On a Tuesday afternoon in November 2022, Luis Montgomery stood outside Carthage City Hall in Leake County, Miss., and felt tears roll down his cheeks. He had spent the past seven months campaigning for ward alderman in his hometown, and municipal elections had taken place that day.
The final results were a gut punch for Montgomery. After managing his campaign single-handedly while working at Starbucks and registering more than 60 voters around Carthage, he received just 18% of the vote in his conservative ward.
“At the time, I probably felt bad for myself,” said Montgomery, who identifies as Chicano (an ethnic identity for people of Mexican ancestry born in the U.S.). “One of the more depressing things was having to go to bed that night and waking back up again (at) five o’clock in the morning to go back to work. Because life still happens.”
Rather than turning his back on his would-be constituents, Montgomery has doubled down on politics and community organizing since the 2022 election loss. The 27-year-old Jackson State University graduate is now chair of the Mississippi Democratic Party’s executive committee in Leake County, helping fellow Democratic candidates run for local offices and boosting civic engagement among county residents.
He’s also part of a cohort of younger Mississippians looking to break into an arena historically dominated by older white men.
“Young people are starting to be a little bit more engaged—and not just engaged, but actually running for stuff,” Montgomery told the Mississippi Free Press on Jan. 6. “We’re no longer waiting around for other people to make change happen.”
Activist Roots
Montgomery traces his interest in community organizing back to 2019, when federal law-enforcement officers detained hundreds of Mississippi poultry workers in a sweeping immigration crackdown. The workplace raids led to prolonged family separations in places like Carthage, where residents rallied around neighbors and friends with missing loved ones.
Though Montgomery helped ensure community donations reached affected families in Leake County, he felt frustrated that he couldn’t do more to support vulnerable immigrants in his hometown.
“I remember at the time just feeling like I … had no resources to really help,” Montgomery, who was a freshman at JSU when the raids took place, said. “And I think that feeling of helplessness … changed the trajectory of my academic career, as well as my career in general.”
A year later, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked a wave of demonstrations and a national reckoning over systemic racism and other injustices perpetrated against Black Americans.
In Mississippi, Montgomery was among the thousands of residents who congregated in downtown Jackson on June 6, 2020, to protest police brutality and state-sponsored Confederate symbolism. Montgomery volunteered to serve as a marshal for the event, which attracted as many as 5,000 people.
“It was the largest protest (in Jackson) since the Civil Rights Era, which was something that we were really proud of, and it was really organized by young people,” Montgomery explained. “I knew what I was getting myself into, but I never understood how powerful or how effective we would be.”
Following the demonstration, Mississippi’s Legislature voted overwhelmingly to retire the state’s 126-year-old flag—which featured the Confederate battle emblem—and formed a commission to design its replacement. Residents selected the current multicolored flag with the magnolia at its center in November 2020.
While Montgomery credits the 2019 raids and 2020 demonstrations with awakening his political consciousness, community leaders in Carthage say his path to advocacy began long before his college years.
“He volunteered for a lot of community events (as a high-school student),” Phyllis Bell, the current principal of Leake County Elementary School and the district’s former parent and community engagement specialist, told the Mississippi Free Press. “If we needed something from him, as far as the school district, he was readily available.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Mississippi in 2020, Montgomery helped Leake County families enroll in a free internet program offered through the school district, Bell recalled. He also raised public awareness about a local family health center offering free and discounted care.
Beyond assisting the district with messaging and logistics, Montgomery was committed to instilling the value of education in Carthage’s younger generations, particularly kids from Latino households, Bell explained.
“The work that stood out the most for me was his passion and his love for bringing the Hispanic community to a point where education was important to them,” she concluded. “He’s just a person that wants to help.”
Looking Ahead
Though Montgomery’s municipal election defeat in 2022 left him temporarily discouraged, the loss did not dampen his political ambitions. His plucky campaign for alderman got the attention of Mississippi Democrats, who invited him to serve as party chair in his home county.
“I think not winning that particular seat … has worked out for me, because I’ve been tapped to go even deeper into state politics,” Montgomery said of the alderman race. “It’s (also) continued to fuel the drive and fire in me to eventually run for something again.”
For now, Montgomery is focused on gaining more political experience through his work with the state’s Democratic Party. During internal elections last year, he was appointed to the party’s state executive committee and named chair of its affirmative action committee.
He also formed Mississippi Democrats’ first-ever Hispanic caucus with the encouragement of party leaders, hoping to increase Latino participation in local politics.
“Our Hispanic communities are not engaged in our civic process,” Montgomery explained, noting that many first-generation Americans from Latino families are not exposed to politics at home or at school.
Montgomery aims to spur political engagement in these households and others through his role with the local Democratic Party. Later this year, Leake County will host a summer camp for children and teens focused on civics and government processes. Participants will develop their own campaign platforms and visit the State Capitol and Civil Rights Museum, Montgomery said.
Separately, Montgomery is studying for LSAT and preparing to apply for graduate school, hoping to add to his credentials before returning to Mississippi politics.
“My goal for myself has been (to) get into law school,” he said. “And from there, I will decide on what office I would like to run for.”
Regardless of which position he ultimately sets his sights on, Montgomery says his reasons for running will be the same as they were back in 2022.
“I still have that same feeling: If you want something done right, do it yourself,” he said. “You can’t expect people to be able to deliver on behalf of your community … when your community is not represented in government.”
Know a Mississippian you believe deserves some public recognition? Nominate them for a potential Person of the Day article at mfp.ms/pod.