Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America
Center Hill High School economics teacher Toni Coleman, left, talks with senior Jasmine Ellis after class in Olive Branch on Tuesday, May 7, 2019.
A legislative watchdog committee is warning lawmakers that they do not have up-to-date information to make funding decisions for a teacher merit pay program, and the law as it exists is unclear about the state Department of Education’s responsibility in administering it.
In a report released this week, the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) committee highlighted problems with the controversial Mississippi School Recognition Program and offered suggestions for how lawmakers could improve it.
The Mississippi Legislature in 2014 created the School Recognition Program, which provides financial rewards for educators in school districts with an A rating or districts that move up a letter grade. Since its inception, the Legislature has appropriated $98.6 million for the program, according to the report.
The legislation that created the program “… did not mandate that MDE develop the processes and procedures for implementation of the program, which was a novel financial incentive program that had never been administered by the department,” the report said.
In July, Mississippi Today published a story outlining issues with the merit pay program. While many teachers Mississippi Today spoke with said they were grateful for the money, critics say it causes confusion and in some cases actually decreases morale for educators.
Additionally, the program’s intent to incentivize teachers based on accountability ratings has caused problems, including infighting at the district level about how the money is distributed and who is eligible to receive the funds, according to school officials, lawmakers and education advocates.
The legislative report highlighted examples of how the money has been disbursed in years past. Until recently, the money was distributed by teacher committees which chose who received funds and how much. The report cites examples of schools where teacher committees gave some people as much as $2,200 while others at the same school received just $300. The Mississippi Department of Education changed this last year to require that schools give this money out equally, though Mississippi Today’s analysis found not all schools seem to be doing this.
Earlier this year, Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed parts of the $2.2 billion education budget because it did not contain funding for the program, which he supports. The Legislature did ultimately fund the program, setting aside $28 million for the current fiscal year.
How exactly to disburse those funds to schools is complicated, this weeks’ report said. When the coronavirus pandemic forced Mississippi public schools to close their doors in March and cancel state testing, that meant there were no test results to base that year’s accountability ratings on. As a result, the state Board of Education allowed all school districts to retain whatever rating they had from the previous school year. This “presents the Legislature with a conundrum,” the report said, because districts are awarded funds for the program based on accountability ratings.
“Basing a FY 2022 appropriation for the School Recognition Program on ratings that are not up-to-date through assessment testing could result in the Legislature appropriating more or less funds for the program than necessary,” the report said. “For example, allowing districts and schools to retain their previous accountability ratings does not take into account the fact that some districts might have improved in their academic performance while others might have declined—i.e., districts and schools could be overpaid or underpaid due to awards being based on a prior school year’s performance rather than the most recent school year’s performance.”
The PEER report recommends:
The Mississippi Legislature should amend the law to officially require the Mississippi Department of Education to enforce the program’s rules and regulations.
To avoid confusion about who is eligible to receive the funds, the Legislature should change the word “staff” in the law to “certified employees” if the intent of the law is for certified employees specifically to receive these funds.
If the Legislature intends to appropriate funds for the program in the upcoming 2021 legislative session, Mississippi Department of Education staff should present the House and Senate appropriations committees with specific recommendations about how to determine how much funding is necessary, since accountability ratings (which are used to determine funding for the program) for the most recent school year were affected when the pandemic disrupted state testing last school year.
The MDE’s rules and regulations should require school districts to post on their websites the total amount of money received by certified employees, and the reason why the district received the money.
We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.
This page was last updated Monday, December 21:
New cases: 1,167| New Deaths: 2
Total Hospitalizations: 1,319
Total cases: 195,500|Total Deaths: 4,411
Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 61 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.
On Tuesday Mississippi hit a new record with the seven-day average for cases, reaching 2,196. After going nine months without reporting 2,000 cases in a day, the state has reached that point nine times in just the 16 days of December so far.
