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Renada Stovall sat on the back deck of her rural Arkansas home one evening, contemplating life when she had a life-altering epiphany…

“I gotta get out of these woods.” 

She heard it as clear as lips to her ear and as deep as the trees surrounding her property. Stovall’s job as a chemist had taken her all over the country. In addition to Arkansas, there were stints in Atlanta, Dallas and Reno. But she was missing home, her parents and friends. She also knew, she needed something else to do. 

“I thought, what kind of business can I start for myself,” said Stovall, as she watered herbs growing in a garden behind her south Jackson home. Some of those herbs are used in her all-natural products. “I know when I lived in Reno, Nevada, where it’s very hot and very dry, there really weren’t products available that worked for me, my hair, and my skin suffered. I’ve got a chemistry degree from Spelman College. I took the plunge and decided to create products for myself.”

In 2018, Stovall’s venture led to the creation of shea butter moisturizers and natural soaps. But she didn’t stop there, and in December 2022, she moved home to Mississippi and got to work, expanding her product line to include body balms and butters, and shampoos infused with avocado and palm, mango butter, coconut and olive oils.

Nadabutter, which incorporates Renada’s name, came to fruition.

Stovall sells her balms and moisturizers at what she calls, “pop-up markets,” across the state during the summer. She’s available via social media and also creates products depending on what of her ingredients a customer chooses. “My turmeric and honey is really popular,” Stovall added.

“The all-natural ingredients I use are great for conditioning the skin and hair. All of my products make you feel soft and luscious. The shea butter I use comes from West Africa. It’s my way of networking and supporting other women. And it’s my wish that other women can be inspired to be self-sufficient in starting their own businesses.”

The post Renada Stovall, chemist and entrepreneur appeared first on Mississippi Today.

“Unfortunately, some only support it when it equates to campaign contributions. Sadly, through the line-item veto of the appropriation, Mississippians will once again wait another year for the opportunity to benefit from state investments for the greater public good.” – Secretary of State Michael Watson. Read the whole article here.

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For help, call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA (1-833-852-6262) or contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.” Spanish-language services are also available.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Milagros Aquino was trying to find a new place to live and had been struggling to get used to new foods after she moved to Bridgeport from Peru with her husband and young son in 2023.

When Aquino, now 31, got pregnant in May 2023, “instantly everything got so much worse than before,” she said. “I was so sad and lying in bed all day. I was really lost and just surviving.”

Aquino has lots of company.

Perinatal depression affects as many as 20% of women in the United States during pregnancy, the postpartum period, or both, according to studies. In some states, anxiety or depression afflicts nearly a quarter of new mothers or pregnant women.

Many women in the U.S. go untreated because there is no widely deployed system to screen for mental illness in mothers, despite widespread recommendations to do so. Experts say the lack of screening has driven higher rates of mental illness, suicide, and drug overdoses that are now the leading causes of death in the first year after a woman gives birth.

“This is a systemic issue, a medical issue, and a human rights issue,” said Lindsay R. Standeven, a perinatal psychiatrist and the clinical and education director of the Johns Hopkins Reproductive Mental Health Center.

Standeven said the root causes of the problem include racial and socioeconomic disparities in maternal care and a lack of support systems for new mothers. She also pointed a finger at a shortage of mental health professionals, insufficient maternal mental health training for providers, and insufficient reimbursement for mental health services. Finally, Standeven said, the problem is exacerbated by the absence of national maternity leave policies, and the access to weapons.

Those factors helped drive a 105% increase in postpartum depression from 2010 to 2021, according to the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

For Aquino, it wasn’t until the last weeks of her pregnancy, when she signed up for acupuncture to relieve her stress, that a social worker helped her get care through the Emme Coalition, which connects girls and women with financial help, mental health counseling services, and other resources.

Mothers diagnosed with perinatal depression or anxiety during or after pregnancy are at about three times the risk of suicidal behavior and six times the risk of suicide compared with mothers without a mood disorder, according to recent U.S. and international studies in JAMA Network Open and The BMJ.

