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University of Southern Mississippi and Pearl River Community College announced Wednesday a new coastal pathways scholarship that will give graduates of the two-year school a way to complete their bachelor’s degree at USM. 

The collaboration announced at USM’s Gulf Park campus in Long Beach is part of a regional initiative to boost education access and add job opportunities to the Mississippi Gulf Coast region. In May, USM held a similar event with Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. 

The partnership with the community colleges is also part of a larger effort to boost USM’s enrollment, which continues to decline with only 564 students enrolled in the Gulf Park campus last fall, according to data from the school’s Office of Institutional Research. 

“This scholarship pathway represents more than just financial support — it’s about creating opportunities for student success,” Joe Paul, president of USM, said in a press statement. “By partnering with Pearl River Community College, we’re building a direct and affordable route for students to continue their education and make meaningful contributions to our coastal communities.”

The scholarship offers $5,000 annually to qualified PRCC transfer students, according to the press release. To qualify for the coastal scholarship students must meet the following criteria: 

• Have most recently attended PRCC with enrollment since 2023
• Earned an associate degree from PRCC or have completed at least 60 credit hours with a minimum transfer cumulative GPA of 2.5
• Declared one of the following majors at Southern Miss Gulf Park: biological sciences, business administration (general business), elementary education, marine biology, marine science (hydrography), ocean engineering, organizational leadership, psychology or secondary education 

Students must also enroll in at least 15 credit hours per semester, including a minimum of nine credit hours of face-to-face instruction on the Gulf Park campus, and maintain a 2.5 GPA to remain eligible. 

“These pathways not only open doors for individual students but also have a significant economic impact on our coastal communities,” Adam Breerwood, president of PRCC, said in a statement. “By investing in education, we are cultivating a skilled workforce that can contribute to local businesses and stimulate growth in various sectors.”

For more information on the application process and eligibility, students are encouraged to visit the Gulf Park Coastal Pathways Scholarship website. 

Child care worries have been made worse this summer by federal cuts and depleting pandemic funds, and they aren’t expected to ease by the first day of school. While their kids might have gotten a rest, parents reported longer commutes and newfound stress.

A dozen parents from across the state told Mississippi Today about summer child care plans for their toddlers and elementary school-aged children. They shared a mix of anxiety about finding care and frustration with existing options.

Parents have had more reasons to be anxious about those options this summer than in previous ones. A loss of federally funded summer programming for youth, added fees for day care tuition and the loss of vouchers to subsidize tuition costs have changed the landscape of child care.

For Shequite Johnson, a professor at Mississippi Valley State University, it has meant driving 45 minutes in the opposite direction of her job for day care.

“I’ve had to leave my 13-year-old with my 4-year-old,” she said. “And you’re put in a situation where you have to make these decisions. Some are even leaving their babies at home by themselves for five hours and checking on them during lunch hour.”

She had to pull her 4-year-old boy from a day care in her hometown because of excessive fees. She was charged a $20 late fee at pickup, a $100 registration fee for each of her two boys, and a $150 supplies fee that was announced in June on top of the $135 weekly fee.

The Mississippi Department of Human Services recently announced a cutback on vouchers that subsidize child care costs. Without Johnson’s child care voucher, her nearby options were limited to a city-run program in an unsafe neighborhood and three programs in aging facilities.

Delta Health Alliance runs free and reduced summer programming for elementary-aged children. But Johnson makes more than the income cut-off.

“It’s a crisis right now in Mississippi,” said Carol Burnett, executive director of Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative. “The lack of affordable child care prevents employers from keeping their workforce. And yet the state of Mississippi wants people to go back to work.”

“Parents are having to make choices. And none of them are good,” she added.

The Child Care Initiative operates a program that connects single moms with higher-paying jobs and covers the costs of child care during the transition. The organization is also advocating for the Mississippi Department of Human Services to spend some of the $156 million in unspent Temporary Assistance for Needy Families on Mississippi’s Child Care Payment Program.

The Child Care Development Fund, which nationally supports these voucher state programs, relied on pandemic-era funding that ran out in September. The Department of Human Services asked the Legislature for $40 million to continue serving the same number of families – but received $15 million.

In April, the department put a hold on renewals for child care vouchers except for deployed military parents, parents who are TANF recipients, foster children guardians, teen parents, parents of special needs children and homeless parents. As a result, 9,000 parents lost child care assistance.

The department will keep the hold until the number of enrollees drops to 27,000 or its budget goes below $12 million in monthly costs. As of Friday, it had no further update but said it will have an announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Using TANF funds unspent from past years regardless of whether they were allocated for child care assistance is prohibited, according to federal guidance. However, the TANF state office can use the leftover funds to form a direct payment program. Ohio and Texas enacted this policy. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regional manager Eric Blanchette shared this idea with Mississippi Department of Human Services Early Childhood Director Chad Allgood, according to an email obtained as part of a records request filed by Mississippi Today into communication regarding TANF funds. As of Friday, there were no plans to enact a similar policy in Mississippi.

A second rent

Monica Ford pays nearly $1,600 in monthly child care costs for three kids. She works as a Shipt delivery driver in addition to her day job as a Magnolia Guaranty Life Insurance Co. auditor. She, her husband and their children recently had to move in with his parents.

“It’s more than I’ve paid in rent,” she said. “It’s why I live with my family now.”

