News One » Mississippi

Governor Pardons Murderers Who Worked In His Mansion

Associated Press — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:48:17 +0000

AJACKSON-Outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has pardoned at least four convicted killers who worked as inmate trusties at the Governor’s Mansion, including a man who was denied parole less than two weeks ago.

Relatives of three victims told The Associated Press on Monday that state corrections officials notified them over the weekend that the men convicted in the crimes were to be released this past Sunday.

Barbour’s office hasn’t responded to numerous messages. Barbour, a Republican, leaves office on Tuesday.

Copies of the pardons filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office were released Monday. They show he has pardoned at least five men, the convicted killers and a man serving life for robbery.

The inmates are David Gatlin, convicted of killing his estranged wife in 1993; Joseph Ozment, convicted in 1994 of killing a man during a robbery; Anthony McCray, convicted in 2001 of killing his wife; Charles Hooker, sentenced to life in 1992 for murder; and Nathan Kern, sentenced to life in 1982 for burglary after at least two prior convictions.

The pardons outraged victims’ relatives as well as Democratic lawmakers, who called for an end to the custom of governors’ issuing such end-of-tenure pardons.

“Serving your sentence at the Governor’s Mansion where you pour liquor, cook and clean should not earn a pardon for murder,” Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, a Democrat, posted Monday on his Facebook page.

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Democrats Score Big Victories In Ohio And Mississippi

NewsOne Staff — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:54:07 +0000

Democrats scored a host of victories in key states during Tuesday’s balloting, as the party looks toward the 2012 elections.

In Ohio, an important swing state, voters rejected the law enacted by Gov. John Kasich and the Republican-controlled legislature that limited the ability of public-employee unions to collectively bargain.

In Mississippi, abortion rights advocates defeated a proposed initiative that would define the word “person” to include every human being “from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”

Before you start celebrating, Ohio voters also rebuffed Obama’s health care law. Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure saying that no federal, state or local law or rule could compel any person or employer to participate in a health care system.

Johnny DuPree Loses Historic Mississippi Governor Race

NewsOne Staff — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:00:05 +0000

Johnny Dupree, the mayor of Hattiesburg, Miss. and first African American candidate selected to run for Governor in the state, lost on Tuesday in the state’s Gubernatorial election.

Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant won in a landslide victory with nearly 60 percent percent of the vote.

“I know what I am, and people see what my race is. What I’m talking about is the ability for anybody to run for any office in this state they want to even if they don’t have a significant amount of money, that’s supposed to be a red state instead of a blue state or blue state instead of a red state, but they have the opportunity to give the people a voice.”

Win Or Lose, DuPree Makes History In Mississippi Gov. Race

NewsOne Staff — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:11:01 +0000

Though it’s a longshot, the state of Mississippi has a chance today to elect its first Black governor in Johnny DuPree.

DuPree is the first African American to win a major party nomination for governor in the Dixie state. He is also the mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Despite the historic nature of this race, DuPree is not focusing on race. He is running a low-key campaign across the state, trying to increase his name recognition.

“The focus of my campaign is to try and move Mississippi in another direction,” DuPree said. “Mississippi [for] far too long has been a state that’s been categorized by the negative.”

DuPree served on the school board, was a county commissioner and has his own real estate company. He has been mayor of Hattiesburg — a college town and the state’s third-largest city — for 10 years. He says he turned the city around, attracting 1,000 new jobs last year alone. DuPree says jobs, health care and education are the key issues in this election.

Cops Say They Found $7 Million Worth Of Weed In Tractor-Trailer

Associated Press — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:28:35 +0000

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BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. — Mississippi Department of Transportation law enforcement officers say a tractor-trailer they stopped this week was hauling about $7 million worth of marijuana.

The Sun Herald reports the MDOT announced Thursday they stopped the 2005 Peterbuilt tractor and van trailer Tuesday morning at the Interstate 10 inspection station in southern Mississippi for a routine weight, safety and paperwork check. Officers found 126 plastic wrapped, 55-pound bundles of marijuana that together weighed about 7,000 pounds.

MDOT officials say they, along with officers of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, are investigating where the marijuana came from and where it was going.

Charges against the driver were pending.

Family Of Hate Crime Victim Opposes Death Penalty

NewsOne Staff — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:07:01 +0000

The family of an African-American man who died after being allegedly beaten by a group of white teens and run over by a truck is asking state and federal officials not to seek the death penalty in the case.

The family of James Craig Anderson asked the prosecutor to not impose the death penalty because it goes against their religious beliefs.

In a letter to the prosecutor, they explain that they would like to end capital punishment, which they say, has been historically used in Mississippi to execute African-American criminals disproportionately.

“We also oppose the death penalty because it historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites,” the letter states. “Executing James’ killers will not help to balance the scales. But sparing them may help to spark a dialogue that one day will lead to the elimination of capital punishment.”

Family Of Alleged Mississippi Hate Killing Victim Files Suit

Associated Press — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:54:57 +0000

JACKSON, Mississippi — The family of a black man who authorities say was run over by a white teenager in a truck is suing over the alleged hate crime.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Mississippi accuses seven white teenagers of setting out on June 26 in search of a black man to harass.

A defendant in the lawsuit, Deryl Dedmon, is charged with capital murder and robbery in the death of 49-year-old James Craig Anderson.

Authorities say Dedmon intentionally ran over Anderson with a pickup truck in Jackson on June 26.

Dedmon was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Tuesday on the criminal charges.

Another defendant in the lawsuit, John Aaron Rice, is charged with assault.

Their attorneys say they were not involved in a racially-motivated attack.

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Mississippi: The Blackest, Most Conservative State?!

The Grio — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:41:00 +0000

Mississippi has the highest percentage of African Americans in the country and boasts the highest number of elected Black officials, but it is also highly segregated and rather committed to its long history of racial divisions between its Black and white citizens.