The toll of the maternal mental health crisis is particularly acute in rural communities that have become maternity care deserts, as small hospitals close their labor and delivery units because of plummeting birth rates, or because of financial or staffing issues.

This week, the Maternal Mental Health Task Force — co-led by the Office on Women’s Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and formed in September to respond to the problem — recommended creating maternity care centers that could serve as hubs of integrated care and birthing facilities by building upon the services and personnel already in communities.

The task force will soon determine what portions of the plan will require congressional action and funding to implement and what will be “low-hanging fruit,” said Joy Burkhard, a member of the task force and the executive director of the nonprofit Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health.

Burkhard said equitable access to care is essential. The task force recommended that federal officials identify areas where maternity centers should be placed based on data identifying the underserved. “Rural America,” she said, “is first and foremost.”

There are shortages of care in “unlikely areas,” including Los Angeles County, where some maternity wards have recently closed, said Burkhard. Urban areas that are underserved would also be eligible to get the new centers.

“All that mothers are asking for is maternity care that makes sense. Right now, none of that exists,” she said.

Several pilot programs are designed to help struggling mothers by training and equipping midwives and doulas, people who provide guidance and support to the mothers of newborns.

In Montana, rates of maternal depression before, during, and after pregnancy are higher than the national average. From 2017 to 2020, approximately 15% of mothers experienced postpartum depression and 27% experienced perinatal depression, according to the Montana Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. The state had the sixth-highest maternal mortality rate in the country in 2019, when it received a federal grant to begin training doulas.

To date, the program has trained 108 doulas, many of whom are Native American. Native Americans make up 6.6% of Montana’s population. Indigenous people, particularly those in rural areas, have twice the national rate of severe maternal morbidity and mortality compared with white women, according to a study in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Stephanie Fitch, grant manager at Montana Obstetrics & Maternal Support at Billings Clinic, said training doulas “has the potential to counter systemic barriers that disproportionately impact our tribal communities and improve overall community health.”

Twelve states and Washington, D.C., have Medicaid coverage for doula care, according to the National Health Law Program. They are California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Medicaid pays for about 41% of births in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jacqueline Carrizo, a doula assigned to Aquino through the Emme Coalition, played an important role in Aquino’s recovery. Aquino said she couldn’t have imagined going through such a “dark time alone.” With Carrizo’s support, “I could make it,” she said.

Genetic and environmental factors, or a past mental health disorder, can increase the risk of depression or anxiety during pregnancy. But mood disorders can happen to anyone.

Teresa Martinez, 30, of Price, Utah, had struggled with anxiety and infertility for years before she conceived her first child. The joy and relief of giving birth to her son in 2012 were short-lived.

Without warning, “a dark cloud came over me,” she said.

Martinez was afraid to tell her husband. “As a woman, you feel so much pressure and you don’t want that stigma of not being a good mom,” she said.

In recent years, programs around the country have started to help doctors recognize mothers’ mood disorders and learn how to help them before any harm is done.

One of the most successful is the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms, which began a decade ago and has since spread to 29 states. The program, supported by federal and state funding, provides tools and training for physicians and other providers to screen and identify disorders, triage patients, and offer treatment options.

But the expansion of maternal mental health programs is taking place amid sparse resources in much of rural America. Many programs across the country have run out of money.

The federal task force proposed that Congress fund and create consultation programs similar to the one in Massachusetts, but not to replace the ones already in place, said Burkhard.

In April, Missouri became the latest state to adopt the Massachusetts model. Women on Medicaid in Missouri are 10 times as likely to die within one year of pregnancy as those with private insurance. From 2018 through 2020, an average of 70 Missouri women died each year while pregnant or within one year of giving birth, according to state government statistics.

Wendy Ell, executive director of the Maternal Health Access Project in Missouri, called her service a “lifesaving resource” that is free and easy to access for any health care provider in the state who sees patients in the perinatal period.

About 50 health care providers have signed up for Ell’s program since it began. Within 30 minutes of a request, the providers can consult over the phone with one of three perinatal psychiatrists. But while the doctors can get help from the psychiatrists, mental health resources for patients are not as readily available.

