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Mississippi-born filmmaker Ashley E. Gibson created a documentary, “The Fearless 11,” after learning her father’s story. Previously, Gibson had no idea about the history of Provine. She only knew it as the predominantly Black high school that it is today.
Dr. Gilbert Mason Jr. helped bring a discrimination lawsuit in 1964 against Biloxi Separate Municipal School District, which led to the desegregation of Biloxi’s schools. Biloxi Public School District was the first to integrate classrooms in Mississippi. Dr. Mason passed away on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.
Dr. Daniel Edney told the Mississippi Free Press that his letters in defense of the Confederacy represented the perspective of a “young man with … very little experience of the real world, and a very limited knowledge of how others felt,” and that “over the last 20 to 25 years, God has placed me on a different path.”
Memphis Comedian Katrina Coleman found racist stickers posted on a dumpster near their children’s predominantly Black elementary school in Memphis, Tenn. Coleman along with their children scraped them off together, using this as an example of how white parents can initiate change in a racist system by calling out white supremacy one small act at a time.
“Mississippi Burning” is a historical crime thriller film loosely based on the 1964 murder investigation of three Congress of Racial Equality civil rights workers—James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner—who were killed in Philadelphia, Miss., by the Ku Klux Klan. Contributing author Roger Amos, a Neshoba County native, discovered parts of his own Choctaw history during the Civil Rights Movement and this historical investigation after reading about it in history class.
Southern Poverty Law Center staff attorney Vidhi Bamzai said the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 2019 Mississippi poultry factory raid targeted workers that won a lawsuit concerning abuse in the workplace.
Voter restoration is one of many issues plaguing Mississippi, but a new collaboration between the Southern Poverty Law Center and Tougaloo College is looking to train the next up-and-coming generation of activists to effectively work toward voting rights with an advocacy institute.
A group of Black community leaders founded the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Jonesboro, La., with the goal of protecting the Black community and fighting back against KKK violence.
The investigative report released last week starts the 49-day clock until June 2022, when Attorney General Merrick B. Garland can legally file a case against Mississippi in federal court in line with the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act.
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).