MFP Contributor
Black businessman and voting-rights activist Lamar Smith arrived at the Lincoln County Courthouse on Aug. 13, 1955, as dozens of people milled about on the lawn. Walking up to the steps on the north side of the courthouse carrying his ballots, Smith encountered three white men who blocked his entry. Soon, he was lying on the ground dying from a gunshot wound. No one would help him.
Bob Moses, a civil-rights hero who fought white supremacy and sharecropper education with every tool at his disposal, died at age 86 on the same day that Emmett Till would’ve turned 80, had white supremacists not brutally murdered the 14-year-old in 1955. They both have long inspired young people to seek systemic change.
Two overlapping topics in the hour-long show really struck me: Kiese Laymon calling out the ongoing racism and sexism in Mississippi, and, yes, the patriarchal traditions here that keep women out of power, the spotlight, well-paid positions and well-funded opportunity, and far from most political commentary and strategy, regardless of our experience and expertise.
My studies of newspaper archives and primary sources, and some good learning from Dr. Manning Marable at Columbia both widened my understanding from the racism in my native South to what really happened across the country and it, well, awakened me. It also made me want to come on back home and face down, and report, demons I needed to confront as a white Mississippian.
A 2021 Confederate Heritage Month proclamation, signed by Gov. Tate Reeves, again appeared first on a Sons of Confederate Veterans Facebook page on April 8, 2021. “It’s official-April is Confederate Heritage and History Month in our state of Mississippi and we observe it with pride! #ConfederateHeritage #SouthernHeritage #HonoringOurAncestors,” the SCV Camp 265 Rankin Rough & Ready’s Facebook page says.
In last week’s episode of MFP Live, Mississippi Free Press publisher Kimberly Griffin and I had what many people sadly might see as a traitorous conversation with Mount Olive, Miss., native and author Ralph Eubanks. We’re supposed to be “patriotic,” we’re told, and that means just talk about the good and honorable parts of Mississippi’s and the nation’s history. We’re not supposed to “probe the silences,” as Ralph puts it in his wonderful new book, “A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape.”
You tell us in no uncertain terms that you want real truth-to-power journalism in Mississippi fully focused on solutions over political gamesmanship. We hear you. We’re on it, Mississippi Free Press editor and co-founder Donna Ladd writes as both MFP and the pandemic turn a year old in the state.
Founding Editor Donna Ladd writes that Black History Month is a chance to learn vital, often hidden U.S. history that can lead to solutions far beyond partisanship. The past is painful, but it is joyful and inspiring, too.
MFP editor Donna Ladd’s pilgrimage to civil-rights hero James Chaney’s grave in rural Lauderdale County reminded her we cannot go back to 1964-style racism.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
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The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).