The task force called for federal funding to train more mental health providers and place them in high-need areas like Missouri. The task force also recommended training and certifying a more diverse workforce of community mental health workers, patient navigators, doulas, and peer support specialists in areas where they are most needed.

A new voluntary curriculum in reproductive psychiatry is designed to help psychiatry residents, fellows, and mental health practitioners who may have little or no training or education about the management of psychiatric illness in the perinatal period. A small study found that the curriculum significantly improved psychiatrists’ ability to treat perinatal women with mental illness, said Standeven, who contributed to the training program and is one of the study’s authors.

Nancy Byatt, a perinatal psychiatrist at the University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine who led the launch of the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms in 2014, said there is still a lot of work to do.

“I think that the most important thing is that we have made a lot of progress and, in that sense, I am kind of hopeful,” Byatt said.

Cheryl Platzman Weinstock’s reporting is supported by a grant from the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

The post Federal panel prescribes new mental health strategy to curb maternal deaths appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The state’s officer certification and training board now has the power to investigate law enforcement misconduct.

Gov. Tate Reeves signed the bill making it official.

Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, who pushed for the legislation, said that House Bill 691 authorizes the Board of Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training “to launch its own investigations into officer misconduct. This change, along with the funding to hire two investigators, will improve the board’s ability to ensure officer professionalism and standards.”

The new law comes in the wake of an investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times into sheriffs and deputies across the state over allegations of sexual abuse, torture and corruption.

Tindell said the new law will “improve law-enforcement training in Mississippi by requiring all law enforcement officers to receive continuing training throughout an officer’s career.”

Under that law, deputies, sheriffs and state law enforcement officers will join police officers in the requirement to have up to 24 hours of continuing education training. Those who fail to train could lose their certifications.

Other changes will take place as well. Each year, the licensing board will have to report on its activities to the Legislature and the governor. 

Tindell thanked Reeves “for signing this important piece of legislation and the legislative leaders who supported its passage, including the author of HB 691, Representative Fred Shanks.”

Shanks, R-Brandon, praised the “team effort with some very smart people who want a top-notch law enforcement community.”

The new law creates a 13-member board with the governor having six appointments – two police chiefs, two sheriffs, a district attorney and the director of the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers’ Training Academy.

Other members would include the attorney general or a designee, the director of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the public safety commissioner and the presidents of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police, the Mississippi Constable Association, the Mississippi Campus Law Enforcement Association and the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Association (or their designees).

“We obviously need checks and balances on how law enforcement officers conduct themselves,” said state Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson. “This is a good first step.”

The post New law gives state board power to probe officer misconduct appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A bill to open a college financial aid program for the first time ever to Mississippians who are adult, part-time and very low-income students fell to the wayside in a legislative session dominated by fights over Medicaid and K-12 funding.

The effort to expand the Mississippi Resident Tuition Assistance Grant, called MTAG, died in conference after it was removed from House Bill 765, legislation to provide financial assistance to teachers in critical shortage areas. The Senate had attached MTAG’s code sections to that bill in an attempt to keep the expansion alive. 

This takes Jennifer Rogers, the director of the Mississippi Office of Student Financial Aid, back to the drawing board after years of championing legislation to modernize the way the state helps Mississippians pay for college. 

“At the end of the day, there was no appetite to spend any additional money on student financial aid,” Rogers said. “Obviously, I’m disappointed.” 

All told, the original proposal would have resulted in the state spending upwards of $30 million extra each year, almost doubling OSFA’s roughly $50 million budget. 

The increase derived from two aspects of the proposal: An estimated 37,000 Mississippians who have never been eligible for college financial aid would have become eligible to receive it, and the scholarship amounts would have increased. 

While college students from millionaire families can get MTAG, the state’s poorest students are not eligible, Mississippi Today previously reported. 

READ MORE: College financial aid program designed to exclude Mississippi’s poorest students has helped children of millionaires

Rep. Kent McCarty, R-Hattiesburg, said he supports efforts to help low-income Mississippians afford college, but that HB 765 was not an appropriate vehicle to do so because it was not an appropriations bill. Attempting to expand MTAG through that legislation would have put the original subject of HB 765, the Mississippi Critical Teachers Shortage Act, at risk.