She uses a Jackson day care that charges $10 per minute for late pickup. The fees must be paid by the next morning. 

Nearly all of the single mothers interviewed said they take on extra work to cover the rising costs of child care in their area. It’s extra work that sees them spending less time with their children.

Ashley Wilson’s child care voucher wasn’t renewed in the spring. She works 55 hours a week at a bingo hall and at Sonic Drive-In.

“We don’t get help. That’s what I don’t understand,” said Wilson, an Indianola parent.

Her preferred day care option in Indianola charged $185 per week and $20 late fees, which Wilson could not afford. Her sister was able to afford monthly costs because of an arrangement with an Angel – a benefactor who helps local families with tuition at day care providers.

Wilson tried other day cares in town. Several were in dangerous neighborhoods with staff that left milk bottles to spoil. Her toddler came home wet some afternoons and with cuts another. She gets help from family when she can.

Whitney Harper lost her child care voucher in April. She is lucky when a relative is willing to watch her 2-year old. Lately, she has considered hiring a sitter off care.com, a website that connects parents with local babysitters. In Jackson, where she lives, the hourly rate is $14 per hour.

Most of the day cares in the Jackson metro area charge between $150 and $250 per week, which is more than she can afford as a sales associate at Home Depot.

“It has been harder this year. They won’t work around my schedule, but I need the job,” she said of her employer.

‘This is the worst I have seen it’

Day care centers are left on the brink when families lose child care vouchers. Making up the lost revenue has meant higher tuition and fees for some centers and reaching out to private donors for others.

“These are small businesses,” Burnette said. “The big story in child care is how much it costs to run it. It requires adequate public investment.”

This week, Level Up Learning Center owner and CEO Kaysie Burton visited Greenville’s Walmart, seeking to persuade the manager to sponsor his employees’ child care tuition. She submitted two grant applications and is working on at least three others. Burton’s business survived flooding and relocation. But the latest voucher cutback could shut her banner-adorned doors to the community

At Level Up Learning Center, 75% of parents rely on child care vouchers. In the last three months, 20 Learning Center parents have lost their child care vouchers yet most have stayed. Burton has a policy of not turning parents away if they are willing to contribute a portion of the weekly rate. She has not increased her tuition or instituted punishing fees.

But making up the lost revenue can be a challenge. Since the cutback, she has let seven teachers go, or roughly a third of her staff. 

“We’re down to skin and bones right now,” Burton said. “I am willing to take anybody that is willing to come partner with us and help us help parents so that their kids can keep coming in.”

When Burton started her business during the COVID-19 pandemic, she saw the need in the Mississippi Delta for affordable, quality child care. She remains committed to helping prepare a future generation of Greenville leadership.

“We’re in the thick of it with our parents,” Burton said. “And we all just need help and we need prayer.”

SunShine Daycare owner Barbara Thompson has greeted each parent at the door since she started babysitting neighbors’ kids in her living room. The former banker has long had a passion for raising neighborhood children regardless of their parents’ status or income. She raised her seven siblings when her mother died when Thompson was 12.

But for the first time in 30 years of running a business in Greenville, Thompson is losing families by the dozen as well as longtime staff. She has leaned heavily on prayer and has reached out to state representatives for help. She fears more departures and the downsizing of her business.

In the last two months, 12 parents pulled their kids from SunShine. She will have to let three teachers go as a result. 

“We won’t have any children if this continues,” Thompson said.

She regularly informs parents of the child care voucher waitlist and of the process for renewals. Besides caring for children, Thompson advises many young parents in her community. She noticed that state agencies communicate primarily through email, which a lot of her parents don’t check regularly.

Children who leave her stoop festooned with cartoon characters can face hours alone without parental supervision. Some children will sit and watch television with their grandparents. For Thompson, child care is about raising children to be “productive citizens.” The youngest years are some of the most important, she stressed. 

“They didn’t take it from us,” Thompson said. “They took from the children. That’s the world’s future.”

Waitlisted

Vennesha Price is waitlisted at nearly every day care in Cleveland, where she lives. She’s been on some of the lists for eight months. 

“If you haven’t been a resident for five years and you haven’t navigated the waiting list for five years, it’s harder to find a spot,” she said. 

She found it difficult to both have a productive work day and watch her elementary-aged children. Eventually, she found a day care that was 40 minutes away. She wakes up an hour earlier to make the commute in time before work.

“I’m a single mother so it’s very difficult,” Price said. “After my grandmother went on to the Lord, it became a struggle trying to get to the day care in time.”

She started factoring late fees into her monthly budget. She’s also including the gas money needed for the extra legs of her commute. Her child care costs doubled for June and July.

“It’s almost like private school tuition now,” she said.

Simeon Gates contributed to this report.

Something will happen at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025 induction banquet Saturday night that may never have happened before. That is, a player and one of his coaches will be inducted, together, on the same night.

That’s right: Former Ole Miss football hero Dexter McCluster will be inducted, along with former Southern Miss football hero Derrick Nix, who was McCluster’s position coach in Oxford.

Said Nix, “When I found out I was going into the hall of fame with Dexter, I thought to myself that this can’t be anything but a God thing. … Dexter is one of my favorites. Going in with Dexter is a privilege and an honor.”