The recent victory by Hattiesburg’s Miss. Mayor Johnny DuPree, who won the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor and could become the first Black politician elected to a statewide office since Reconstruction, illustrates a state that despite its people of color, continues to be quite conservative.

The Grio reports:

Racial districting, brought on by the Voting Rights Act, has guaranteed minority representation in the form of majority-black districts in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South. However, the unintended result has been racial polarization, with increasingly white conservative districts surrounding these black districts…

The unequal treatment of blacks and whites in Mississippi extends to the criminal justice system. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that black children in the Magnolia State are incarcerated at twice the rate of white children, usually for low-level nonviolent offenses.

FBI Investigates Racist Killing Of Black Miss. Man ‎

Associated Press — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:49:11 +0000

The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the death of a black man who Mississippi authorities say was intentionally run down by a white teenager in a pickup truck.

Deborah Madden, an FBI spokeswoman in Mississippi, said Wednesday that the bureau is investigating the June 26 death of James Craig Anderson. Madden said the agency wants to “determine whether federal civil rights crimes occurred.”

Anderson’s death flamed anger across the country when a surveillance video was made public of him being run over near a hotel in Jackson. Mississippi was the scene of some of the most shocking violence of the civil rights era.

Deryl Dedmon, who authorities say was driving the green 1998 Ford F-250, is charged with murder. John Aaron Rice is charged with simple assault for allegedly assaulting Anderson before he was killed.

Mississippi authorities say Dedmon and Rice, both 18 at the time, and a group of other teenagers were out looking for a black person to assault when they found Rice just before dawn near a Jackson hotel.

Their attorneys deny they were involved in a racially motivated attack.

Rice had also been charged with murder, but a judge reduced the charge after police testified that he had left the scene in another vehicle before Anderson was run over. Prosecutors said they will still urge a state grand jury to indict both teens for murder.

Hinds County District Attorney Robert Schuler Smith did not respond to messages Wednesday seeking comment. Jackson Police Detective Eric Smith, who investigated the case, refused comment Wednesday.

The hotel’s security camera captured video of Anderson being run over. The surveillance video, obtained by The Associated Press and other media, shows a white Jeep in which Rice was allegedly a passenger leaving a hotel parking lot at 5:05 a.m.

Less than 20 seconds later, a Ford truck backs up and then lunges forward. Anderson’s shirt is illuminated in the headlights before he disappears under the vehicle next to the curb. The hotel provided Jackson police with the video, which prosecutors say has been vital in the investigation.

Rice’s attorney, Samuel Martin, suggested during a hearing last month that the teens were on a beer run after a night of partying, not looking for a black man to assault, as prosecutors allege.

Martin suggested during a line of questioning with a police detective that Rice had no knowledge of any plan to indiscriminately attack a black man.

Smith testified during a bond hearing in July that Dedmon had been robbed by a black man in the weeks before Anderson’s death and was looking for “some sort of revenge” when he asked people at a party in Rankin County to go to Jackson in search of someone “to mess with.”

Seven people headed to Jackson in two cars, with Dedmon and Rice in separate vehicles.

The district attorney has said racial slurs were used during the attack and that Dedmon later bragged that he “just ran that n—– over.”

The killing has evoked memories of the state’s racially violent past, including the beating, jailing and killing of civil rights activists in the 1960s.

Dedmon was pulled over on Interstate 20 in Rankin County later that morning. Rice was arrested a few days later. Authorities have not ruled out that others at the scene could be charged.

500 March To Denounce Racist Slaying Of Black Mississippi Man

Samuel Aleshinloye, Assoc Editor — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:40:44 +0000

More than 500 people gathered in Jackson, Mississippi Sunday to denounce the racially motivated killing of an African-American man.

James Craig Anderson, 49, was beaten by a group of white teens, then fatally mowed over with an attacker’s truck in early July.

Surveillance video released this month brought the story to the nation’s attention, and aided in the prosecution of an 18-year-old attacker, Deryl Dedmon, who killed Anderson with his truck.

Attendees of Sunday’s meeting marched from nearby churches to the motel where Anderson was murdered, a local paper reports:

“There is a lot of general appall over what took place here,” said Ronnie C. Crudup Sr., bishop of New Horizons church near the motel where Anderson was attacked. “We wanted to get well-minded people, both black and white, together to do something to support this family and this country. This is not indicative of where Mississippi is today.”

Racist Teens Who Killed Black Man May Have Attacked Others

NewsOne Staff — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:54:17 +0000

The white Mississippi teens caught on surveillance video killing a Black man may be responsible for other attacks on homeless Black men in the area, the head of the state’s NAACP told ABCNews.com.

James Craig Anderson, 49, was beaten and mowed over by a group of white teen’s pickup-truck. Surveillance video aided in the prosecution of attacker Deryl Dedmon.

Jackson police spokeswoman Colendula Green said detectives had received a call from “one person” saying that “white people” were beating up on homeless African Americans. They looked into it, she said, and couldn’t substantiate the claims.

Teen Killed In Alleged Twitter Love Triangle

Casey Gane-McCalla, Lead Blogger — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:21:52 +0000

RANKIN COUNTY, MS — A young man is alleged to have killed his friend after an argument about a girl and a Twitter post.

Dorian Cyrus allegedly killed his friend Jeffery Taylor Jenkins after an argument on social media network, Twitter.

The Grio reports:

The two were suspected to be having an argument about a girl when Cyrus went to 19-year-old Jenkins home and fatally stabbed him. Allegedly the stabbing occurred in response to a Twitter or Facebook post. Cyrus is currently being held in jail, and is charged with murder.

Shocking! Mississipi Hate Crime Killing Caught On Video

Casey Gane-McCalla, Lead Blogger — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:53:23 +0000

Video has been released of the killing of James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, who was killed by a group of white men.

One of the teens involved said “let’s go f**k with some n****,” before the incident began, according to police.

