FOCUS: 2022 Elections • Housing & Evictions • #MSWelfare Scandal • Jackson Water • Abortion • Race & Racism • Policing • Incarceration
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.
During this last week, the clergy have been engaging their congregants and have launched an email and call blitz to legislative leadership and legislators. Working Together Mississippi is also currently conducting a Civic Academy Campaign where more than 1,000 leaders will be trained on the critical issues of personal, communal and economic health that are at stake in the current health-care debate.
Could it still be possible for someone to sexually assault in the midst of a global pandemic? Could perpetrators that depraved really exist? As I delved into the internet to satiate my curiosity, my supposition was confirmed. In fact, since the pandemic has started, female victims have been locked in with their abusive partners, with no means of escape.
Not all gay people live in cities. Demographers estimate that 15% to 20% of the United States’ total LGBTQ population—between 2.9 million and 3.8 million people—live in rural areas. These millions of understudied LGBTQ residents of rural America are the subject of my latest academic research project.
My study results, now under peer review for publication in an academic journal, found that many LGBTQ people in rural areas view their sexual identity substantially differently from their urban counterparts—and question the merits of urban gay life.
As a social scientist who researches how white supremacist groups are policed, I understand both the need to vigorously address threats of violence from racist and anti-democratic elements and the calls from some Justice Department officials to expand police powers to do so. But if history is a guide, providing police with new tools to address current white nationalist threats could result in further repression of Black activists.
Mississippi Free Press co-founder and publisher Kimberly Griffin reflects on the nonprofit news outlet’s first year as MFP turns 1 on March 15, 2021.
“I learned of five people in my community who have died. One dear friend lost both her sister and her sister’s husband; another lost her cousin; a colleague lost his grandmother; And a mentor bid goodbye to one of her childhood friends.”
One summer, a sweet white lady really wanted VBS to be inviting for folks outside our church, and she was inspired to give it a ’50s theme. The 1950s. In Montgomery. We objected. She didn’t understand our concern. She wanted fun sock-hops and poodle skirts and was not at all pleased when I asked if we were going to have colored drinking fountains and restrooms.
The governors of Texas and Mississippi announced that they were rescinding their statewide mask mandates and allowing restaurants and other businesses to return to 100% capacity in early March. The moves come while new infection numbers in the U.S. are still higher than they were in September and just ahead of school spring breaks, known for large gatherings and crowded bars where the coronavirus can quickly spread.
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).