Most fans will know that Nix and McCluster are two of the most productive backs in Mississippi football history. What many might not know is that they had two of the biggest hearts. With both, you got the best they had to give every Saturday. And both had to overcome very different obstacles to become the Hall of Famers they are.

You should also know this: They are a two-man mutual admiration society. McCluster calls Nix one of “my favorite ever coaches because of the way he loved and respected the game. He coached with so much energy and passion. He was always going to put you in a position to be the best player you could be.”

Says Nix of McCluster, “He might have been a little guy, but he had a heart as big as Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.”

Nix, despite severe health issues, ran for 3,584 yards and 30 touchdowns over approximately three full seasons at Southern Miss at the turn of the century. McCluster, often the tiniest man on the field, produced 3,698 yards and 22 touchdowns running and receiving over four seasons (2006-2009) at Ole Miss.

They were two starkly different backs. At 220 sculpted pounds, Nix was a big, strapping, powerful runner who could run over you or around you. McCluster was a scatback who played much of his Rebel career at just under 160 pounds. I remember the late Carl Torbush, then the defensive coordinator at Mississippi State, talking about McCluster after the 2009 Egg Bowl: “He’s the fastest man I’ve ever seen in a football suit. There may be faster runners on a track, but I’m not sure there’s ever been a faster man in pads. If he gets a step on you he’s gone.” 

McCluster went on to play seven years in the NFL, making the Pro Bowl in 2013. Nix never got that chance, although had he been healthy, he surely would have been an NFL star.

Said Dan Rooney, a Pittsburgh Steelers personnel director and longtime executive: “Derrick Nix had it all. He reminded me a lot of Deuce McAllister. He had a gliding style, but he also had great running ability. He could break tackles with power, but he also had good enough feet that he could be elusive in open space. And once he broke loose, he could finish a run. He was a can’t-miss prospect, the kind any NFL team would love to have.”

Nix, one of the most highly recruited players in USM history, surpassed 1,000 yards rushing in both his freshmen and sophomore seasons before severe kidney problems stopped him as a junior in 2000. With Nix, USM won five of its first six games, losing only a 19-17 heartbreaker to Tennessee and beating both Alabama and Oklahoma State by three touchdowns. Without Nix, the Golden Eagles lost three of their last five.

But then, after sitting out the entire 2001 season, Nix came back to rush for 1,194 yards as a senior, including a 202-yard effort against defending Big 10 champion Illinois. In that one, he ran for a 50-yard touchdown and then collapsed in the end zone, throwing up from exhaustion. Turns out, he had been playing with about 10% of his normal kidney function. Nix received a kidney transplant from an older brother shortly after that season and remains healthy and robust at 45. He just never could play football again.

“Sometimes, I wonder what would I could have done if I had remained healthy,” said Nix, now the offensive coordinator at Auburn after 16 years in Oxford. “You can’t help but wonder, but I can’t complain about the way things turned out.”

This will tell you something about Nix: McCluster never knew that about his coach until interviewed for this piece.

“I knew he had been a great player but he never talked about it,” McCluster said. “I never knew about the kidneys, the illness and all that, but that just shows how much he loves football and how much the game meant to him. I do know that much. I knew that the first time I met with him.”

McCluster now lives in Brentwood, Tennessee, where he works as a personal trainer and part-time high school football coach. “My real job is I’m a girl dad. We have five beautiful daughters,” McCluster says.

Nix is a girl dad himself with one daughter he dotes on.

Both men call this Saturday’s induction a career highlight, made all the more special because they will experience it together.

Derrick Nix played much of his college football career, hindered by a life-threatening kidney problem that sapped his strength and ended his playing career prematurely. Dexter McCluster spent much of his career with coaches and talent evaluators telling him he was too small. Eventually, Nix became McCluster’s coach at Ole Miss. Saturday night, they go into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame together.

Stream all episodes here.

A panel of House Republicans on Monday night chose New York Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

Reps. Michael Guest of Mississippi, Clay Higgins of Louisiana and Carlos Gimenez of Florida were in the running for the top Homeland Security spot.

Guest will continue to lead the House Ethics Committee and the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement. 

“I am looking forward to working with Chairman Garbarino to continue to secure our border and advance President Trump’s America First Agenda,” Guest told Mississippi Today in a statement. 

Guest, who has represented Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District since 2019, previously said that if the homeland security panel had selected him as the new chair, he would have worked closely with Trump and that had unique experience to lead the committee. 

Before joining Congress, Guest was the elected district attorney in Madison and Rankin counties. 

Technology trade group NetChoice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court stop Mississippi from enforcing a law that requires age verification for users of social media.

The group filed an emergency application Monday, days after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Mississippi law could take effect. While NetChoice has sued other states over age-verification laws, the Mississippi case is the first to reach the nation’s high court.

NetChoice argues that Mississippi’s law violates privacy and constitutionally protected speech, while state officials who support the law say it aims to protect children from harm online.

“Social media is the modern printing press — it allows all Americans to share their thoughts and perspectives,” Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said in a press release Monday. “And, until now, Mississippians could do the same free from government interference.” 

In April 2024, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act, which unanimously passed the Legislature and was named for a teenager who took his own life after sextortion online.

The law says  a minor must have permission of a parent or guardian to have a social media account and requires digital service providers to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify users’ ages. It also says social media companies could not collect, sell or share minors’ personal information and tech companies must have strategies to prevent minors from accessing “harmful material.”