On Dec. 9, Mississippi also hit a new high for total hospitalizations on the rolling average, surpassing the summer peak. The state had already reached a new high for confirmed hospitalizations at the end of November, but hadn’t yet for the total tally, which includes suspected cases as well.
As seen in MSDH’s illness onset chart, the record for most illnesses in a day — Dec. 11, with 2,442 — is within the last two-week period, meaning those numbers could still go up.
Mississippi’s present rise in cases mirrors the national surge, as the state currently has the 26th most new cases per capita. According to the Harvard Global Health Institute tracker, every state except Vermont is now in the “red zone” (recording over 25 daily new cases per 100,000 people).
The health department reports that 148,466 people are presumed covered as of Dec. 13.
Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:
Mississippi basketball coach, Kermit Davis, center, joins other athletic staff from the state’s public universities calling for a change in the Mississippi state flag on June 25,2020. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
The pandemic took sports from us and then changed everything about them. There were monumental coaching changes that turned the eyes of the nation to Mississippi. Athletes and coaches influenced the historic state flag change. Legendary sportswriter Rick Cleveland, a columnist for Mississippi Today, discusses the unforgettable year for Mississippi sports.
We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.
This page was last updated Sunday, December 20:
New cases: 2,222| New Deaths: 19
Total Hospitalizations: 1,319
Total cases: 194,333|Total Deaths: 4,409
Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 61 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.
On Tuesday Mississippi hit a new record with the seven-day average for cases, reaching 2,196. After going nine months without reporting 2,000 cases in a day, the state has reached that point nine times in just the 16 days of December so far.
On Dec. 9, Mississippi also hit a new high for total hospitalizations on the rolling average, surpassing the summer peak. The state had already reached a new high for confirmed hospitalizations at the end of November, but hadn’t yet for the total tally, which includes suspected cases as well.
As seen in MSDH’s illness onset chart, the record for most illnesses in a day — Dec. 11, with 2,442 — is within the last two-week period, meaning those numbers could still go up.
Mississippi’s present rise in cases mirrors the national surge, as the state currently has the 26th most new cases per capita. According to the Harvard Global Health Institute tracker, every state except Vermont is now in the “red zone” (recording over 25 daily new cases per 100,000 people).
The health department reports that 148,466 people are presumed covered as of Dec. 13.
Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch sued several states for enacting changes to election procedure without garnering legislative approval. That exact reality also occurred in Mississippi.
Perhaps Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch should sue Secretary of State Michael Watson.
After all, Watson essentially did what Fitch and 18 other Republican state attorneys general sued four states for doing: enacting changes to election procedure without garnering legislative approval.
That high-profile lawsuit, filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and joined by Fitch, sought to have about 20 million ballots invalidated in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Instead, the plaintiffs wanted those states’ Republican legislatures to select the winner. Presumably, they would have selected President Donald Trump instead of former Vice President Joe Biden, who won those four states on the way to capturing the presidency.
The lawsuit, of course, was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The suit alleged that because state election officials (the executive branch) and the judiciary made those changes, they were invalid since state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution vest the legislative branch with the authority to make and change laws.
But even in Mississippi this year, election changes were made without legislative approval. Attorneys for the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center announced in October they were dropping a lawsuit filed against Mississippi because of voter safety issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic after Watson agreed to make changes to the procedure for processing absentee ballots received by mail.
Under the change, local election officials were required to provide notice to people voting by mail if their ballots were being rejected because of signature verification issues and allow voters “to cure” or correct the problem.
When asked how what he did was any different than what election officials did in those pivotal swing states, Watson argued it was much different because he was acting within his regulatory authority given to him by the Mississippi Legislature to establish guidelines to carry out the election.
Essentially, that is what election officials said they were doing in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, based on their responses to the Paxton/Fitch lawsuit. And multiple court jurisdictions — conservative and liberal judges — have affirmed their position.
Election officials in those four swing states sued by the attorneys general said they were working to ensure voter safety and to expand opportunities for voters to correct any problems with their ballots, just as Watson maintained he was doing here in Mississippi.