“We didn’t feel it was appropriate to include an appropriation in a bill that had not been through the appropriations process,” he said.

McCarty, a member of the House Universities and Colleges Committee, added that he is in favor of changing MTAG and doesn’t understand the logic behind excluding from state financial aid Mississippi college students who receive a full federal Pell Grant, meaning they come from the state’s poorest families.

“What is the purpose of financial aid? To aid those who need financial aid,” he said. “Excluding a group of students because they’re eligible for other financial aid doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

Ultimately, the Mississippi House deemed the proposal too expensive. It never passed out of that chamber’s Appropriations Committee. 

READ MORE: ‘A thing called money:’ Bill to expand financial aid stalled after House lawmakers balk at price tag

Rogers said she plans to work with lawmakers to convince them that it is a good use of state dollars to invest in financial aid. She added that the support of the business community helped keep the bill alive as long as it did this session. The Mississippi Economic Council supported the legislation. 

“I don’t understand why there is such a hesitancy to invest more in the future workforce of the state,” she said. “I don’t understand why there isn’t a willingness to invest in student financial aid as a way to help more Mississippians complete meaningful certificates or degrees, valuable certificates or degrees and improve the quality of the workforce.” 

Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, told Mississippi Today that he hopes to take a closer look at MTAG this summer, noting that the Senate’s version of the proposal, which also included a last-dollar tuition scholarship, was a priority of the lieutenant governor on last year’s campaign trail.

“We had so many issues last session,” DeBar said. “Hopefully there won’t be as many next year so we can just focus this year and get it across the finish line.”

The post Lawmakers punt to next year efforts to expand college aid for low-income Mississippians appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Advocates from some of the state’s conservation groups — such as Audubon Delta, Mississippi Sierra Club and Steps Coalition — spoke out Wednesday against a recent decision by the Mississippi Public Service Commission to suspend several solar programs, including “Solar for Schools,” less than two years after the previous commission put them in place.

“This is particularly disappointing because the need for these incentives in the state of Mississippi is significant,” said Jonathan Green, executive director of Steps Coalition. “Energy costs in the South, and in particular the region known as the Black Belt, are higher than those in other parts of the country for a number of reasons. These regions tend to have older energy generation infrastructure, and housing that has not been weatherproofed to modern standards. For many low- to moderate-income residents in the state of Mississippi, energy burden and energy insecurity represent real daily economic challenges.”

The PSC voted 2-1 at its April docket meeting to do away with the programs, reasoning in part that new funds through the Inflation Reduction Act would be available to the state. About 10 days later, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded $62 million to the state, through the Hope Enterprise Corporation, to help low-income Mississippians afford adding solar power to their homes. The funds are part of the Biden Administration’s Solar for All program, one of the several recent federal initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The PSC decision ended three programs the previous commission put in place to encourage wider adoption of solar power through the two power companies it regulates, Entergy Mississippi and Mississippi Power: “Solar for Schools,” which allowed school districts to essentially build solar panels for free in exchange for tax credits, as well as incentives for low-income customers and battery storage.

Last Friday, the Sierra Club filed lawsuits in chancery courts in Hinds and Harrison counties against the commission, arguing the PSC broke state law by not providing sufficient reasoning or public notice before making the changes. Advocates also argued that new funding going to Hope Enterprise won’t go as far without the PSC’s low-income incentives.

The programs were part of a 2022 addition to the state’s net metering rule, a system that allows homeowners to generate their own solar power and earn credits for excess energy on their electric bills. Mississippi’s version is less beneficial to participants than net metering in most states, though, because it doesn’t reimburse users at the full retail cost. Mississippi’s net metering program itself is still in tact.

Northern District Commissioner Chris Brown said that, while he supported efforts to expand solar power, he didn’t think programs that offer incentives from energy companies were fair to other ratepayers.

“It’s the subsidy that we take issue with,” Brown said at the meeting. “It’s not the solar, it’s not the helping the schools. We just don’t think it’s good policy to spread that to the rest of the ratepayers.”