The group then proceeded to beat Anderson and run him over with a car. The driver, Deryl Dedmond, has been charged with murder and a hate crime . One of his friends was charged with assault and another two have not been charged yet.

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Black Man Who Killed A Cop Released From Prison

Johan Thomas — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 16:08:18 +0000

MONTICELLO, MISS. — A Mississippi man jailed for shooting a cop he believed was a home invader was released after spending the last 10 years in prison.

Cory Maye, 30, celebrated his release with friends, family and the lawyers who defended him during his case.

Maye, who was arrested in 2001 for the shooting, plead not guilty during the case. At the time, he claimed he did not know the men breaking into his home were police and that he was just trying protect his 18-month-old daughter when he shot Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones. Jurors felt otherwise and convicted Maye of capital murder in 2004.

Despite initially receiving the death penalty, Maye’s time was cut short early last month when a judge threw out the capital murder charges and allowed Maye to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

There are a lot of themes in Maye’s story. It is a story about the drug war, about the death penalty, about race and class in the South. It’s a story about the inadequacies of the criminal justice system, and it’s a story about the conflict between a man’s right to defend his home and a creeping tendency of police departments in America to serve routine search warrants by breaking down doors.

Authorities Review Black Man’s Hanging In Mississippi

The Grio — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:18:27 +0000

MISSISSIPPI–Authorities are reviewing the case of a black man found hanging dead from a tree after relatives claimed the state’s deputy medical examiner can’t be trusted because he falsified information about a woman’s death while working in Africa in the 1980s.

The Grio Reports:

The Mississippi Department of Public Safety said it began its investigation Monday after allegations surfaced that Dr. Adel Shaker falsified information in the 1998 death of Julie Ward, a British tourist killed on a visit to Kenya. Shaker was a pathologist in Kenya at the time.

Shaker told The Associated Press on Monday that his boss in Kenya changed his report to make it look like Ward was killed by wild animals instead of being murdered. Shaker said top officials in Kenya were involved in the cover-up and he had not been able to do anything about it because of Kenya’s oppressive regime at the time.

Mississippi Schools Still Segregated Despite Court Order

Associated Press — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:30:44 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. — A public school district in Mississippi and the federal government are divided over whether the schools are complying with a desegregation order that dates back to the civil rights era.

The Justice Department has asked a judge to order the Cleveland Public School District “to devise and implement a desegregation plan that will immediately dismantle its one-race schools,” but an attorney for the district said it has been following the latest order and sends the federal government updates on its integration attempts.

“Of our 10 schools, we have six that have a significant integrated population,” said attorney Jamie Jacks said. “The district was hopeful they (the Justice Department) would see not only that we are a truly integrated system within the Mississippi Delta, but we’re a good school district. Our kids do well and get a great education.”

Before the 1969 order, schools on the west side of the railroad tracks that run through Cleveland were by law segregated white schools. More than 40 years later, students and faculty at those schools are still disproportionately white, the Justice Department said.

Similarly, the department said, schools on the east side of the railroad tracks — originally black schools — have never been integrated. In most cases, the schools on the opposite sides of the tracks are less than three miles apart.

The district is located about 20 miles from the Arkansas border in Bolivar County, which has a black population of 65.6 percent.

Jacks said the district, which has a student population of 3,491 and is 68 percent black and 29 percent white, began a transfer program shortly after the 1969 desegregation order to move minority students to majority schools.

“Cleveland High School, which is the on the west side is 47 percent African-American; 50 percent white; 2 percent Hispanic and 1 percent Asian,” Jacks said. “Cleveland High used to be 100 percent white.”

Another school, Bell Academy, has an 80 percent black population, but it used to be 97 percent, she said.

Ellis Turnage, an attorney who represents parents of some of the students involved in the case, said the Cleveland High numbers illustrate the problem.

“As long as you stay with this old historical remedy that hasn’t worked, you’re going to end up with the same results,” he said. “You need to go to one high school, one junior high … that’s the way you achieve integration.”

According to the Justice Department, attempts to work with the school district were unsuccessful.

“It is intolerable for school districts to continue operating schools that retain their racial identity from the Jim Crow era,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Justice Department. “If school districts are not willing to work collaboratively to eradicate the vestiges of de jure segregated schools, we will ask the courts to take the steps necessary to ensure that students of all racial backgrounds have the opportunity to attend diverse, inclusive schools.”

Enforcing court-ordered desegregation of school districts is one of the division’s top priorities.

For example, on March 23, federal court in Mississippi modified the 1969 desegregation order governing the operations of the school district in Leake County, Miss. After a comprehensive review, the department determined that the school district continued to operate four essentially single-race schools.

After taking account of a capacity study and the input of more than 800 students, parents and concerned citizens who attended a community meeting, the Justice Department and district jointly requested that two schools close. They also asked that students and faculty be reassigned, and for improvements to the quality of education and extracurricular activities at the remaining schools. A judge granted the requests.

Schools Nationwide Drift Backward Toward Segregation

46% Of Mississippi Republicans Want Interracial Marriage Banned

Casey Gane-McCalla, Lead Blogger — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:25:28 +0000

MISSISSIPPI-According to Public Policy a recent poll determined that 46 percent of Republican voters in Mississippi want to have interracial marriage banned.

We asked voters on this poll whether they think interracial marriage should be legal or illegal- 46% of Mississippi Republicans said it should be illegal to just 40% who think it should be legal. For the most part there aren’t any huge divides in how voters view the candidates or who they support for the nomination based on their attitudes about interracial marriage but there are a few exceptions.

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Miss. Man Sentenced In Racially Motivated Arson

Associated Press — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:53:37 +0000

OXFORD, Miss. — A north Mississippi man was sentenced to nine years in federal prison this week after pleading guilty last year to a racially motivated arson.
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Authorities said Wayne Allen Stoker Jr., 45, of Oxford, was also ordered Monday to pay $211,000 in restitution and will face three years of supervised release after he’s out of prison.