Most states, and not just those four swing states, made changes to address safety concerns related to COVID-19. In Texas, home of Paxton, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott through emergency orders made several changes, including establishing secure drop boxes where people could drop off ballots instead of relying on the U.S. Postal Service. Perhaps if Biden had won Texas, Fitch would have filed a lawsuit against the Lone Star state.
Despite the multiple court rulings, some Mississippi officials including Watson, Fitch and Gov. Tate Reeves continue to question the validity of the election. They argue that Mississippi voters might have been harmed because officials in other states relaxed voting laws, thus making the ballots cast by Mississippians less meaningful.
On social media Reeves said, “a safe and fair election here in Mississippi — not upended by last minute schemes to radically alter voting methods. Election integrity is vital.”
Both Reeves and Watson spoke last week of officials in other states “flooding” their states with unsolicited mail-in ballots. In reality, that did not occur in any of those four swing states. In some of the states, voters were sent unsolicited applications for absentee ballots. That practice was challenged in court and approved as being within the framework of the law.
Other non-swing states like Republican-dominated Utah and Democratic-controlled Washington have been conducting mail-in voting for years and sending ballots to all registered voters.
Most states, though not Mississippi, have some version of no-excuse early voting both in person and by mail. In those states, safeguards, such as requiring signature verification and requiring a voter identification number on the ballot, help to ensure election security.
Besides arguing what Watson did was different than the election changes made in the four swing states, Fitch contends he did not make the changes in processing absentee ballots because of the lawsuit.
“The secretary of state used the regulatory authority the Legislature gave him… and the plaintiffs lost their legal basis for bringing a suit. It’s misleading to call that a settlement,” said Colby Jordan, a spokesperson at Fitch’s office. “It’s the legislative and regulatory process working the way they were intended.”
Yet the motion dismissing the lawsuit, signed by U.S. Judge Daniel Jordan, references “the agreement of the parties” as a reason for the dismissal. And when the plaintiffs said they were dropping the lawsuit because of the changes, Fitch and Watson did not dispute those reports, though they have been busy disputing election results.
If you pass at 97 and people think you’ve left the world too soon, you’ve lived a powerful and meaningful life. I am grateful I got to spend a little of time with Governor Winter (he wrote the forward for one of my books) and will miss his leadership and kindness.
We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.
This page was last updated Saturday, December 19:
New cases: 1,700| New Deaths: 36
Total Hospitalizations: 1,318
Total cases: 192,111|Total Deaths: 4,390
Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 61 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.
On Tuesday Mississippi hit a new record with the seven-day average for cases, reaching 2,196. After going nine months without reporting 2,000 cases in a day, the state has reached that point nine times in just the 16 days of December so far.
On Dec. 9, Mississippi also hit a new high for total hospitalizations on the rolling average, surpassing the summer peak. The state had already reached a new high for confirmed hospitalizations at the end of November, but hadn’t yet for the total tally, which includes suspected cases as well.
As seen in MSDH’s illness onset chart, the record for most illnesses in a day — Dec. 11, with 2,442 — is within the last two-week period, meaning those numbers could still go up.
Mississippi’s present rise in cases mirrors the national surge, as the state currently has the 26th most new cases per capita. According to the Harvard Global Health Institute tracker, every state except Vermont is now in the “red zone” (recording over 25 daily new cases per 100,000 people).
The health department reports that 148,466 people are presumed covered as of Dec. 13.
Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:
Then-Gov. William Winter makes a presentation to football star Willie Richardson at his induction into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
Gov. William Winter, for my money, was our greatest statesman, an intrinsically good man who cared for all Mississippians and spent a lifetime trying to make his beloved Mississippi a better place to live.
I freely admit prejudice where Gov. Winter is concerned. He was my moral compass, my hero and also my treasured friend. How often does that happen? How fortunate am I? One of my most cherished gifts in life was to know William Winter well.