Brown and Southern District Commissioner Wayne Carr voted to end the programs, while Central District Commissioner De’Keither Stamps voted against the motion. All three are in their first terms on the PSC. Brown’s position is in line with what the power companies as well as Gov. Tate Reeves have argued, which is that programs like net metering forces non-participants to subsidize those who participate.

Robert Wiygul, an attorney for the Mississippi Sierra Club, countered that argument during Wednesday’s press conference, saying that net metering actually helps non-participants by adding more power to the grid and reducing the strain on the power companies’ other infrastructure. Moreover, he said, the PSC hasn’t offered actual numbers showing that non-participants are subsidizing the program.

“Look, if the commission wants to talk about that, we are ready to talk about it,” Wiygul said. “But what we got here is a situation where these two commissioners just decided they were going to do this. We don’t even know what that claim is really based on because it hasn’t been through the public notice and hasn’t been through the public comment process.”

While no schools had officially enrolled in “Solar for Schools,” which went into effect in January of last year, Stamps told Mississippi Today that there were places in his district getting ready to participate in the very programs the PSC voted to suspend.

“My issue was we should have talked to the entities that were going through the process to (understand what they were doing) to participate in the programs before you eliminate the programs,” he said.

Several school districts in the state are already using solar panels thanks to funding from a past settlement with Mississippi Power. Officials there told Mississippi Today that the extra power generated from the panels has freed up spending for other educational needs. During the public comment period for the 2022 net metering update, about a dozen school district superintendents from around the state wrote in to support the initiative. Ninety-five school districts in the state would have been eligible for the program because they receive power from Entergy Mississippi or Mississippi Power.

Former commissioner Brent Bailey, who lost a close reelection bid in November to Stamps, was an advocate for the schools program that the PSC created while he was there. At the April docket meeting, he pleaded with the new commission to reconsider, arguing that the new federal funding won’t have the same impact without those programs.

“My ask is to at least give this program a chance, see where it goes, and hear from stakeholders that have participated,” Bailey said. The solar programs, he added, weren’t just about expanding renewable energy, but taking advantage of a growing economy around solar power as well: “We can just stand by and watch it go by, or we can participate in this and bring economic development to the state.”

The post PSC axes solar programs in light of EPA funds, advocates file lawsuit appeared first on Mississippi Today.

For the third consecutive year legislative efforts to direct state money to renovate LeFleur’s Bluff in Jackson have been stymied, thanks in large part to Gov. Tate Reeves.

Earlier this week, the Republican governor vetoed a portion of a bill that directed $14 million to the office of Secretary of State Michael Watson for work on developing and improving a nature trail connecting parks and museums and making other tourism-related improvements in the LeFleur’s Bluff area.

It is not clear whether the Legislature could take up the veto during the 2025 session, which begins in January, though, that’s not likely. The Legislature had the option to return to Jackson Tuesday to take up any veto, but chose not to do so.

Of the project, Watson said, “Our office was approached late in the session about helping with a project to revitalize LeFleur’s Bluff. As Mississippi’s state land commissioner, I was more than happy to help lead this effort not just because it’s a natural fit for our office, but also because I believe Mississippi needs a thriving capital city to retain our best and brightest. Investing state funds in state property on a project to enhance the quality of life in Jackson makes good sense.

“Unfortunately, some only support it when it equates to campaign contributions. Sadly, through the line-item veto of the appropriation, Mississippians will once again wait another year for the opportunity to benefit from state investments for the greater public good.”

READ MORE: Gov. Reeves warns Mississippi: Challenge my vetoes, and it could jeopardize hundreds of projects

Various groups, such as representatives of the Mississippi Children’s Museum and many other community leaders have been working on the project for years. The area already is the home of the Children’s Museum, Museum of Natural History, Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, state Agriculture Museum and a state park.

The issues with LeFleur’s Bluff first arose in 2022 when Reeves vetoed a $14 million appropriation that in part was designed to redesign and create a new golf course in the area. Previously, there had been a nine-hole, state-owned golf course operated by the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks at LeFleur’s Bluff State Park.

In 2022, the LeFleur’s Bluff project was one of literally hundreds of projects funded by the Legislature – many of which was tourism projects like LeFleur’s Bluff. The governor only vetoed a handful of those projects.

