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โ€” Eleven of the 13 Jackson mayoral candidates filed campaign-finance reports with the Jackson City Clerk by the 5 p.m. deadline yesterday. The reports show that the son of late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba is leading the money race, with a total of $138,801. Chokwe Antar Lumumba filed $15,656 of the total in a required 48-hour report filed today, April 2.

As of the end of April 1, Councilman Melvin Priester Jr. and Sen. John Horhn were neck and neck for the No. 2 money spot with Priester bringing in $104,635 and Horhn $104,593 by the April 1 filing deadline.

Councilman Tony Yarber came in fourth with $95,716, former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. with $60,355 and Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon had raised $54,680 and attorney Regina Quinn reporting $38,968.

As of the April 1 deadline, Priester reported the most cash on hand, with $35,559 and Lumumba following with $19,533. But with Lumumbaโ€™s April 2 48-hour report of an additional $15,656 in donations, his total seems to be virtually the same as Priesterโ€™s currently. Barrett-Simon was third with $25,964 on hand, Quinn was fourth with $16,233 cash left as of April 1, Horhn was fifth with $12,081 cash on hand and Johnson sixth with $8,003 on hand. Yarber brought up the rear of the main candidates with only $796 left as of April 1.

Only John Reed and Gwendolyn Ward Osborne Chapman did not file a report by the deadline, and only one 48-hour report is in as of this writing (from Lumumba).

Here are the top candidatesโ€™ largest three donors:

Chokwe Antar Lumumba

1- Donorโ€™s name was indecipherable but the address listed with the name goes to Mooreโ€™s Auto Sales.

Jackson

$10,120 (In kind)

2 โ€“ Winston James Thompson

Attorney at Cochran Law Firm

Madison

$5,000

2 โ€“ Juan A. Mateo

Attorney

Detroit

$5,000

2- Gerald Evelyn

Attorney

Detroit

$5,000

2 โ€“ Teresa Davis

Attorney

Lawton, OK

$5,000

3 โ€“ Gennie and Warren Jones

contractor/physician

Ridgeland

$3,500


Melvin Priester Jr

1- Charlene Priester

Attorney at Priester Law Firm

Jackson

$25,000

2 โ€“ Melvin Priester Jr.

Attorney at Priester Law Firm

Jackson

$17,455

3 โ€“ Pernila Brown

Agent at PSB Ventures

Jackson

$12,000


John Horhn

1 โ€“ Friends of John Horhn (seeking detailed report of donors)

Jackson

$45,343

2 โ€“ John Horhn

Business Development Consultant at Horhn & Associates

Jackson

$20,000

3 โ€“ Dr. Dinesh Goel

Physician

$5,000

Mrs. Dinesh Goel

Office manager

$5,000

3 โ€“ Michael Caracci

Health Care Provider for Sta-Home Health

Jackson

$5,000


Tony Yarber

1 โ€“ Tony Yarber

Ward 6 Councilman

Jackson

$20,000

2 โ€“ Socrates Garrett

Owner of Garrett Enterprise, local contractor

Jackson

$15,000

3 โ€“ E. R. Mitchell

President of E. R. Mitchell Construction

Atlanta

$10,000


Harvey Johnson Jr.

1 โ€“ Marcus L. Wallace

President of MAC Construction

Jackson

$31,000

2 โ€“ George E. Irvin Sr.

Owner of Property Parcel Real Estate

Jackson

$5,000

3 โ€“ Alvin W. Marley

Chief Executive Officer at Lombardia Capital Partners

Chicago

$4,000


Margaret Barrett-Simon

1 โ€“ MAC Associates

Jackson

$2,000

2 โ€“ James Barksdale

Woodlands Realty Group LLC

Ridgeland

$2,000

3 โ€“ Joseph Simpson

Madison

$1,000

3 โ€“ I.A.T.S.E. Local 589

Madison

$1,000


Regina Quinn

1 โ€“ John May Jr. (Quinnโ€™s husband)

Attorney

Jackson

$38,736 (loan)

2 โ€“ Marcus May

Attorney

Jackson

$12,800 (loan)

3 โ€“ Carolyn Wallace

Construction

Jackson

$2,000

PDFs of all the 2014 reports received to date are posted in the JFP Document Morgue, which will be updated as they arrive. (See jfp.ms/documents.)

View JFP endorsement interviews with the seven most-known candidates here.

Correction: A previous version misstated the top donors to Chokwe A. Lumumba. Gerald Evelyn and Teresa Davis, both of Detroit, have now been added to the list. We regret the error.

Previous Comments

We’ve updated the above piece with the top three (or four) donors for each candidates. Take a look


what about the $2500 from the detroit address for antar?


not to mention the 2 separate $5000 contributions from other detroit addresses? why were these left off you list?


Thanks, jon. Haley was having trouble with the handwritten Lumumba report and has added those. It definitely wasn’t on purpose; we wouldn’t have put the finance report next to it if so. ๐Ÿ˜‰


BTW, if anyone wants to help us search on who these donors are, especially the businesses and LLCs, h[ere’s the link to the secretary of state’s corporation searc][1]h. Help us pull up the board of directors and post below! Help us sleuth; we could use a bit of crowd-sourcing during this crazy-busy election season! Besides, it’s fun. ๐Ÿ˜‰ [1]: https://business.sos.state.ms.us/corp/soskb/CSearch.asp?dtm=7121875


More 48-hour campaign-finance reports are coming in. [Here’s one for Johnson.][1] [Here’s one for Priester.][2] Here’s another for Priester. [The full JFP Document Morgue is here][3]. Enjoy. Remember, we’d love your help [figuring out who these LLCs are. Click here to search the name][4] [1]: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/documents/2014/apr/04/harvey-johnson-48-hour-report/ [2]: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/documents/2014/apr/04/melvin-priester-jr-48-hour-report/ [3]: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/documents/ [4]: https://business.sos.state.ms.us/corp/soskb/CSearch.asp?dtm=7121875

Founding Editor Donna Ladd is a writer, journalist and editor from Philadelphia, Miss., a graduate of Mississippi State University and later the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she was an alumni award recipient in 2021. She writes about racism/whiteness, poverty, gender, violence, journalism and the criminal justice system. She contributes long-form features and essays to The Guardian when she has time, and was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press. She co-founded the statewide nonprofit Mississippi Free Press with Kimberly Griffin in March 2020, and the Mississippi Business Journal named her one of the state's top CEOs in 2024. Read more at donnaladd.com, follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @donnerkay and email her at donna@mississippifreepress.org.