Rick Cleveland
We had many shared passions: of sports, of history, of literature and, most of all, of all things Mississippi. His knowledge of our state’s political and social history was vast, of course, but he also knew as much about the state’s sports history as anyone. He was a walking, talking, deep-thinking encyclopedia of Mississippi sports.
“William really is like an encyclopedia,” Archie Manning once told me. “Every time I’m around him, I am amazed. He loves sports. He has been involved, in some way, his entire life in sports. I really cherish the time I get to spend with him, such a great man and great leader.”
1949 Ole Miss annual
William Winter as a student journalist at Ole Miss.
Gov. Winter grew up wanting to be a sports writer. That’s right: The man many consider our greatest governor initially wanted to make his living writing sports. He grew up outside Grenada, reading the great Walter Stewart’s sports columns and the Major League Baseball box scores in The Commercial Appealof Memphis.
“I really wanted to be Walter Stewart,” Winter said. “He was my model. He wrote elegantly and often with slap-your-leg humor.”
Six years ago, in the fall of 2014, a national sports news organization asked me to write a historical essay about the Ole Miss-Mississippi State football series. At the time, both teams were undefeated and ranked in the top five in the national polls. It looked as if the Egg Bowl might have national championship implications. Naturally, in my research, I called Gov. Winter first — a wise decision. The truth is he could have written the piece himself, from memory, with no need for record books or Google.
I remember asking him about the 1941 Egg Bowl, still the only one ever played with the SEC Championship hanging in the balance. If State won, State won the SEC Championship. If Ole Miss won, Ole Miss won the SEC Championship. Winter, who covered the game as a student journalist at Ole Miss, remembered everything: the weather, the 6-0 score and all the meaningful plays, including State’s winning touchdown and an apparent Ole Miss touchdown that was called back when officials ruled the Rebel runner had stepped out of bounds. It had been 72 years. (Gov. Winter wasn’t so sure the Ole Miss guy stepped out of bounds but admitted he was prejudiced.)
I told Gov. Winter his memory amazed me. Said he, and I will never forget this: “Well, you have to remember it was the most important thing in my life at the time.”
On another occasion, he told me about the first college football game he ever attended: Arkansas versus Mississippi State, in Memphis in 1939. Visiting relatives in Memphis, he ventured alone to the game at old Crump Stadium, walking part of the way, riding a street car and buying a ticket outside the gate. He was 16.
“And who won?” I asked him.
“Oh, the Maroons won, nineteen to nothing,” he answered. “That was a really great State team.”
Gov. Winter was sports editor and then editor of The Mississippian, now The Daily Mississippian, the Ole Miss student newspaper. As was the case with most college students at the time, he did not own a car. He often hitchhiked to and from the games he covered.
“I hitchhiked all over the South,” Gov. Winter told me. “It was mostly Ole Miss games but I remember hitchhiking to Tuscaloosa to watch State play Alabama.”
He told me about hitching a ride on a cottonseed truck to Memphis in 1942 for an Ole Miss-Georgia game, featuring remarkable quarterbacks Charlie Conerly and Frank Sinkwich. “There was a group of us that got on that truck on Highway 6,” Winter recalled. “When we got to Memphis, we couldn’t get all the cotton lint off our clothes.”
Gov. Winter remembered the score, if ruefully: Georgia, 38-13.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Gov. William Winter with baseball great Mickey Mantle at the governors mansion. )Date uncertain.)
Gov. Winter was a huge supporter of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, both financially and otherwise. In my four-plus years as the director, I could always count on him for generous support. He greatly appreciated Mississippi’s remarkable sports history and the people who made it. Old-timers will remember that he often emceed the Hall of Fame’s annual induction banquet during the 1960s and 70s. He also chaired the selection process for years and championed the cause of including African Americans, both for induction and for being part of the committee who chooses the annual inductees.