The U.S. attorney’s office for north Mississippi said that in pleading guilty, Stoker “admitted that the motivation for his crime was based on racial hatred.”

A news release from prosecutors Tuesday said Stoker was in “The Dam Bar” in Coffeeville when two black men entered and Stoker became “volatile” and had to be removed. Court documents said Stoker admitted returning later and setting the bar on fire.

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Haley Barbour Says He’d Veto KKK License Plate

Samuel Aleshinloye, Assoc Editor — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:51:44 +0000

Mississippi- Haley Barbour said Monday that he will not sign the legislation in Mississippi to honor a former Ku Klux Klan leader with a state-issued license plate. The proposal is part of the Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans push to use state license plates to recognize the 150th anniversary of what it calls “the War Between the States.”

Mississippi’s Black Lawmakers: Education Tops Funding Priorities

Associated Press — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:18:03 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. — Black lawmakers said funding public schools and infrastructure projects at Mississippi’s historically black universities are among their priorities as budget-writing moves into its final phases this session.

The Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus discussed those projects and others during a public meeting Monday on the campus of Tougaloo College. They urged residents to lobby legislators to pass the proposals.

Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, said a proposal to implement an intervention initiative for failing school districts and add services for “at risk” families should also be considered.

Mississippi currently has six school districts under state control, and many of them have a majority-black student population.

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Miss. School Bus Collides Head On With Big-Rig; 3 Adults Dead

Associated Press — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:20:32 +0000

CALHOUN COUNTY, Miss. — At least three adults died when a Mississippi school bus full of high school students collided head-on with an 18-wheeler Tuesday afternoon in Calhoun County, NBC station WTVA reported.

At least 60 others were injured, officials said.

The big-rig driver was among the dead, Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman John Kalahar told The Associated Press. The two adults were on the bus, NBC News said.

Calhoun County Coroner Jerry Fleming told NBC News two buses were involved. The semitrailer appeared to have sideswiped one and hit the other head-on, he said.

The accident happened at a bridge along Highways 8 and 9, south of Calhoun City, officials told WTVA.

The school bus from Ackerman High School in Choctaw County was returning from a senior trip to the University of Mississippi in Oxford, said NBC station WCM.

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Haley Barbour Pushes For Mississippi Civil Rights Museum

NewsOne Staff — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:21:14 +0000

Mississippi- Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour drew mixed reactions from analysts on Wednesday for his decision to push for a civil rights museum for his state ahead of a possible presidential bid.

Barbour urged the state’s legislature during an annual address to build the $50 million museum in a state that became notorious during the 1950s and 1960s for violent enforcement of racial segregation and opposition to civil and voting rights.

Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, says he is mulling a bid to be his party’s nominee in 2012 where he would likely face President Barack Obama vying for a second term in the White House.

The governor apologized last month for saying in a magazine interview that the civil rights era was not “that bad,” a comment that put the Republican politician on the defensive.

“I urge you to move this museum forward as an appropriate way to do justice to the Civil Rights Movement and to stand as a monument of remembrance and reconciliation,” Barbour said in the speech late on Tuesday.

“The civil rights struggle is an important part of our history, and millions of people are interested in learning more about it. People from around the world would flock to see the museum and learn about the movement,” he said.

Read more at Reuters.com

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Kidney Donation Prompts Freedom For Sisters Jailed For Life

Associated Press — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:59:26 +0000

JACKSON, Miss.– For 16 years, sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott have shared a life behind bars for their part in an $11 armed robbery. To share freedom, they must also share a kidney.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour suspended the sisters’ life sentences on Wednesday, but 36-year-old Gladys Scott’s release is contingent on her giving a kidney to Jamie, her 38-year-old sister, who requires daily dialysis.

The sisters were convicted in 1994 of leading two men into an ambush in central Mississippi the year before. Three teenagers hit each man in the head with a shotgun and took their wallets – making off with only $11, court records said.

Jamie and Gladys Scott were each convicted of two counts of armed robbery and sentenced to two life sentences.

“I think it’s a victory,” said the sisters’ attorney, Chokwe Lumumba. “I talked to Gladys and she’s elated about the news. I’m sure Jamie is, too.”

Civil rights advocates have for years called for their release, saying the sentences were excessive. Those demands gained traction when Barbour asked the Mississippi Parole Board to take another look at the case.

The Scott sisters are eligible for parole in 2014, but Barbour said prison officials no longer think they are a threat to society and Jamie’s medical condition is costing the state a lot of money.

Lumumba said he has no problem with the governor requiring Gladys to offer up her organ because “Gladys actually volunteered that as part of her petition.”

Lumumba said it’s not clear what caused the kidney failure, but it’s likely a combination of different illnesses over the years.

Barbour spokesman Dan Turner told The Associated Press that Jamie Scott was released because she needs the transplant. He said Gladys Scott will be released if she agrees to donate her kidney because of the significant risk and recovery time.

“She wanted to do it,” Turner said. “That wasn’t something we introduced.”

Barbour is a Republican in his second term who has been mentioned as a possible presidential contender in 2012. He said the parole board agreed with the indefinite suspension of their sentences, which is different from a pardon or commutation because it comes with conditions.

An “indefinite suspension of sentence” can be reversed if the conditions are not followed, but those requirements are usually things like meeting with a parole officer.

The Scott sisters have received significant public support from advocacy groups, including the NAACP, which called for their release. Hundreds of people marched through downtown Jackson from the state capital to the governor’s mansion in September, chanting in unison that the women should be freed.

Still, their release won’t be immediate.

Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said late Wednesday that he had not received the order. He also said the women want to live with relatives in Florida, which requires approval from officials in that state.

In general, that process takes 45 days.

Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the Scott sisters’ release will be “a great victory for the state of Mississippi for two individuals who received an excessive sentence” and he has no problem with the kidney donation requirement because Gladys Scott volunteered.

