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Emily Wagster Pettus

AP News •

Judge declares mistrial after jury deadlocks over killing of gay University of Mississippi student

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of Sheldon “Timothy” Herrington Jr. in the 2022 killing of Jimmy “Jay” Lee, a gay man who was prominent in the LGBTQ+ community at the University of Mississippi.Jurors said they were unable to reach a verdict after over nine and a half hours of deliberation.Lee’s body has never been found, but a judge declared him dead.Herrington, 24, showed little emotion as he left the courtroom with his attorneys and several relatives. He remains free on bond...
AP News •

Attorneys want the US Supreme Court to say Mississippi's felony voting ban is cruel and unusual

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft, attorneys say in new court papers.Most of the people affected are disenfranchised for life because the state provides few options for restoring ballot access.“Mississippi’s harsh and unforgiving felony disenfranchisement scheme is a national outlier,” attorneys representi...
AP News •

Mississippi governor intent on income tax cut even if states receive less federal money

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said Wednesday that he will continue pushing lawmakers to phase out the state income tax, even with the possibility of federal spending cuts that could affect states after Donald Trump begins his second term as president.Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the U.S., and it receives billions of dollars a year from the federal government. One of the biggest chunks of federal money is for Medicaid, a government health insurance p...
AP News •

Bribery case adds to problems in Mississippi city with water woes and policing disputes

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Bribery and conspiracy charges against the mayor are the latest shock to Mississippi’s capital, where a federally appointed official is running the water system after it nearly collapsed and state police are patrolling parts of the majority-Black city because of white legislators’ concerns about crime.Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and two other Democratic elected officials — Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and Jackson City Council member Aaron B. Banks — plea...
AP News •

Thelma Mothershed Wair, a member of the Little Rock Nine who integrated an Arkansas school, has died

Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of the nine Black students who integrated a high school in Arkansas’ capital city of Little Rock in 1957 while a mob of white segregationists yelled threats and insults, has died at age 83.Mothershed Wair died Saturday at a hospital in Little Rock after having complications from multiple sclerosis, her sister, Grace Davis, confirmed Sunday to The Associated Press.The students who integrated Central High School were known as the Little Rock Nine.For three weeks in Sept...
AP News •

Residents of a small Mississippi town respond to a scathing Justice Department report on policing

LEXINGTON, Miss. (AP) — Some residents of a small Mississippi town where the Justice Department found severe problems with excessive and racially disproportionate policing said they were unaware of the ongoing issues, while others said harassment from officers was a part everyday of life. In a report released Thursday on Lexington, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of Jackson, the Justice Department said it found a stunning pattern of racially disparate policing in a department “where officer...
AP News •

A Mississippi town moves a Confederate monument that became a shrouded eyesore

GRENADA, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 — a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land. A concrete slab has already been poured behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 k...
AP News •

Fannie Lou Hamer rattled the Democratic convention with her 'Is this America?' speech 60 years ago

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is accepting the Democrats’ presidential nomination Thursday, exactly 60 years after another Black woman mesmerized the nation with a televised speech that challenged the seating of Mississippi’s all-white delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention.The testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer to the credentials committee in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was vivid and blunt. She described how she was fired from her plantation job in retaliation for...
AP News •

Black soldiers are honored, name by name, at a Civil War battlefield

VICKSBURG, Miss. (AP) — Thelma Sims Dukes grew up during the 1940s and ‘50s in a segregated Mississippi town steeped in Civil War history.As a small Black girl, she would walk to school through Vicksburg National Military Park — the hilly battlefield where Union and Confederate soldiers fought and died over whether the U.S. would continue allowing slavery in the South.Union forces won a pivotal campaign to capture the town of Vicksburg and gain control of the Mississippi River in 1863, hastening...
AP News •

Civil rights icon James Meredith turns 90

James Meredith knew he was putting his own life in danger in the 1960s by pursuing what he believes was his mission from God — to conquer white supremacy in the deeply segregated state of Mississippi. Now as he turns 90, Meredith is still talking about his divine mission. (June 26) (AP Video: Emily Wagster Pettus)

James Meredith knew he was putting his own life in danger in the 1960s by pursuing what he believes was his mission from God — to conquer white supremacy in the deeply segregated stat...
AP News •

James Meredith risked his life doing civil rights work. At 90, he says religion can help cut crime

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — James Meredith knew he was putting his life in danger in the 1960s by pursuing what he believes was his divine mission: conquering white supremacy in the deeply, and often violently, segregated state of Mississippi.A half-century later, the civil rights leader is still talking about his mission from God. In recent weeks, he made several appearances around his home state, urging people to obey the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule in order to reduce crime. On his 90th bir...
AP News •

Medgar Evers' legacy continues 60 years after murder

It’s been 60 years since civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered outside his Mississippi home. Several events have been held in Mississippi this month to commemorate the work of Evers and his widow Myrlie, who is now 90. (June 12) (AP Video: Emily Wagster Pettus)

It’s been 60 years since civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered outside his Mississippi home. Several events have been held in Mississippi this month to commemorate the work of Evers and his widow Myrlie, who is now 90. (J...
AP News •