NetChoice members include Google, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and X. The group sued Mississippi in June 2024 to try to prevent the law from taking effect, arguing that families, not the state, should determine how children interact with social media. 

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in July 2024 to prevent Mississippi’s law from taking effect. Last week, the New Orleans-based appeals court granted the state’s request to lift that injunction.

In papers filed with the appeals court, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, argued that the law “imposes modest duties on the interactive online platforms that are especially attractive to predators.”

Editor’s note: This Mississippi Today Ideas essay is published as part of our Brain Drain project, which seeks answers to Mississippi’s brain drain problem. To read more about the project, click here.

When I think about my relationship to Mississippi, the first thing that comes to mind is a song by the Chicago rapper, Chance the Rapper, called “Together.” 

If you keep the house in the family, you can keep the family in the house

If you on the run, you got family in the South

Chance’s lyrics go on to pay tribute to the women who, week after week, cooked for big family gatherings while he was a child, playing blissfully with his cousins until the meal was ready. The chorus brings his feelings into sharper focus: he’s reflecting because his family doesn’t gather the way they once did, and he longs for those old times. He repeats this wish, line after line in the chorus, urging his loved ones to “get together” more — not just for holidays, but simply to share presence, love and support.

The home that stands out in my memory is my maternal grandparents’ house in Vicksburg. Nearly every Sunday of my first 18 years was spent there with my cousins — more than 30 of us on just that side of the family — alongside my 12 aunts and uncles, and whoever else happened to drop by.

After church, we all came over ready to eat. The main course normally featured chicken fried or baked, but it wasn’t a shock to have some coon or possum either. Classic side dishes included rice and gravy, macaroni and cheese, black-eyed peas, collard greens and corn bread — sometimes rolls if my grandma had the time and energy to make some from scratch. We topped it all off with desserts that people barely eat anymore — jelly cake and tea cakes — and we’d watch whatever football or basketball game was on, depending on the time of year, joke and laugh about whatever happened last week and share our hopes for the next ones. 

I didn’t realize how spoiled I was back then. It was so much love I could bathe in it. Hugs from everybody, Grandma telling me to eat more, and aunts and uncles celebrating me for making good grades — all a boy could ask for. 

When I left for Mississippi State University at age 18, I never imagined I might never live in the state again upon graduation in 2014. Now, after more than a decade away, that possibility feels surprisingly real. When I started college as a wide-eyed freshman in 2010, I had no idea what direction my future might take.

During my first semester, I still dreamed of becoming a sports journalist — maybe even working for ESPN sounded appealing — but, truthfully, I had little sense of what I would actually do after graduation. Most of my family remained rooted in Mississippi, and I always assumed I would do the same.

But during college, I fell in love with literature and became remarkably disciplined. I earned almost all A’s, received recognition for a few essays and landed some reputable summer fellowships at Stanford and the University of Iowa. Before long, the Honors College noticed my efforts and encouraged me to apply for the most renowned international fellowship in the world, the Rhodes Scholarship.

I didn’t know what it was at the time, but they told me presidents and prime ministers, game changing lawyers and doctors, world-class writers and famous national news anchors had all won it in the past. If I happened to get it, an entirely new world of possibilities would open up before me.

Miraculously, I was awarded the scholarship. The only condition was that I would have to move to England and study at the University of Oxford, with all expenses covered by the Rhodes.

After graduating from MSU in 2014 and leaving for Oxford, England, I eventually found my way to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I began a PhD at Harvard in 2016. It was there that I met my wife, and, as they say, the rest is history. Since that time, I haven’t returned to live in Mississippi. The Boston area has been my home for nearly a decade.

It wasn’t a deliberate choice to not return, but I’ve grown accustomed to a different way of living. While New Yorkers may shrug at Boston’s dining and cultural offerings, to someone who grew up in rural Mississippi, the abundance feels limitless. Sadly, I don’t throw down on collard greens and ham hocks as often as I once did, but whenever I crave a taste of home, I can always head to Roxbury for some Slade’s. 

If I choose, I can join my wife at a Beyoncé concert at Gillette Stadium, though, I prefer to just let her go with friends or plan a night out with my friends to watch the Celtics, or catch live concerts from artists I love, like Bryson Tiller or Rylo Rodriguez, who frequently perform in the city. At least three days a week, I run along the Charles River Esplanade. After, I normally grab a quick, healthy meal at one of my two staples Sweetgreen or DIG — two options that simply don’t exist back in Mississippi. 

As much as it pains me to admit, I’ve embraced this urban yuppy lifestyle and I like it. Mississippi just doesn’t offer the same experiences I’ve come to take for granted, and I’m reminded of that every time I return home for a visit.

Yet, I can’t say with certainty that I’ll never return. After all, at Harvard, I wrote a 500-page dissertation critiquing Isabel Wilkerson, who argues in The Warmth of Other Suns that Black Southerners who left Mississippi and other Southern states were the most ambitious of the Black South—and that they ultimately found better lives elsewhere. Leaving, people like her and others suggest, requires special determination and courage. 

But leaving, in and of itself, requires no more determination and ambition than staying. One of my favorite musicians, David Banner—himself a Jackson native—opens his 2003 album, Mississippi: The Album, by suggesting that those who depart the state might be avoiding the real, difficult work of making a difference when things get hard.

