Congress should honor Bob Moses, the longtime voting rights leader who died Sunday at age 86, by continuing his work to protect voting rights, President Joe Biden said in a statement late Monday. Moses, a Harlem, N.Y., native, moved to the deep south in the early 1960s to lead voter-registration efforts in Jim Crow Mississippi.
Sixty years after the original Freedom Riders rolled into Jackson, Miss., after a treacherous bus journey down from Washington, D.C., a new generation of activists chose to start a new ride for equal rights and freedom at Tougaloo College on June 19, 2021, which was the first time in American history that Juneteenth had been celebrated as a federal holiday.
In elections across the state on Tuesday, June 8, Mississippians will vote for leaders who will serve their towns and cities for the next four years, including mayors, city councilmembers, alderpersons and other offices.
Batesville mayoral candidate Eddie Nabors traveled to Washington, D.C., as Donald Trump sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6. Social-media posts also show that, in November, he marched in a group that included The Proud Boys, a far-right extremist organization.
Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann Mississippians to know that voters can obtain the necessary photo ID to cast a ballot free of charge.
A group of voters is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to allow them to intervene for a rehearing in Watson v. Butler and to reconsider its decision to strike down Initiative 65, the voter-approved medical marijuana law, and to revive the state’s ballot initiative law, which a 6-3 majority of justices nullified as part of its ruling.
State leaders are considering the prospect of a special session to repair Mississippi’s ballot initiative law after the state Supreme Court nullified it earlier this month in a decision that also killed the voter-approved medical-marijuana law. But even if lawmakers come to the rescue to quell widespread voter anger, some will use the opportunity to weaken direct democracy in the Magnolia State, one Jones County Republican is warning.
The Mississippi NAACP and the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus announced support today for a ballot initiative that would require counties to offer at least 10 days of early, in-person voting.
On the penultimate day of the Confederate Heritage Month, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves made a bold declaration: “There is not systemic racism in America.” The announcement, if it were true, could come as a relief to the 38% of Mississippians who are Black. But around 16% of those residents will not have the opportunity to express their gratitude to the governor in the next election because they are systematically disenfranchised due to an 1890 Jim Crow felony voting law.
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.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MS 39201
info@mississippifreepress.org
tips@mississippifreepress.org
events@mississippifreepress.org
601-362-6121
The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).