When issuing the LeFleur’s  Bluff veto, Reeves said the state should not be involved in funding golf courses.

Then last year $13 million was directed to the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to spend on the LeFleur’s Bluff project. But legislative leaders said state money would not go toward a golf course.

Lawmakers opted to transfer the project to the Secretary of State’s office late in the 2024 session, apparently in part because they felt the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks had not made enough of an effort to begin the project.

Lynn Posey, executive director of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, said that before moving forward with the project, “We felt like we needed to do engineering work and see what the situation was. We never got a chance to move forward” because the Legislature redirected the money.

Posey said an engineer’s report was needed because “it is a unique piece of land.” He said much of the land is prone to flooding.

He said before that work could begin the Legislature switched the authority to the Secretary of State’s office. Posey was appointed to his current position by Reeves, whose office had no comment on the veto.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said after the governor’s veto, “Projects like the LeFleur’s Bluff development are critical to the Capital City, the wider metropolitan area, and our state. Public parks add to the quality of life for our citizens. I am hopeful the individuals involved in this project, including those at the Mississippi Children’s Museum, will continue their work to improve this state asset.” 

While the Constitution instructs the governor to provide to the Legislature a reason for any veto, Reeves did not do so this year when vetoing the money going to the Secretary of State’s office.

On Monday, the governor also vetoed a portion of another bill dealing with appropriations for specific projects. But in this case, the veto was more of a technicality. The bill was making corrections to language passed in previous sessions. In that language were five projects the governor vetoed in 2022.

The language, as it was written, would not have revived those previously vetoed projects, the governor said. But Reeves said he vetoed the five projects out of caution. He did the same in 2023 when those five projects, which included money appropriated in 2022 for the Russell C. Davis Planetarium in Jackson, were carried forward in a bill also making corrections to previously passed legislation.

The post Reeves again blocks funds for LeFleur’s Bluff project in Jackson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

College baseball’s regular season is in its last week, which means baseball bracketology is a popular activity. State needs to finish strong to become a Regional host. Southern Miss probably has already punched its ticket as a 2- or 3-seed. Ole Miss, playing its best baseball presently, needs victories, period. Meanwhile, the State High School softball tournament is this week in Hattiesburg, and the state baseball tournament comes to Trustmark Park in Pearl next week.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: In or out (of the NCAA Tournament)? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A week ago, Arkansas officials unveiled a new statue at the National Statuary Hall to represent the state, civil rights leader Daisy Bates.

Her statue now stands next to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, one of two statues representing Mississippi.

“This is absolutely embarrassing to the Mississippi that I love,” said Al Price, who has called for changing the state’s statues ever since he saw them in 2012 in Washington, D.C. He sought unsuccessfully in 2017 to get state Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona, to sponsor a bill to do so.

He recommends that author William Faulkner and civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer represent the state. “This would be a profound statement by the state of Mississippi,” he said. “It would challenge a lot of the negative stereotypes about the state and would go a long way to healing a lot of wounds.”

Since 2000, 17 states have installed new statues or moved to replace existing statues at the hall in the U.S. Capitol.

Alabama now has Helen Keller. Arizona has Barry Goldwater. California has Ronald Reagan. Kansas has Amelia Earhart and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Michigan has Gerald Ford. Missouri has Harry Truman. Ohio has Thomas Edison. And North Carolina will add Billy Graham on Thursday.

Mississippi, however, has the same statues that were erected almost a century ago, both of them Confederate leaders.

Some Southern states are replacing Confederate icons with more modern heroes. Arkansas now has Bates; Virginia, Barbara Johns; and Florida, Mary McLeod Bethune, one of the most important Black educators of the 20th century. Congress has added Rosa Parks as well.

The contributions of Native Americans have also been recognized in a number of states, including Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming.

A state can change its statues through a resolution that is adopted by the Legislature and approved by the governor. 

“We just need to have someone courageous enough in the Legislature to do so,” Price said.