According to Banner, calling what Black Mississippians, in particular, did when they departed Mississippi during Jim Crow times simply “leaving” or “migrating” is generous and not neutral. According to Banner, they were “running away scared” while others stayed, fought and died for civil rights. 

And maybe I am running away from the real work, too. Consider another Rhodes Scholar from Mississippi, state Auditor Shad White. After degrees from the University of Oxford and Harvard, he returned to Mississippi.

In 2023, he authored a study, Plugging the Brain Drain: Investing in College Majors that Actually Work, proposing that Mississippi taxpayer dollars should not fund degree programs in African American Studies, among others, because they often result in graduates seeking opportunities outside the state for work.

In a particularly controversial Sept. 15 post of the same year, he declared that “degrees in garbage fields” are “bad for the economy,” insisting they “offer no real skills.” He took aim at universities who love their “cheap professors who specialize in sexual identity or urban stand-up comedy.” His parting shot: “By all means, go take that Latinx Environmental Justice class in Urban Studies. Just don’t ask taxpayers to pay for it.”

One can love or hate Shad White — and many Mississippians do either love or hate Shad White because he takes strong stances — but all can agree he isn’t running away scared. Instead, he’s actively shaping an environment where people like me, who have taught courses in African American Studies and other subjects he deems “garbage fields” at institutions like Harvard and Brown, don’t feel welcome back home. In my opinion, from the outside looking in, it seems to be exactly what he wants and is another reason I am less likely to return.

But it’s also the best reason to return. From my vantage point, there is urgent work to be done. My grandaddy — a preacher and civil rights leader in the 1960s — spent his life pushing Mississippi to recognize its Black citizens as full Americans, fighting for the right to vote and the right to see themselves reflected with dignity in classrooms and curricula. He never faltered, not even in the face of bomb threats. My grandad remains one of the most courageous and ambitious people I’ve ever known — and he didn’t leave Mississippi for the North. 

I should be doing more to create a better future for children living in Mississippi now — so when the next generation of Mississippi’s children attend schools like MSU or Alcorn they won’t have to depend on private donors just to study subjects I believe are vital to a college education.

Someone who is doing the real work is a cousin of mine, TJ Mayfield, who serves as an alderman in Vicksburg and is like a brother to me. We text all the time, and I feel like I’m still plugged in to the city through him. He’s launched some promising programs and initiatives recently to provide more jobs, more educational opportunities, and more role models of what success in Vicksburg — not elsewhere — looks like. 

He didn’t run away scared. In fact, he never left. He went to Alcorn for college and then returned as a teacher in the public high schools and then became alderman. 

In the summer of 2022, he came to visit me in Boston, just a month after I’d graduated from my PhD program. I took him to see the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — one of the city’s most celebrated arts museums, and we caught a Red Sox Game, too. 

But most memorably, we went to Game 6 of the NBA finals together, with Golden State holding a 3-2 lead over the Boston Celtics. That was the classic game where Steph Curry finally got the monkey off his back and secured his first and only Finals MVP. The energy in the arena was electric, but it was bittersweet for Boston fans (I don’t consider myself one). We watched as Steph Curry hit clutch three after clutch three, lifting Golden State whenever they needed it most, and ultimately celebrated his championship right there on Boston’s home court.

TJ and I stayed for the ceremony and reminisced on old times back in Mississippi. We used to watch the finals together at grandma’s house. Who would’ve thought — back then — that we would now be watching it live in person?

The next day, we went out for Thai food and Jamaican food, walked down Boylston and Newbury streets, through Beacon Hill, and crossed the Longfellow Bridge with the Charles River gleaming beneath us. It reminded us of home, growing up along the banks of the Mississippi River. 

And if every other detail of that week should fade from memory, I will always remember us striding across that bridge, the city at our feet, when he stopped, looked at the skyline, and said, “Man, I get it now. I see why you like Boston. I see why you been up here for so long.” 

I don’t know what I said in response—something casual like, “Yeah, man, it’s nice up here.” But I know what I should have said. 

I should have said that, despite all of the accolades, I wish I was more like him because he’s home fighting for the people I care about most: folks back in Vicksburg, a majority-Black, working-class town that, like many American towns, has fallen on hard times. He’s the one following in our grandaddy’s tradition, and he’s the one that’s still a 10-minute drive from grandma’s house.

Though many of us have left, and Grandma and Grandaddy are both gone — the house is still in the family, and the house is where the love is as abundant as the greens and cornbread and everyone knows our name.

Donald Kizza-Brown was born and raised in Vicksburg. After graduating from Mississippi State University, he pursued graduate studies abroad in Oxford, England, and later in Boston. Currently, he holds a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, where he is working on a biography of the renowned Mississippi author Richard Wright. 

A card that pays for classroom supplies for Mississippi teachers is activated too late to be useful, a new report from the auditor’s office says. 

The Education Enhancement Fund, or EEF, procurement card program, which was established in 2012, gives every teacher $748 — over $27 million in total across the state — to buy supplies for their classrooms. But because the cards aren’t activated until August 1, $17.8 million of that money is locked when “teachers need it most,” the report concludes. 

According to State Auditor Shad White’s office, three out of four classrooms will have already started school this year before teachers have access to the cards. That means teachers will have to dip into their own pockets to purchase the supplies or start the year without supplies they need. 