In 2016, Gov. Winter and I rode together to Cleveland to watch one of his heroes, Boo Ferriss, present the C Spire Ferriss Trophy to then-freshman Mississippi State standout Jake Mangum. I got a history lesson going to and from. We talked about the Mangum family. He remembered big John Mangum, Jake’s grandfather, from his days as splendid defensive tackle at Southern Miss. He remembered Jake’s dad, little John, and uncle, Kris, from their days at Alabama and Ole Miss, respectively. But, mostly, he remembered Boo Ferriss ever so fondly.
In 1942, Winter covered Boo Ferriss’s last pitching performance at Mississippi State, a victory over Ole Miss in Oxford. Seventy-four years later, he talked about it as if it had happened the day before.
“I was in awe of Boo Ferriss back then; I was sure he would be a Major League star,” Winter said. “I was an Ole Miss man but a Boo Ferriss fan. I think I probably called him Mr. Ferriss when I interviewed him.”
Can you imagine? Mr. Ferriss, who would go on to win 46 games in his first two seasons a Big Leaguer and pitch a shutout in the World Series, was 20. The future governor was 19. Oh, what I’d give for a recording of that interview.
Gov. Winter and I worked out at the same gym until the pandemic. He spent most of his time on a stationary bike, one of those you pedal with both your arms and legs. He would keep that cycle going, often quite fast, for 20 or 30 minutes, sometimes longer. For someone in his mid-90s, he remained spry and fit. He and his lovely wife Elise almost always came to the gym together and usually ended their gym time with leisurely laps around the indoor track, always hand in hand. If you sneaked glances at them, as I and so many others often did, you just had to smile. Theirs was a marriage of 70 years, and they remained obviously so much in love.
Funny thing: When Gov. Winter and I visited in recent years, I usually tried to steer the conversation to politics, while he always seemed to prefer to talk about sports. One of our last conversations combined both: Mississippi’s new flag and the role sports was playing in making that happen. He beamed about that.
I am so thankful he lived long enough to see it. But then, where Gov. Winter is concerned, I am thankful for so, so much more.
Former Gov. William Winter, right, and Myrlie Evers, activist and wife of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, share a joke prior before a news conference on Thursday, June 11, 2015 in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Former Gov. William Forrest Winter, widely respected for ushering sweeping reforms of Mississippi’s public education system and for his commitment to achieving racial equality, died on Friday evening. He was 97.
“The only road out of poverty runs past the schoolhouse door,” Winter famously said as he championed the Education Reform Act of 1982, heralded at the time as the most significant state education legislation since Mississippi created its public education system in 1870.
The act brought increased school funding and a teacher pay raise, created a compulsory attendance law, a school accountability system and publicly funded kindergarten among other reforms. It was a notable break from the state leadership’s racist apathy toward public education. About a decade earlier in response to federally mandated desegregation, a majority of Mississippi voters had approved a constitutional amendment that said the Legislature could dissolve the state’s public education system.
The late nationally syndicated columnist Carl Rowan wrote: “The greatest piece of civil rights, national security, and economic recovery legislation enacted this year does not bear any of those labels and did not come out of Congress. It is the bill enacted by the Mississippi Legislature to spend $106 million to give children of that state a more reasonable chance at a decent education and lift Mississippi out of the ignominy of being the worst-educated and most backward state in the union.”
Winter is survived by his wife of 70 years, Elise Varner Winter, and three children. The former governor fell at his home in 2017 in icy conditions that led to a deterioration of his health. Before then, he continued in his 90s to go to his law office almost every day.
Winter served as Mississippi’s 58th governor from 1980 to 1984, after two previous unsuccessful gubernatorial bids. He was the state’s 25th lieutenant governor from 1972 to 1976. Winter served as state treasurer from 1964 to 1968, and as state tax collector (a now defunct position) from 1956 to 1964.
“I think William Winter should be viewed as one of the greatest Mississippians,” said former Gov. Ray Mabus, who served as a legislative liaison and legal counsel on Winter’s staff. “His name belongs up there with (slain civil rights leader) Medgar Evers and (Nobel Prize-winning author) William Faulkner because of the immense impact he had.”
