Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves allowed the statewide mask mandate to expire today, saying at a Hinds County press conference that “we should not use the heavy hand of government more than it is justified.”
The coronavirus pandemic has hit the Mississippi Choctaw Band of Indians harder than any major city in the nation—and 10 times harder than the rest of Mississippi. Of the 10,000 Choctaws the tribe serves, one in 10—1,092—has tested positive for COVID-19.
Oak Grove High School students are fighting back against what they claim is an atmosphere of racism and indifference in a historic white flight suburb in Mississippi’s Lamar County.
Biloxi High School is suspending in-person class instruction only two-and-a-half weeks into the fall semester, Principal Teresa Martin announced in a letter to parents today. Already, officials have identified COVID-19 cases among 15 students and quarantined 324 classmates with known exposures at the Harrison County, Miss., school.
For the first time in years, Brenda Pittman did not greet schoolchildren on Monday morning as they arrived for their first day back at West Marion Elementary School in Foxworth, Miss. The 49-year-old music teacher and resident of the small Marion County community died one week ago yesterday after a weeks-long battle with COVID-19. On Sunday, a day after her funeral, her husband, Charlie Pittman, also died of the novel coronavirus.
One day shy of a year after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed poultry plants across Mississippi and arrested 680 undocumented workers, ICE and the U.S. Department of Justice announced their first indictments against executives at the targeted companies.
Even as Gov. Tate Reeves pushes K-12 schools to resume traditional in-class instruction, Mississippi is experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases among school age children.
Mississippi hospitals are “stretched thin,” and Mississippians “will not be able to get the health care (they) need” as the novel coronavirus outbreak accelerates across the state, top health experts warned during a dire press conference this morning. Already, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said, five of the state’s largest hospitals have already run out of ICU beds for critical patients.
Behind closed doors, at most white gatherings and even at churches, they still use the n-word for black people even now. Those who have stopped saying that word have replaced it with “animals” or “thugs,” all while diminishing and discounting any experiences of racism a black person may have.
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