“The ‘Mississippi Miracle’ in public education is a national success story, but sustaining that momentum requires classrooms to be equipped from the first day of class,” the report reads. “Activating cards by July 15th each year would eliminate this burden, put public dollars to work as intended, and ensure students walk into classrooms ready to learn.”

However, the state education department says it typically releases funds in July — information that agency officials say the auditor’s office omitted in its report. 

Because the state changed vendors and new cards had to be issued, fiscal years 2025 and 2026 were exceptions, according to the education department. In fiscal year 2027, it will be possible to activate the cards anytime after July 1. 

“It is always MDE’s intention to provide teachers with all available resources as expeditiously as possible,” a statement from the agency reads. 

The August 1 activation date is sooner than in years past. For 10 years, the Mississippi Department of Education activated the cards by September 1. In 2022, legislation changed the cards’ activation date to help teachers access the money earlier. 

“We’re glad that MDE is making the needed change of activating EEF cards before the school year starts in coming years,” White said in an emailed statement. “This will help ensure that teachers don’t have to go out-of-pocket for classroom supplies and have the classroom ready to help students succeed.”

No action has taken place on a state-funded project to upgrade an already relatively well-paved northeast Jackson cul-de-sac that runs by a house owned by a Mississippi lawmaker, though officials overseeing the project say they still plan on completing the task. 

Rebekah Staples, the chair of the Capitol Complex Improvement District’s Project Advisory Committee, told Mississippi Today after the group’s meeting on Thursday that the project to repave the road will eventually move forward, even though not much progress has been made on it. 

READ MORE: ‘Trey Way’: Millions in taxpayer funds flow to powerful lawmaker’s country club and Jackson neighborhoods

“This is a project in which the Legislature has provided funding, and we intend to follow the law,” Staples said. 

A 2024 Mississippi Today investigation revealed that House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia, helped steer $400,000 in state taxpayer funds to repave Simwood Place in Jackson, where he owns a house.

Simwood Place, located in the relatively affluent LoHo neighborhood of northeast Jackson, is roughly one-tenth of a mile long, with only 14 single-family homes.

State lawmakers and the Jackson City Council member who previously represented the area told Mississippi Today they did not ask state leaders to allocate money for the Simwood Place project. 

Lamar did not return a request for comment and has previously declined to answer specific questions about the Simwood project.

A spreadsheet detailing the status of various CCID projects showed the Simwood project was still in the preplanning phase, and the comment on the project status simply said, “N/A,” meaning not applicable. 

A spending bill passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves routed several projects through the CCID committee. The advisory committee is housed in the Department of Finance and Administration.

DFA is the primary agency responsible for state government financial and administrative operations, including employee payroll, employee insurance and maintaining state buildings. However, the Legislature has also tasked the agency with overseeing some operations of the CCID.

The peak time for asphalt projects in Mississippi typically runs from late spring to early fall. The Legislature in 2024 routed five projects, including the Simwood project, through the CCID committee.  

It’s been one year since lawmakers appropriated the money for these projects, and most of them have either been completed or are ongoing, except for the Simwood project and infrastructure improvements to Jackson State University. 

For the JSU project, the spreadsheet says the organization is waiting on an update from the university, while there’s virtually no update or comments on the Simwood project. 

Liz Welch, the DFA director, told Mississippi Today that the agency is still planning on completing the Simwood project, but the organization has other infrastructure priorities that it’s currently tackling. 

Editor’s note: This article contains a photo that some readers may find disturbing.

On an August afternoon in 2023, three inmates at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility evaded the notice of guards and slipped away from their housing unit. 

They weren’t plotting to escape the Rankin County prison. Instead, they were on a rescue mission. On their shoulders, they carried a man whose legs seemed to be rotting from the inside out, his flesh cracking like leather left to shrivel in the sun. 

The prisoners decided to take matters into their own hands. They headed for the office of corrections officials to find help and, without a guard stationed on the facility’s watchtower, made their way across the grounds. 

When they reached the outside of a multipurpose building, they spotted Stephanie Nowlin and shouted her name. 

“Think of it like a scarecrow, almost,” Nowlin said, recounting the episode in an interview with Mississippi Today. “It’s how they were carrying him, one on either side, and his arms were just off their shoulders.”  

The image embedded itself in Nowlin’s mind, but it was only one moment among many that charted her course from high-ranking prison official to public critic of the system she once served.

Behind Bars, Beyond Care:

A Mississippi Today investigation into suffering, secrecy and the business of prison health care

Read the series

For almost two years, Nowlin was one of Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain’s top lieutenants. Cain hired Nowlin after she had served time in prison herself and made her his government affairs coordinator. The pair developed such a close bond that she came to view him like a grandfather. Now, she is speaking out about what she said is widespread medical neglect and mismanagement inside the agency and its facilities. 

Nowlin provided Mississippi Today with internal messages between current and former department officials showing officials criticizing VitalCore Health Strategies, the company contracted to provide medical care to Mississippi prisoners. The messages show that in private, officials lamented the quality of VitalCore’s health care services even as the company raked in hundreds of millions in public dollars — a money pot that has been growing larger for years.

Nowlin came forward after Mississippi Today reported on the House Corrections chairwoman’s allegations that MDOC is running a financial deficit for its medical program at the same time sick prisoners languish without proper care. 

