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.
August 28, 2021 marks the 66th anniversary of Emmett Till’s gruesome murder in the Mississippi Delta. He would have turned 80 years old this year—just two years older than the current President of the United States. It is time for our region, state, and country to finally honor Emmett Till and his courageous mother with the creation of an Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Mississippi Delta Civil Rights National Historic Park.
The Poor People’s Campaign’s “Third Reconstruction” resolution highlights what it calls a congressional failure to elevate the poor through social programs, voting-rights expansion and the elimination of systemic racism. It details suggested solutions for each of these problems, including an increase in the long-stagnant federal minimum wage, provisions to expand insurance coverage, a large-scale reduction of student debt and prison reform.
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.
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