“I think it’s encouraging that she’s willing to share a kidney so her sister can have a better quality life,” Johnson said.

National NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said the suspension of the sentences represents the good that can come with the power of governors.

“It’s again proof that when people get engaged, keep the faith, we can win,” Jealous said.

(This version deletes incorrect reference to Barbour granting a suspended sentence to student’s killer.)

Miss. To Teach Civil Rights History In All Grades

Associated Press — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:00:39 +0000

HATTIESBURG, Miss. — Soon, civil rights lessons will be required for students from kindergarten to 12th grade all across Mississippi.

Teacher John Paola said his high school history course in southern Mississippi would be incomplete if it didn’t include an emphasis on the turbulent civil rights struggle of America’s South.

For years, the auburn-haired white man has educated students about activists in their own state who led peaceful demonstrations, and the wrath of segregationists who channeled violence to repress social change.

A civil rights/human rights curriculum becomes mandatory in all public schools for the 2011-2012 school year, five years after Gov. Haley Barbour signed the requirement into law.

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NAACP Says Alleged Suicide May Be Mississippi Lynching

Casey Gane-McCalla, Lead Blogger — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:36:26 +0000

Greenwood — USA Today is reporting on an incident called a suicide by authorities, that the NAACP thinks may actually be a lynching.

The county sheriff says that a 26-year-old black man, Frederick Jermaine Carter, found hanged from an oak tree in Greenwood, Miss., apparently committed suicide, but the president of the local NAACP challenges that explanation and says the group will monitor developments in the case.

State Rep. Willie Perkins, a Democrat from Greenwood and president of the Leflore County branch of the NAACP, says that group also “will keep a high scrutiny and watch on any investigative report regarding what was the cause of death.”

“There are a lot of concerns there, No. 1 that this individual could not have (hanged) himself without the assistance of someone, if it’s being declared a suicide,” he says. “Why would someone from Sunflower County come to North Greenwood, the predominantly white housing area of Greenwood? Why would someone that far away come and hang themselves in North Greenwood by a river? That does not pass the smell test to me.”

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Judge Jails Lawyer For Not Reciting Pledge Of Allegiance

Associated Press — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:36:37 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. – A Mississippi judge jailed a lawyer for several hours for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, ordering the attorney to “purge himself” of contempt by standing and repeating the oath like the rest of the courtroom.

After Oxford attorney Danny Lampley spent about five hours in the county jail Wednesday, Chancery Judge Talmadge Littlejohn let him go free. Lampley, 49, was released so that he could represent another client, the judge said in a later order.

Lampley told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal he respected the judge but wasn’t going to back down.

“I don’t have to say it because I’m an American,” Lampley told the newspaper. “I’m just not going to back off on this.”

Lampley was representing a client in a divorce case at the time of the contempt order, according to the judge’s calendar.

“Lampley shall purge himself of said criminal contempt by complying with the order of this Court by standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in open court,” according to the order, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Neither Littlejohn, who is in his mid-70s, nor Lampley responded to telephone calls from the AP.

Bear Atwood, an ACLU attorney in Mississippi, said there was a long established precedent that a person can’t be compelled to stand and say the pledge.

“It’s simply not permissible to force someone to do that,” Atwood said.

Atwood said Lampley could file a complaint with Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance, but the best way to handle the situation was to “educate the judge on why he shouldn’t do it again.”

Littlejohn is in his second term as a chancery judge and presides over divorces and child custody disputes. Judges in Mississippi are elected, though they run in nonpartisan races.

Littlejohn is running unopposed for re-election in November.

Littlejohn is a former state lawmaker. He ran for a congressional seat as a Democrat in 1996, finishing second out of three candidates in the Democratic primary. He lost a runoff.

FBI Says Judge’s Relationship With Stripper Led To Gun-Toting Drug Deals

Student Banned From Homecoming Because Of Dreadlocks

Casey Gane-McCalla, Lead Blogger — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:43:42 +0000

The Grio is reporting that a student in Vicksburg, Mississippi has been told that he can not attend homecoming festivities unless he cuts off his dreadlocks.

A Mississippi teen’s hairstyle is keeping him off of his homecoming court. A week before Vicksburg High School’s homecoming festivities several escorts found out that they would not be participating.

Patrick Richardson said school officials told him that his hair is keeping him from escorting one of the homecoming maids. The 16-year-old is sad that he won’t be in the next Vicksburg High School yearbook, pictured escorting his best friend Sa’shia Jones who was chosen junior class maid.

Patrick said after paying to have a tux fitting last Thursday, the principal called him to the auditorium and told him that he could not be a homecoming escort because he wears dread locked hair. The junior was told he would have to cut it to be an escort.

Read The Whole Story

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Morgan Freeman Finalizes Divorce

Associated Press — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:51:59 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. — Actor Morgan Freeman and his wife have finalized their divorce in Mississippi.

A Tallahatchie County judge entered the divorce decree on Sept. 15, William R. Wright, an attorney who represented Freeman, told The Associated Press. Terms of the divorce are sealed, Wright said.

“It was done without a trial,” Wright said Friday. “Everybody is glad it’s over.”

Freeman and his now ex-wife, Myrna Colley-Lee, had separated in December 2007 after 26 years of marriage. The divorce was filed under seal in July 2008.

Wright said both Freeman and Colley-Lee live in Tallahatchie County in northern Mississippi where Freeman has a ranch near Charleston. Colley-Lee is a theater and film costume designer.

Kay Farese Turner of Memphis, Tenn., who represented Colley-Lee, said Friday that both parties “were relieved and pleased with the terms of the settlement.”

Turner said Colley-Lee decided to remain in Mississippi because she has been active in the Charleston area with the schools and various arts programs.

“She has lots and lots of friends there and she had decided to stay there,” Turner said.

The couple married on June 16, 1984.