In response to Mississippi Today’s questions for that article, MDOC spokesperson Kate Head said the conditions inside Mississippi prisons exceed “constitutional standards” and denied any allegation that inmates receive care below such standards. 

The statement compelled Nowlin to reveal what she said she and other prison officials have seen — neglect and mismanagement that contradicts MDOC’s claims that it provides inmates with proper medical care. 

“It affected me tremendously. I could not sleep,” Nowlin said of the statement. “There are just so many things that are wrong with that.”

In a statement, Head did not respond to a detailed list of questions about the specific episode Nowlin mentioned, the internal communications obtained by Mississippi Today or the department’s provision of health care. 

READ MORE: Behind Bars, Beyond Care: A Mississippi Today investigation

“The Mississippi Department of Corrections is restricted by federal law from disclosing or commenting on the medical condition and/or treatment of the inmate population,” Head wrote.

A VitalCore spokesperson did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment. The company has previously said it provides “comprehensive and competent” health care services to Mississippi inmates.

Nowlin has filed state and federal lawsuits against MDOC related to a personal matter involving her former parole officer — a matter that predated her work at the department. 

In interviews, Nowlin pointed to systemic problems, such as a backlogged and dysfunctional system for getting inmates critical medical services and assigning them to housing units. 

The result, Nowlin said, is that sick inmates get lost in the correctional system — behind bars, beyond care. 

“There are major damages being done. Not just to tax dollars but to real humans. People just like me who made mistakes and who shouldn’t suffer at the hands of egos, politics, laziness, hypocrites and more,” Nowlin said. “I’m ashamed of this system.”

From prisoner to prison official

Nowlin had first been inside the walls of the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility as a prisoner. She was incarcerated between January 2017 and July 2019 for aggravated DUI and served part of her sentence at CMCF. 

After her release, Nowlin worked as an events director for a hotel. Outside of work, she attended church services and began sharing her perspective as a former inmate on how the state could better rehabilitate the people inside its prisons. One woman she met at church was a friend of Cain and, following a recommendation, Nowlin got in touch with him. 

The two spoke for hours over the phone, and following an in-person meeting, Cain invited her to accompany him on a trip to the Angola State Prison in Louisiana, where he had been the warden. The pair attended Angola’s prison rodeo, a program Cain created that attracted national attention for the spectacle of events like bull riding and “convict poker.” 

Cain touted the rodeo as a way to generate revenue for prisons and drive “moral rehabilitation” among inmates – an approach that often saw Cain push to incorporate religious teachings into prison programs. 

Nowlin said she was hesitant to work in a system whose shortcomings she experienced firsthand, but Nowlin was swayed by the affection with which Cain interacted with inmates: “When I saw it firsthand, you see these people in the striped jumpsuits like I was and the way he treated these humans, I can’t even put it into words. I wanted to be a part of that.”

In the fall of 2022, she accepted a job as MDOC’s government affairs coordinator, a position that tasked her with supporting the agency’s interests at the Capitol and working onsite at prisons to develop reforms.      

“Five years ago I was on much different grounds with MDOC. I am here to tell you, do not give up or lose hope,” Nowlin wrote in a Facebook post announcing her new job. “I’m so honored to be a part of Mr. Burl Cain’s team. Seeing the way these men respect him and what he has done for the forgotten inspired me more than I honestly think I have ever seen. I’m thankful and ready for the opportunity that I have been blessed with.”  

Nowlin began working to alleviate what she said was a lengthy backlog for reclassification, the processes for updating an inmate’s custody level throughout their incarceration. Reclassification is supposed to ensure inmates are placed in the least restrictive environment possible while maintaining prison security. But Nowlin said MDOC didn’t employ enough case workers, and inmates would frequently get stuck in restrictive housing assignments for far longer than necessary.  

That is what made CMCF a central focus of her work, and it is what brought her to the prison on Aug. 17, 2023. 

‘He’s fine and noncompliant’

Nowlin said she had been tapped as a potential replacement for Cathy Fontenot, who worked as a consultant for MDOC, focusing in part on inmate classification and reclassification. 

Fontenot previously worked under Cain at Angola as an assistant warden, and for a time handled public relations. Some credit Fontenot with helping to cultivate “the legend of Cain,” a narrative which casts Cain as a near-miracle worker who curbed the violence at what had been one of the South’s bloodiest prisons.

Fontenot is among a cohort of allies who followed Cain to MDOC after he resigned from his post at Angola in 2015 following allegations that he misused public funds. Cain denied wrongdoing and was never charged with a crime. 

Nowlin began working with a team of case workers to help manage the department’s backlogged inmate reclassification system — a task she found intractable. 

On that August day in 2023, Nowlin had been trudging through inmate reclassifications when she stepped outside to take a call. That is when, to her horror, she encountered the inmates carrying the man whose leg flesh appeared to be rotting. Mississippi Today is declining to publish the man’s name to protect his medical privacy. 

The man’s fellow inmates carried him from “quickbed” — a unit for newly arrived inmates undergoing initial classification. It is comprised of inmate “zones” where inmates sleep on bunk beds in dormitory-style housing. 

After seeing the man’s legs, Nowlin took photos and she called John Hunt, then the superintendent of CMCF, who has since become the corrections department’s deputy commissioner of institutions. 

Hunt arrived, and he and Nowlin transported the sick inmate to the prison infirmary on a golf cart. 