In 2019, Arkansas voted to replace both of its statues, Uriah Rose, who supported Arkansas seceding from the Union, and former U.S. Sen. James Paul Clarke, who vowed to uphold “white supremacy.”

Their replacements are Bates, a mentor to the Little Rock Nine, and music legend Johnny Cash, whose statue is slated to arrive in September.

At the same time Arkansas is switching out the statues that represent the state in Washington, Mississippi has not seriously considered such a change.

“Mississippi could learn a lot from its neighbor,” said Robert Luckett, associate professor of history and director of the Margaret Walker Center for the Study of the African American Experience at Jackson State University.”It’s long past time that the Blackest state in the nation recognize the courageous men and women who, like Daisy Bates, believed in this nation and its great potential. There are plenty to choose from: Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer in particular.”

During his time as Mississippi’s governor, Phil Bryant talked of Elvis Presley and B.B. King as “good possibilities” for possible replacements for a statue.

Mississippi’s most controversial statue is that of Davis, who believed, like many of his Southern peers, that those of African descent were meant to serve the white race.

“We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race by the Creator, and from cradle to grave, our government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority,” he declared in an 1860 speech.

The state’s other statue is a political figure that many Mississippians may not recognize — J.Z. George, who fought in the Civil War and later became the charging force in disenfranchising Black Mississippians through the 1890 state constitution and restoring “white supremacy” to government.

James K. Vardaman, the racist governor and U.S. senator who aided George in that fight, said the constitution was adopted “for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics.” White supremacy had to be maintained, even if it meant every Black Mississippian had to be lynched, he said.

Within a decade, the number of Black registered voters fell from more than 130,000 to less than 1,300. 

George’s great-great-great grandson, Charles Sims, recently recommended that his ancestor’s statue be moved from Statuary Hall back to Mississippi, where he said it belongs.

“We cannot erase the past, but neither should we be a prisoner of it, either,” Sims said. “I think the statue should be removed from the Capitol because we cannot honor racial hatred.”

Statuary Hall still holds the statues of six Confederate leaders, a third of them representing the Magnolia State.

In a recent online poll, 592 Mississippi Today readers gave their top votes for possible statues to Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963 and who was honored recently with the Presidential Medal of Honor, as the top choice with 40% of the votes. Hamer received 26%; Faulkner, 21%; crusading journalist Ida B. Wells, 16%; music icon Elvis Presley, 15%; author Eudora Welty, 12%; former Gov. William Winter, 11%; and blues legend B.B. King, 9%.

Kevin Greene, history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, said his nomination would be Evers, who fought for his country, first on the battlefield against the Nazis and later on the battlefield against Jim Crow, he said. “All of the good things embedded in America are embedded in Medgar Evers.”

He suggested discussions across communities regarding what statues should represent the state. “Mississippi needs to lead the way in these conversations,” he said. “These are opportunities to teach and to reconcile our past as some nations ought to and haven’t.”

Pam Junior, former director of the History of Mississippi Museum and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, said the state is supposed to have experienced this paradigm shift, starting with the state flag, “but we keep going backwards and allow statues like these to continue to represent Mississippi.”

As a replacement, she suggests “Medgar Wiley Evers, who was for all people, not just one group of people,” she said. “Until we make that paradigm shift, we’re never going to move up. We have to start with us.”

The post Mississippi’s Jefferson Davis statue has new neighbor in U.S. Capitol: Arkansas civil rights leader appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — Ole Miss was hoping for some baseball deja vu Tuesday night. Southern Miss, still with nightmares from about this time two years ago, was trying to avoid the same.

Remember? Ole Miss, getting white-hot at just the right time, came to Pete Taylor Park here in May of 2022, beat the highly ranked Golden Eagles, then returned to Hattiesburg a couple weeks later for an NCAA Super Regional and thrashed USM twice more en route to that amazing national championship run.

Early on Tuesday night at the jam-packed “Pete,” Mike Bianco’s Rebels seemed to be re-writing that 2022 script. Andrew Fisher’s two-run, 416-foot blast gave the Rebels a 2-0 lead two batters into the game. The Rebels scored two more in the second inning for a 4-0 lead.

“It looked like it was going to be our night at the plate,” Bianco would later say.