Morgan Freeman Replaces Walter Cronkite As Voice Of CBS News

School Says Only White Students Can Run For Class President

NewsOne Staff — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:56:52 +0000

If you’re black and a student at one public middle school in Mississippi, you can’t run for president – only whites need apply.

Nettleton Middle School in Nettleton, Miss., has segregated its elected class positions by race, according to a memo sent home with children at the school last week that was obtained by NBC News.

Text continues after Pictures of the Week gallery:

The memo was first brought to light when Brandy Springer, a mother of four children, contacted blogger Suzy Richardson, founder and editor of the blog mixedandhappy.com. It was also reported by Gawker.

“My [eighth-grade] daughter came home from[Nettleton] school telling me that she wanted to try out for the school reporter, but it is only open to black students,” Springer wrote Richardson. “They told her ‘she should run for class president, that was open to only white students.’”

The memo indicates that only white students can be president of the school’s eighth grade, while only black students can be vice president.

Read entire article at MSNBC.com

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Tropical Storm Bonnie Following Course Across Oil Spill

NewsOne Staff — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:41:57 +0000

From Clarionledger.com:

Tropical Storm Bonnie raced toward a strike on southern Florida on Friday, following a course that would take it across the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, prompting a pause in efforts to clean up the disaster.

Rain and lightning raked the low-lying Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas on Friday, and forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm was likely to reach the Gulf of Mexico by Saturday.

Click here to read more

Click here to see our gallery of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

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Black Man Suspected Of Murdering Miss. White Supremacist

News One — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:15:15 +0000

From USA Today:

PEARL, Miss. — The body of white supremacist and attorney Richard Barrett was found in his suburban Jackson, Miss., home Thursday, the victim of an apparent homicide.

A 23-year-old black man, recently released from prison, was arrested later in the day as the suspect in the death.

Authorities discovered the body of Barrett, 67,when firefighters responded to smoke from a blaze at his home, Rankin County Sheriff Ronnie Pennington said.

Text continues after gallery …

The suspect is Vincent McGee, who lived three houses away from Barrett and had been hired by him to do yardwork, Pennington said. McGee was placed on probation in February after serving less than three years of a six-year sentence for grand larceny and assault on a police officer, Pennington said.

Click here to read more.

White Supremacist Leader Killed In South Africa

Miss. Schools Ordered To Stop Segregation

News One — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:50:09 +0000

From WashingtonPost.com:

A federal judge Tuesday ordered a rural county in southwestern Mississippi to stop segregating its schools by grouping African American students into all-black classrooms and allowing white students to transfer to the county’s only majority-white school, the U.S. Justice Department announced.

The order, issued by Senior Judge Tom S. Lee of the U.S. District Court of Southern Mississippi, came after Justice Department civil rights division lawyers moved to enforce a 1970 desegregation case against the state and Walthall County.

Click here to view photos of Slavehouse to the White House:

Known as Mississippi’s cream pitcher for its dairy farms and bordering Louisiana 80 miles north of New Orleans, Walthall County has a population of about 15,000 people that includes about 54 percent white residents and 45 percent African American residents, according to the U.S. Census.

For years, the local school board has permitted hundreds of white students to transfer from its Tylertown schools, which are about 75 percent African American and serve about 1,700 students, to another school, the Salem Attendance Center, which is about 66 percent white and serves about 577 students in grades K-12. The schools are about 10 miles apart.

Click here to read more.

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VIDEO: Mississippi Governor Calls Slavery “Just A Nit”

Casey Gane-McCalla, Lead Blogger — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:19:53 +0000

It seems the Republican party is out of touch with the sensitivities of African Americans regarding slavery and its connection to the Confederate army. According to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, slavery was “just a nit” in history and shouldn’t prevent us from honoring the many men who fought for slavery.

OPINION: The GOP’s Neo-Confederate Problem, Rewriting The Civil War

9 People Dead After Mississippi Apartment Fire

Associated Press — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:00:04 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. – Six children and three adults killed in a Mississippi apartment fire died of smoke inhalation, and their deaths were an accident, the coroner said Tuesday.

Investigators, meanwhile, were still working to figure out what sparked the blaze early Monday morning in the east Mississippi town ofStarkville, killing several family members taken in because they had nowhere else to go.

Oktibbeha County Coroner Michael Hunt ordered autopsies on the three adults and said the children would have been examined if anything abnormal was found. Autopsies were not needed for the kids, he said.

The victims were India Williams, 25, and her three children, along with her cousin, Castella “Maria” Bell, 18, and her three children. The ninth victim was 20-year-old Lakesha Gillespie, identified by the West Memorial Funeral Home as a friend. The children were ages 6 months to 6 years.

Richard Vasser, the father of two of Williams’ children, had returned from Iraq on Christmas Eve to his base inMissouri and was traveling to Mississippi on Tuesday to prepare for the burial of his sons, said Vasser’s mother, Katherine Key.

Key said she was ill during Christmas and had not yet delivered the kids’ presents. She and her son were looking forward to visiting with them soon.

“I lost my boys and it’s very, very hard,” she said.

Neighbors said Williams, who worked at a fast food restaurant, took in Bell and her children recently because they had fallen on hard times. They said Williams and Gillespie were a couple.

The Associated Press has been unable to locate relatives of Bell and Gillespie.

Ronald Williams, India‘s cousin, said he can’t understand what went wrong because the two communicated on a computer Web site after 1 a.m., just hours before the fire, and everything was fine.

“She was a kind person with a big heart and she loved those kids,” he said. “She was the type of cousin that if she saw me 300 yards away she would take off in a sprint until she got to me and give me a hug.”

The apartment complex, Academy Crossing, is made up of six, two-story red brick buildings in Starkville, a city of about 24,000 full-time residents in eastern Mississippi that is also home to Mississippi State University.

It’s not clear how long it will take to determine what started the fire.

“A fire investigation is like a puzzle,” Fire Chief Rodger Mann said. “We’ve got to get enough pieces of the puzzle to get a picture of what happened.”