Welfare scandal sharpens contrasts in long-poor Mississippi

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In Mississippi, where elected officials have a long history of praising self-sufficiency and condemning federal antipoverty programs, a welfare scandal has exposed how millions of dollars were diverted to the rich and powerful — including pro athletes — instead of helping some of the neediest people in the nation.The misuse of welfare money rankles Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, executive director of One Voice, a nonprofit that works to help economically vulnerable communities in...
AP News •

Emmett Till movie shown in Black town pivotal to the story

MOUND BAYOU, Miss. (AP) — The tiny, all-Black town of Mound Bayou became a safe haven for Emmett Till’s mother as she traveled to Mississippi to testify in the murder trial of two white men who lynched her son in 1955.Hundreds of people — a good portion of Mound Bayou’s 1,500 residents — turned out Thursday evening to watch the movie “Till.” The feature film is going into wide release across the U.S. this weekend after being in limited release since Oct. 14.“This place, this city, is very sacred...
AP News •

'Change has come': Mississippi unveils Emmett Till statue

GREENWOOD, Miss. (AP) — Hundreds of people applauded — and some wiped away tears — as a Mississippi community unveiled a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, not far from where white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager over accusations he had flirted with a white woman in a country store.“Change has come, and it will continue to happen,” Madison Harper, a senior at Leflore County High School, told a racially diverse audience at the statue’s dedication. “Decades ago, our pare...
AP News •

Emmett Till statue unveiled in Mississippi

A statue of Emmett Till was revealed this week in Greenwood, Mississippi. It’s not far from where white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager over accusations that he flirted with a white woman in a country store in 1955. (October 22) (AP Video: Emily Wagster Pettus, Produced by Patrick Orsagos)

A statue of Emmett Till was revealed this week in Greenwood, Mississippi. It’s not far from where white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager over accusations that he flirted with a white wo...
AP News •

Mississippi capital's water disaster developed over decades

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — For at least the third time in a dozen years, portable toilets are parked outside the ornate Mississippi Capitol because Jackson’s water system is in crisis.The big “Gotta Go” trailer is just one example of the city’s desperation. Many homes, businesses and government offices have had little or no running water this week, forcing people to wait in long lines for drinking water or water to flush toilets.The scenes testify to the near collapse of a water system that residents...
AP News •

Mississippi marker honors 2 Black men killed by Klan in 1964

MEADVILLE, Miss. (AP) — Friends and relatives gathered Thursday in a tiny town in southwestern Mississippi to dedicate a new state historical marker honoring two young Black men who were kidnapped and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen 57 years ago.Investigators found the remains of college student Charles Eddie Moore and lumber mill worker Henry Hezekiah Dee in a backwater of the Mississippi River in July 1964. It happened as officers were searching for three civil rights workers who had disappeared fr...
AP News •

Mississippi rematch: Espy challenges Hyde-Smith for Senate

BELZONI, Miss. (AP) — By the time U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy arrived at a restaurant near a highway that cuts through cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, he had already received a celebrity’s welcome.A half-dozen law enforcement vehicles flashed blue lights and blared sirens as they escorted his campaign bus through Belzoni — a town of 1,900 that bills itself as Catfish Capital of the World.People stepped outside to see the commotion on an otherwise quiet Wednesday. Some waved. Others s...
AP News •

Mississippi flag: Magnolia could replace old rebel symbol

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi voters will decide whether to accept a new state flag with a magnolia to replace an old one legislators retired under pressure because it included the Confederate battle emblem that’s widely seen as racist.A commission voted 8-1 Wednesday to recommend the magnolia over one other final design that featured a shield with wavy lines representing water.“We’ll send a message that we live in the future and not in the past,” former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reu...
PBS News •

Mississippi retires former state flag to museum

JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi officials held a ceremony Wednesday afternoon to relegate the former state flag to history, a day after Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed a new law removing official status from the last state banner in the U.S. that included the Confederate battle emblem.
Mississippi faced increasing pressure in recent weeks to change its 126-year-old flag since protests against racial injustice have focused attention on Confederate symbols.
A broad coalition of legislators on Sund...
AP News •

With a pen stroke, Mississippi drops Confederate-themed flag

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — With a stroke of the governor’s pen, Mississippi is retiring the last state flag in the U.S. with the Confederate battle emblem — a symbol that’s widely condemned as racist.Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the historic bill Tuesday at the Governor’s Mansion, immediately removing official status for the 126-year-old banner that has been a source of division for generations.“This is not a political moment to me but a solemn occasion to lead our Mississippi family to come t...
AP News •

Former US Sen. Thad Cochran, 'Quiet Persuader,' dies at 81

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In the Washington political scene of bombast and big egos, Republican Thad Cochran of Mississippi wielded power with a quiet, gentlemanly demeanor.He played piano in his Capitol Hill office and dashed off handwritten notes of thanks or congratulations to constituents. The white conservative reared in the segregationist the Deep South hired African American staff members, supported historically black universities and received support from black voters who provided a crucial...
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