FOCUS: 2022 Elections • Housing & Evictions • #MSWelfare Scandal • Jackson Water • Abortion • Race & Racism • Policing • Incarceration
Oren D’Lonte Anderson was only 22 when he died from gunfire in South Jackson in late 2020 during a December spike of both COVID-19 and homicides in Mississippi’s capital city. His mother Shannon Anderson believed he was on the path to succeeding in life although he suffered from an under-treated mental illness.
Mississippi’s attorney general claims that “God selected this case” to overturn Roe v. Wade, referring Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. For years, Christian dominionists and their allies have sought to remake the U.S. Supreme Court in order to achieve their goals and establish God’s kingdom on earth. Ending legalized abortion is just one of those goals.
The Hinds County Detention Center has been under a federal consent decree since 2016. Elizabeth E. Simpson, the federal court appointee tasked with monitoring the consent decree, reviewed the video footage of how Michael Richardson died and wrote to the court about it on Oct. 28, 2021, identifying this incident as the latest in a series of deaths at the jail that year. Malik Richardson, 22, said that his father unexpectedly dying in jail left a hole in his heart.
For decades, the Christian Dominionist movement has sought to remake earthly government in its image. This is Part I in an in-depth series exploring how Christian dominionists and their allies worked to get Roe v. Wade and abortion rights back before the U.S. Supreme Court—and how they used Mississippi to make it happen.
John Knight, Terun Moore and Benny Ivey have all experienced life in prison and now mentor criminal-justice-system-involved young people as credible messengers with the Strong Arms of JXN, which launched in 2018. The Strong Arms of JXN gathers formerly incarcerated individuals devoted to showing young people alternate paths from the ones they at one point chose and have since turned away from.
On Jan. 3, 2022, U.S. District Judge Micheal P. Mills signed a consent decree, solidifying an agreement between the Abraham House of God and the City of Horn Lake, guaranteeing building permits for the first mosque in DeSoto County.
The Centers for Disease Control was warning of a possible link between COVID-19 and pediatric diabetes earlier this month. Dr. Jessica Lilley hopes that the broader medical community is finally catching up.
Pauline Rogers and her husband, Fred Rogers, founded the Rech Foundation together, where they offer transitional housing and reintegration services to those formerly incarcerated.
Children at the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center were abused, a lawsuit filed in 2011 alleged, which led to a federal consent decree forcing Hinds County to make changes to its operations. Magistrate Judge F. Keith Ball is holding a hearing in his chambers today concerning the settlement that Southern Poverty Law Center and Disability Rights Mississippi reached with the county. The Zoom hearing, which is closed to the public, is part of an ongoing federal court supervision of the settlement agreement’s implementation.
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.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MS 39201
[email protected]
[email protected]
601-362-6121
The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).