Some of the tenants told the AP that there were electrical problems in some of the apartments and thatsmoke detectors did not work.

The fire chief said a private company’s recent inspection found no troubles and Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman said no one had reported problems to city code officials. Complex owner Mildred Rollins also said she was not aware of any such problems. She would not comment further.

The children killed were identified as Kamarion Williams, 2, Jacorian Vasser, 6, Richard Vasser, 5, Ta’Nayia Bell, 4, Jayvion Bell, 3, and Sumaya Bell, 6 months.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete Tuesday.

Proposal To Merge Mississippi HBCUs Faces Hurdle

News One — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:40:51 +0000

From the Shreveport Times:

JACKSON, Miss. — Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour’s proposal to merge the state’s three historically black universities has sparked debate over the racial undertones it presents and raised further questions over the state’s historic underfunding of those colleges.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that sought to rectify inequalities between Mississippi’s institutions based on race, said Barbour’s proposal goes against everything the state has been trying to accomplish since agreeing to the Ayers settlement.

The Ayers settlement was the result of a 1975 lawsuit that alleged Mississippi through its funding process discriminated against Alcorn State, Jackson State and Valley State.

According to the settlement reached in 2002, the Legislature is to provide $503 million to the historically black schools over 17 years.

“In the eyes of a lot of Americans it appears that the black colleges are being attacked once more,” he said.

Click here to read more.

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UPDATE: KKK Rally At Ole Miss Fizzles In Less Than 10 Minutes

News One — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:09:15 +0000

From Lsureveille.com:

OXFORD, Miss. — Wearing traditional red, black and white robes and carrying flags representing the infamous hate group, about 10 hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan protested on the Ole Miss campus Saturday.

The protest, held on the steps of Fulton Chapel, fizzled after less than 10 minutes and faced a large counter-protest from students and onlookers.

The Klan traveled to Oxford to protest Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones’ decision to ban the Ole Miss band from playing “From Dixie with Love” because students chanted “the South will rise again” during the melody.

Shane Tate, the North Mississippi great titan for the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said in an e-mail the ban is an attack on free speech and Southern Christian heritage.

Once escorted to the chapel by police, the Klan members were met by a wall of boos from more than 200 spectators who had gathered in front of the chapel to witness the protest.
During most of the brief protest the Klansmen stood silently waving Confederate and Klan flags on the chapel steps while constantly receiving jeers from hostile onlookers.

“Go to hell, KKK,” and “Take off your mask, cowards!” the onlookers chanted.

The Klansmen attempted to shout back at the onlookers, but their only audible yells were “the South will rise again” and “white power” chanted in unison with Nazi-like salutes.

Police in riot gear escorted the Klansmen down the hill by the chapel and out of sight after less than ten minutes of protesting.

Click here to read more.

———————————

KKK To Hold Rally Before Ole Miss Game, [Updated 11.21.09, 9:41 a.m.]

The Ku Klux Klan will rally at Ole Miss on Saturday before the school’s football game against Louisiana State University. According to the Daily Reveille, an LSU student newspaper, the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is protesting a decision to eliminate the song “From Dixie with Love” from the school’s band lineup.

University of Mississippi chancellor Dan Jones asked the band not to perform the song because fans chanted “the South will rise again” when it was played.

Below, watch a 2006 video of Ole Miss fans chanting the phrase.

Do you live in Oxford? Do you attend or work at the University Of Mississippi? Tell us what’s going on in the comments!

Click here to read more.

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Southern U.S. Has Highest AIDS Related Death Rate, Least Funding

Associated Press — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:52:36 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. — When Robin Webb lived in New York City, he was treated by HIV specialists and had access to counseling and nutritional programs. Now he lives in Mississippi, where few of those services exist.

Mississippi is just one of several mostly rural states across the South with a dearth of resources for HIV and AIDS patients.

“Here, there’s no support group, no case management. There’s no daily reinforcement,” said Webb, 52, who has been HIV-positive for two decades.

Activists and the health care providers cite a need for more federal and state funding for outreach and drug assistance programs, as well as transportation for patients who have to travel from small towns to get care. That’s the message they’ll deliver when a top White House aide holds a rare community discussion Monday in Jackson.

Jeffrey S. Crowley, director of the White House’s Office of National AIDS Policy, said the meeting will highlight two realities of the national epidemic — the significant number of cases in the South, and how the disease disproportionately affects minorities.

The spread of the disease in the South has been attributed to numerous factors, including poverty and a social stigma that discourages many from getting tested or seeking treatment.

Patrick Packer, executive director of the Southern AIDS Coalition and a moderator for the discussion, wants to pose this question: “Why is it that the South is not getting its fair share of federal money based on the epidemic?”

The South leads the nation in the percentage of AIDS-related deaths. Yet, the region ranks last when it comes to overall federal dollars spent on an HIV-infected person at $6,565 a year, according to the coalition.

Forty-six percent of new AIDS cases in 2007 were in the South, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twenty-five percent of the new cases were in the Northeast, and 17 percent in the West, two regions with the nation’s largest metropolitan areas that have for many years received most of the federal money.

However, the South stands to get more funding.

President Barack Obama signed the $2.2 billion Ryan White HIV/AIDS extension act last month, which continued funding for rural areas, putting the South second in federal money behind the northern region. Activists said it’s still not enough to keep pace with the new cases.

Debbie Konkle-Parker, a nurse practitioner in Jackson, said the act also added federal money to the South in 2006, but didn’t put rural areas on the same level as big cities.

“The inequities were pretty huge,” she said. “People were spending (Ryan White) money in New York City to do journal writing conferences, and in Mississippi, we couldn’t even get people to the clinics.”

Konkle-Parker said Mississippi has about eight public clinics to treat the majority of the 9,000 HIV patients in the state.

