. Rep. John Lewis said during a 1988 C-SPAN interview that Jackson’s two runs for the Democratic nomination “opened some doors that some minority person will be able to walk through and become president.”

Jackson also pushed for cultural change, joining calls by NAACP members and other movement leaders in the late 1980s to identify Black people in the United States as African Americans.

“To be called African Americans has cultural integrity — it puts us in our proper historical context,” Jackson said at the time. “Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some base, some historical cultural base. African Americans have hit that level of cultural maturity.”

Jackson’s words sometimes got him in trouble.

In 1984, he apologized for what he thought were private comments to a reporter in which he called New York City “Hymietown,” a derogatory reference to its large Jewish population. And in 2008, he made headlines when he complained that Obama was “talking down to Black people” in comments captured by a microphone he didn’t know was on during a break in a television taping.

Still, when Jackson joined the jubilant crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park to greet Obama that election night, he had tears streaming down his face.

“I wish for a moment that Dr. King or (slain civil rights leader) Medgar Evers … could’ve just been there for 30 seconds to see the fruits of their labor,” he told the AP years later. “I became overwhelmed. It was the joy and the journey.”

Exerting influence on events at home and abroad

Jackson also had influence abroad, meeting world leaders and scoring diplomatic victories, including the release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman from Syria in 1984, as well as the 1990 release of more than 700 foreign women and children held after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. In 1999, he won the freedom of three Americans imprisoned by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.

“Citizens have the right to do something or do nothing,” Jackson said, before heading to Syria. “We choose to do something.”

In 2021, Jackson joined the parents of Ahmaud Arbery inside the Georgia courtroom where three white men were convicted of killing the young Black jogger. In 2022, he hand-delivered a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, calling for federal charges against former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke in the 2014 killing of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.

Jackson, who stepped down as president of Rainbow/PUSH in July 2023, disclosed in 2017 that he had sought treatment for Parkinson’s, but he continued to make public appearances even as the disease made it more difficult for listeners to understand him. Last year, doctors confirmed a diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy, a life-threatening neurological disorder. He was admitted to a hospital in November for nearly two weeks.

During the coronavirus pandemic, he and his wife survived being hospitalized with COVID-19. Jackson was vaccinated early, urging Black people in particular to get protected, given their higher risks for bad outcomes.

“It’s America’s unfinished business — we’re free, but not equal,” Jackson told the AP. “There’s a reality check that has been brought by the coronavirus, that exposes the weakness and the opportunity.”

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Associated Press writers Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and Aaron Morrison in New York contributed to this report, as well as former AP writer Karen Hawkins, who left AP in 2012.