The Southern Miss bullpen had other ideas. Four Golden Eagle relievers combined for seven innings of one-hit, shutout baseball, and, cheered by a sellout crowd of 5,706, the home team reeled off seven unanswered runs for an important 7-4 victory.

The victory moved USM to 35-17 on the season and vaulted the Eagles to a No. 29 national RPI headed into the last weekend of the regular season. For Ole Miss, hopes of an at large NCAA Tournament bid took a hit, although just how much remains to be seen. Ole Miss still has an NCAA-worthy No. 24 RPI, but the Rebels record stands at 27-25, just two games above .500 heading into the last weekend of the season.

“Winning here might have raised our RPI a few points,” Bianco said, “but I still think this weekend’s series (at LSU) is what really matters. We need to go win that series.”

Southern Miss first-year head coach Christian Ostrander, when asked about the early 4-0 deficit, said this: “This team doesn’t panic when it gets down. Ole Miss is a really good team playing well lately, and they popped us in the mouth early. But we stayed in the middle of the ring and kept punching. Our bullpen was fantastic, our offense did what we needed and our defense made some really clutch plays. This team has grown up a lot over the course of the season.”

Southern Miss has done just that. Replacing more than 70 percent of the players who started games last season, the Eagles started slowly and have had to overcome several injuries along the way. Only three players – Slade Wilks, Carson Paetow and Nick Monistere – who were everyday starters last season started Tuesday night.

“I know a lot of people will make a big deal about this because it was Ole Miss, but this was important or a whole lot of reasons,” Ostrander said, turning and pointing to left field and USM’s huge “Tradition of Excellence” sign, which lists the program’s many accomplishments. “What’s most important is adding to that tradition you see right there. This win tonight helps keep us headed in that direction.”

It likely guaranteed Southern Miss an eighth straight NCAA Regional berth. Southern Miss already had achieved its 22nd consecutive 30-victory season, the nation’s longest such streak. Tuesday night’s victory moves the Eagles a step closer to an eighth straight 40-victory season. They are the only Division I program that owns seven straight 40-win seasons.

Hard-throwing sophomore right-hander JB Middleton from Yazoo City probably had the most to do with turning Tuesday night’s game around. He entered to begin the third inning with the Eagles trailing 4-1. He pitched three innings of no-hit baseball, facing only 10 batters and striking out five of those.

Middleton, who prepped at tiny Benton Academy, has always thrown in the mid-to-upper 90s, but he entered the game with a 5.32 earned run average and giving up a hit an inning. In high level college baseball, a 97-mph fast ball that doesn’t move often leaves the ballpark going even faster. His fast ball was moving more against the Rebels and he also used a fast-dropping change-up for a couple of big strikeouts.

“In the last couple weeks, I have been throwing a two-seam fast ball that seems to have a little more run to it than the four-seam fast ball I was throwing,” Middleton said. “It looks like I am going to stick with the two-seamer.”

The Eagles also got excellent bullpen work from lefty Ben Riley Flowers, true freshman right hander Josh Och and sophomore right hander Colby Allen, who appears to have settled into the role of closer. USM pitching benefitted from a couple of remarkable defensive plays, including right fielder Carson Paetow’s diving ninth inning catch that robbed Reagan Burford of at least a double and shortstop Ozzie Pratt’s acrobatic play that nailed Campbell Smithwick at first in the eighth inning.

Pratt, who grew up in Oxford, and Paetow were also the Eagles offensive heroes. Pratt had two hits, including a run-scoring double, and scored twice. Paetow added three hits including a triple high off the center field wall and drove in three runs. Monistere added a two-run double.

So now, Southern Miss will begin its final regular season series Thursday night against Sun Belt rival Texas State before heading to Montgomery next week for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. Ole Miss was to spend Tuesday night in Hattiesburg and then head for Baton Rouge for the huge series with LSU. The Rebels probably need to win that series or make a huge run at next week’s SEC Tournament in order to make the NCAA Tournament. Southern Miss, on the other hand, is playing for seeding now. In Hattiesburg, the NCAA Tournament has pretty much become a foregone conclusion.

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