The current economic crunch has exacerbated the situation. Some states, like Kentucky, have cut funding for HIV/AIDS programs. The state had been contributing $250,000 a year prior to 2007, but now almost no state money is set aside for the AIDS Drug Assistance program, said Sigga Jagne, a program manager for the Kentucky Department of Health.

There are 1,277 enrolled in Kentucky’s program with 100 more on a waiting list, she said. Arkansas and Tennessee also now have waiting lists for the program, which is mostly federally funded but receives some state money. Packer said funding cuts have led to the waiting lists.

“We’re already disproportionately impacted by poverty and high rates of unemployment. It’s important for people who are HIV positive to be provided with life-sustaining drugs,” Jagne said.

VIDEO: Football Player Saves Students By Tackling Armed Girl On School Bus

News One — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:53:13 +0000

YAZOO CITY, Miss. – Authorities say a high school football player in Mississippi tackled a girl who pulled out a gun on a school bus and took the weapon away from her.
Sheriff Tommy Vaughan says the 14-year-old girl pulled a semiautomatic handgun out of her flower-print bag after boarding the bus Tuesday in Yazoo County in central Mississippi.
Vaughan told the Clarion-Ledger newspaper the girl began shouting about someone on the bus picking on her.
Football player Kaleb Eulls says he was sleeping when one of his sisters on the bus shook him awake. The 6-foot-4, 255-pound senior approached the girl, tackled her and wrestled the gun out of her hand.
The unnamed girl faces charges of attempted assault and kidnapping for each of the 22 people on board the bus. She was in juvenile custody.

Watch The Video

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GOOD NEWS: Mississippi To Make Civil Rights History Part Of Curriculum

News One — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:15:24 +0000

In Mississippi, where mention of the civil rights movement evokes images of bombings, beatings and the Ku Klux Klan, public schools are preparing to test a program that will ultimately teach students about the subject in every grade from kindergarten through high school.

Many experts believe the effort will make Mississippi the first state to mandate civil rights instruction for all k-12 students.

So far, four school systems have asked to be part of a pilot effort to test the curriculum in high schools. In September, the Mississippi Department of Education will name the systems that have been approved for the pilot. By the 2010-2011 school year, the program should be in place at all grade levels as part of social studies courses.

Advocacy groups such as the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and Washington-based Teaching for Change are preparing to train Mississippi teachers to tell the “untold story” of the civil rights struggle to the nearly half million students in the state’s public schools.

“Now more than ever we are engaged in national debates about race and so much of those debates are impoverished in their understanding of history,” said Susan Glissen of the Winter Institute. “We want to emphasize the grass-roots nature of civil rights and the institution of racism.”

The program is the outgrowth of a law passed in 2006 by the Legislature. The state moves forward with statewide implementation in the 2010-2011 school year, despite an unsuccessful legislative effort to eliminate the plan this year.

Education officials looked to other states for a model, but couldn’t find one that included anything as comprehensive as what Mississippi has in mind, said Chauncey Spears, who works in the curriculum and instruction office of Mississippi’s education agency.

The Education Commission of the States didn’t know of any other state with a such a program, although it does not specifically track social studies curriculum.

Some states, including Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas, have placed an emphasis on civil rights instruction. New Jersey created an Amistad Commission to ensure the history of slavery is taught in schools. Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia school district requires students to complete an African-American history course before graduation.

“We’re behind time. Students don’t know about what blacks did. They’re not taught anything about culture, about our history,” said Ollye Shirley, a member of the commission created to research the Mississippi curriculum and a former Jackson Public School board member.

History classes will be the proving ground this fall, and the state Board of Education is expected to approve expansion of the curriculum to other grade levels in spring 2010, said Spears.

Deborah Menkart, executive director of Teaching for Change, said it’s important to help students understand that Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weren’t the only important figures in the civil rights movement.

“The traditional version would be that it started in 1954, thereby leaving out the fact that a lot of groundwork had to be done before that,” Menkart said. “The other part that gets left out is the struggle for economic justice, like Martin Luther King’s support of the sanitation workers in Memphis.”

Menkart said classrooms activities can include role-playing in which students act out civil rights protests such as the Montgomery bus boycott, improving their critical thinking and social interaction.

Those are the types of lessons being taught in Vickie Malone’s “Local Cultures” class in the McComb School District, which began civil rights studies before the law was passed. The state’s curricula will be modeled, in part, after the district.

Classroom assignments for Malone’s students, who sit around tables rather than desks, include interviewing local activists, questioning their relatives about their role in the fight for integration, or studying the plight of migrant workers. The students are reading “Mississippi Trial, 1955,” a fictionalized account of the murder of Emmett Till, a Chicago youth who was mutilated in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman.

Kindergartners in McComb are introduced to the subject through lessons on diversity, discussing differences such as hair texture and skin tone, Malone said.

“It helps kids understand that however you are that’s a great way to be,” Malone said.

Spears said the curriculum changes don’t require new textbooks and teachers will be allowed to develop their own lesson plans. There will be added achievement goals for students. For instance, high school students should be able to evaluate the impact of the civil rights movement in expanding democracy in the U.S.

Spears said teachers can also call upon people in their community who lived through these historic events.

“There are people in local communities who can give great insight into the civil rights movement. There are various things that teachers can do to incorporate this into their classrooms.”

Mississippi Museum Wants Emmett Till’s Casket

News One — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:53:45 +0000

From SouthTownStar.com:

Emmett Till’s glass-topped casket that showed evidence of his death by lynching in 1955 turned up last week in the storage shed of an Alsip cemetery embroiled in a grave reselling scheme.

Now planners of a Civil Rights museum in Philadelphia, Miss., about three hours from where the 14-year-old Chicago teen was kidnapped and killed, are asking Till’s relatives to add it to their collection.

Wilmer Amina Carter, a California state assemblywoman with roots in Mississippi, would like to include it at the museum, according to her spokesman Eldred Marshall.

Cook County sheriff’s investigators have shut the cemetery to the public, declaring it a crime scene.

Click here for full story.

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