Once at the infirmary, Nowlin said, nurses declared the man “noncompliant” because he allegedly had not been taking his diabetes medication. The next day, Nowlin went to check on him and saw that medical staff had rubbed some sort of ointment on his leg and sent him back to his zone. 

“That’s all they did,” Nowlin said. “They didn’t send him to the hospital. They didn’t do anything other than that.”

Nowlin also texted the photos to Jay Mallet, then MDOC’s deputy commissioner of institutions.  Mallet, after seeing the man’s legs, said prison medical staff frequently declare sick prisoners “noncompliant” and send them back to their cells. 

A transcript of texts about the inmate reads:

Mallet: Wait is that real

Mallet: What is that and how long has it been like that

Nowlin: Yes Jay! It’s his legs

Nowlin: I don’t know how long it’s been like that. The nurses keep trying to say he’s noncompliant with his meds, etc. they were going to just send him back. Hunt and I just drove him over on a cart and are having quickbed nurses clean him up. I don’t have any authority to ask any other questions but it’s so fking bad

Mallet: That is what medical does a lot of

Over the next few days, the pair engaged in another text exchange about the incident where Mallet, who was a member of MDOC’s executive leadership and one of the highest-ranking officials in the department, said VitalCore, which he referred to as VC, “sucks” – a statement he made the same year the state agreed to pay VitalCore about $100 million in taxpayer funds. 

Nowlin: I honestly have no idea if they even cleaned up his legs

Mallet: VC sucks 

Mallet also criticized medical staff for allegedly saying the man’s dire condition was partially due to his diet.

Mallet: What is medical saying

Nowlin: Pshhhh he’s fine and noncompliant … Bc he won’t eat right, like are you fking kidding me…

Mallet: What the hell is eating other than what’s served

Nowlin: Exactly. The main clinic was just about to send him back. Jay he couldn’t hold his eyes open

When discussing the man’s condition when he had allegedly fallen into a coma, Mallet also seemed to suggest people would lose their jobs.

Mallet: How is he

Nowlin: Still in quickbed and was in a coma on the bed

Mallet: Damn everybody gonna get run off smh

Mallet: Let me polish off this resume

Mallet did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Nowlin was not able to confirm what happened to the inmate. Prison records do not show a man who meets his description as currently incarcerated, and parole records don’t show someone with his name as having been released over the past two years. 

In interviews, Nowlin said the episode was not a gruesome exception to the routine process for evaluating and treating sick inmates in Mississippi’s prisons, but emblematic of a systemic problem.

The backlog

The sprawling CMCF was built on 171 acres in Pearl in Rankin County. It can house a little over 4,100 offenders, according to the corrections department. The prison is the first stop for people sentenced to serve time in Mississippi, and as such, conducts initial orientation and classification.

Inmates are classified and assigned to facilities based on a variety of factors, including “level of care designations,” which refer to their health care needs. MDOC says inmates are placed based on their needs and the space and security needs of the department, but the department doesn’t follow its own policies, Nowlin said.

Inmates are supposed to get reclassified on a continuing basis in order to evaluate their condition and behavior, but there aren’t enough case managers to stay on top of the process. As a result, inmates often get stuck in restrictive housing or in facilities that can’t accommodate their health care needs, Nowlin said.  

As the classification backlog grew and the medical ailments of many inmates went untreated, VitalCore failed to keep its promises to expand prison health care services, text messages obtained by Mississippi Today allege.

Hunt, the current deputy commissioner of institutions, texted Nowlin that he was concerned about the care VitalCore was providing and said they promised to build a medical clinic in one of the prison buildings at CMCF, but never did. 

“I’m worried about the medical back there too,” Hunt wrote. “VitalCore said they were going to put a small clinic in the hallway of A Building. They came and looked at the room and we cleaned it out for them, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.”

In the next fiscal year, Mississippi is set to spend over $121 million on prison medical services, a number that has been climbing for years. Republican Rep. Becky Currie, the House Corrections chairwoman responsible for conducting oversight of MDOC’s budget, said there is little evidence that the money is being spent on providing quality care. 

VitalCore officials “do nothing but pull these fat salaries from the contract and do absolutely nothing for the inmates,” Nowlin said. 

More than one person at the top

Nowlin left MDOC in May of 2024 and now works as a legal administrative assistant at a law firm. 

Cain, who plucked her from obscurity and elevated her to a powerful position helping to manage the system under which she was once jailed, is overseeing some problems that predated his tenure, Nowlin believes. The problems, she added, are system-wide. 

“He disappointed me tremendously, but I think he wanted to clear his name from Angola and come over here,” she said.

“The way that this system is set up in the state of Mississippi, when you’ve got 20,000 inmates spread out all around, all of this corruption. It’s almost set up for anyone to fail, unless these legislators, along with many others, wake up and get on board and realize that it’s more than just one person at the top.”

One legislator, Currie, embarked on several tours inside Mississippi’s prisons. Once inside the grounds of these facilities, the lawmaker says she witnessed widespread suffering — suffering she believes is preventable.

Currie said she saw Hepatitis C and HIV patients denied lifesaving medication. She saw diabetics go untreated and cancer patients dying from lack of care. These are human costs, she said, of a state prison system where silence and secrecy conceal suffering: “It’s a kingdom, and they do not want you looking in.”