Mabus said the governor showed perseverance in passing the Education Reform Act.
“The Legislature kept turning him down, and he calls a special session (on the Education Reform Act) right before Christmas and we won,” Mabus recalled.
Winter was elected to the state House of Representatives while still in law school and served there from 1948 to 1956.
Winter never wavered in his support for public education, although in the 1960s — like nearly all white Mississippi politicians — he had voiced support for segregation. He later apologized for that stance and dedicated his career to achieving racial equality. After leaving public office, he served on the National Advisory Board for Race Relations created by then-President Bill Clinton. From that effort, the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation was established at the University of Mississippi. That organization continues to operate as a nonprofit.
“He was the finest example of a Southern gentleman that I know,” U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said. “His mark was getting people of different persuasions, colors, ethnicities together and working things out. In Mississippi, he was the rarest of the rare. I can’t name another white politician that comes anywhere near his stature, Democrat or Republican. There are a lot of good politicians on both sides, but none measures up to William Winter.”
Winter was born in Grenada and was a graduate of the University of Mississippi law school. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry in the Philippines during World War II and was recalled to service during the Korean War. He served as a major in the Mississippi National Guard until 1957.
Rogelio V. Solis, AP
Former Gov. William Winter is given a standing ovation at the conclusion of a symposium on the Future of Mississippi and the South on his 90th birthday, Feb. 19, 2013 at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson.
Winter’s entrance into statewide politics began when he was appointed to the vacant post of state tax collector by then-Gov. J.P. Coleman. Coleman had urged Winter as a state representative to run for House speaker against the powerful incumbent Walter Sillers. But Coleman got cold feet and abandoned the young lawmaker’s efforts, leaving Winter in a precarious situation. The governor appointed him tax collector as consolation.
Back then the state tax collector received a percentage of state revenue including the “black market tax” on illegal liquor sales. A Life Magazine article in 1962 declared Winter was the second-highest paid elected official in the nation, behind the president. The Legislature eliminated the tax collector position upon Winter’s recommendation.
“He was a dear friend and a great governor,” said longtime educator Andy Mullins, who, along with Mabus, was one of the so-called “Boys of Spring” who served on Winter’s gubernatorial staff, advising him on education and conservation issues. “He was a man of integrity, and most of all he was kind and treated everyone with respect.”
Mullins developed a lifetime friendship with Winter, visiting every Major League ballpark together.
Mullins said Winter “loved all things America, and he loved Mississippi.” He recalled when their baseball group traveled to San Francisco for a baseball game, they came across a gay pride parade. Soon afterward, Mullins said, Winter seemed in deep concentration. Mullins asked what he thought of the parade, and Winter looked up, smiled and simply said, “Isn’t America a great country?”
Winter’s work and legacy truly transcended politics, even in bitter partisan environments. “An unapologetic Democrat,” Thompson said, he earned the respect of politicians on both sides of the aisle — a rare feat that made him successful in pushing groundbreaking legislation, many of his closest friends and advisors said.
Even today, when Winter’s name or legacy is brought up at the Mississippi State Capitol, Republicans and Democrats alike on the House and Senate floors rise to give extended standing ovations.
“Governor Winter has always represented to me a person who cared more about what was best for Mississippi and not what he thought was best for him as a politician,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez and the current House Democratic leader. “Whether it was challenging Walter Sillers for speaker, pushing for transcending changes in public education or leading the discussions for changing the flag in the face of zealous resistance, he never wavered in his commitment to what he believed was right for Mississippi. He is a role model and an inspiration.”
Republican former Gov. Haley Barbour recalled Winter as a friend, “a gentleman, honorable and gracious.”
“While our politics didn’t always coincide, I’ve always admired him,” Barbour said. “He made great changes in the structure of Mississippi’s K-12 educational system … He and Mrs. Winter, who is a delightful, gracious lady, represented our state very well, both while he was in elected office and afterwards.”
Barbour, who at the time worked for the state GOP, recalled an airplane flight to Memphis in the late 1970s when Winter asked him to sit beside him.
“He was going to meet with a political consultant, from Arkansas, if I recall correctly, about whether he should run for governor,” Barbour said. “I told him, yeah, he ought to run, it was a good time to run following (former Gov.) Cliff Finch. He ran and won. He and I laughed many a time over the years that I’d encouraged him to run and he got elected as a Democrat and all that. I think part of the joke was that here was this twenty-something year old telling the guy about to be governor that, ‘I think you should run for governor.’”
AP file photo
Former Gov. William Winter, right, and his wife Elise talk after voting in the general election in Jackson on Nov. 6, 1984.
Winter’s last foray into Mississippi politics came in 1984, when he ran unsuccessfully against incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. Since then, he stayed active practicing law in Jackson and as an ambassador for the state.
Mullins recalled campaigning with Winter for the Senate seat in 1984 and stopping at a pharmacy in southeast Mississippi. The pharmacist said he would not support Winter because he didn’t help his child get into medical school while he was serving as governor.
“Gov. Winter replied, ‘That’s just not how I operate,’ to which the pharmacist replied that he did operate that way,” Mullins said. “As Gov. Winter was walking out, he looked at me and said, ‘Put him down as doubtful.’”
Winter received numerous awards and accolades throughout his life as he continued to be a champion for public education and racial reconciliation after he left office.
Winter received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award from the National Education Association, and the National Civil Rights Museum Award, among many others. The University of Mississippi named the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation for him in 2003, and in the same year the Mississippi Department of Archives and History named its building for him.
One of Winter’s most impactful legacies in Mississippi was spearheading the effort to build the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the first publicly funded civil rights museum in America. He brought politicians of both parties to the table for those financial negotiations and was instrumental in securing public and private funds for the project.
“These museums stand at the intersection of William Winter’s greatest passions — history, education, and racial justice,” said Katie Blount, director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Generations of young people will come here to experience the stories that have shaped our state and nation.”
Barbour said that during his first term as governor, the push to build a civil rights museum hit a political impasse with some wanting it built in downtown Jackson and others wanting it built at Tougaloo College.
“It tripped us up,” Barbour said. “But Gov. Winter and (former state Supreme Court) Justice Reuben Anderson came to see me and proposed that we put not only the Civil Rights Museum but the museum of Mississippi history side-by-side up by the state Capitol. That won the day. People realized this was the best plan for the most impact and most visitation, and (Winter and Anderson) went out and worked just as hard as I did on it … I honestly believe that if it had not been for Gov. Winter and Judge Anderson, we couldn’t have gotten it over the line.”
Anderson, a close friend of Winter’s, recalled the former governor’s role in preserving and showcasing African American history of the state, even before the civil rights museum was built.
“With his encouragement, (the Department of Archives and History) strengthened its focus on African American history in Mississippi, acquiring significant collections of papers, mounting award-winning exhibits, and offering grants for the preservation of sites associated with African American history,” Anderson said. “Most notably, his close friendship with Myrlie Evers led to her decision to donate the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Collection to MDAH in 2002.”
Other living Mississippi governors offered their condolences.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of former Gov. William Winter,” current Gov. Tate Reeves said. “He truly loved this state and his country. And the people of Mississippi loved him back. He will be missed by all of us.”
“Gov. William Winter is a legend in public service,” former Gov. Phil Bryant said. “Even though we represented different parties, he has been my dear friend for many years. Our common desire to make Mississippi a better place always brought us together. He will be remembered by all who knew him for his many contributions to public education and racial reconciliation. Gov. Winter has truly earned our respect and admiration. I will be forever grateful to have known this remarkable man.”
“Governor William Winter was a student of History and a clarion voice for a better future,” former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove said. “From a call for kindergartens, more support for our public schools and a change of our flag, his voice was for a new and better Mississippi for all. We have lost a true statesman.”
