OurTupelo

Joseph Cranney is a reporter with the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center in collaboration with The New York Times. Learn more about the center’s work here. Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. She can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com.

After two months of silence from law enforcement officials on the police killing in June of a 1-year-old boy in Senatobia, the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus is demanding “direct, timely and ongoing updates” on the state-run investigation meant to determine if any officers involved will face criminal charges.

Veronica Shanell, the grandmother of Kohen Wiley, the Black toddler shot and killed by Senatobia police in a Walmart parking lot, said nobody from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation had contacted the family. That includes Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, who was holding him in her arms in the front seat of a car when he was shot.

“I am asking if anyone seen something please say something. If anyone know somebody that was there please have them to inbox me,” Shanell posted on Facebook Monday. “I just want answers that’s all!”

In an open letter published Monday, Rep. Kabir Karriem, chairman of the caucus, called the “lack of meaningful” communication by the authorities “unacceptable.”

“Kohen’s family should not have to fight the State of Mississippi for information about the investigation into their child’s death,” Karriem, a Columbus Democrat, wrote in the two-page letter. It was addressed to state Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Sean Tindell, commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, which oversees the MBI. 

Karriem’s letter demands that a liaison for information between the agency and the family “be established immediately.” Wiley, 20, has said that police fired three or four shots at the Ford Fusion driven by her friend, who was wounded in the shooting. The two of them were suspected of shoplifting a pack of diapers and baby clothes. Neither has been charged with any crime, Shanell said.

“Tell the family what can be shared, what cannot and what they should expect next,” Karriem wrote. ”But do not leave them in silence.”

In records, the MBI said it had erroneously released, the name of a Senatobia officer, Sgt. Hunter Foster, was listed as the subject of its investigation. The Senatobia City Council placed Foster on leave two days after the June 14 shooting, but no one involved has said whether Foster fired his weapon.

Foster, who is white, directed a racially offensive remark toward a co-worker two days before the shooting, according to an internal complaint Mississippi Today obtained last month.

At a previous department, Foster was accused of exaggerating the risks that a car posed to officers during their response to a suspicious vehicle call, an incident that resulted in a federal civil rights lawsuit against that police department. 

Foster claimed that the driver had almost run over another officer, though surveillance footage shows no evidence that the car nearly hit, or even drove toward, any of the officers.

Martin Zummach, a Southaven lawyer who has represented police accused of excessive force, said Monday that he had been retained to represent Foster following the Walmart shooting, but declined to discuss details of his actions.

“I am very convinced that Hunter will be cleared of any allegations of wrongdoing in this unfortunate event,” Zummach said.

 
In a statement released the day of the shooting, the MBI said that officers had attempted to stop the car, but that “the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.”

An MBI spokesperson declined to say anything else on Monday about the actions of the police or the status of their investigation. At least one key witness has yet to be interviewed by law enforcement agents.

Desirae Smith, an eyewitness, posted a video from the Walmart parking lot that showed officers scrambling on foot moments after the gunfire. The video was widely shared on social media along with her name and published by news outlets, including CNN, in late June. Smith said neither state investigators nor local law enforcement had contacted her.

“I just think they’re not bothered by it because ain’t nobody really bringing up the baby’s name anymore,” Smith said. “They’re just letting it fade away.”

The Senatobia Police Department and the MBI have declined multiple requests to release footage of the incident captured on police body-worn cameras, though Tindell told Senatobia aldermen that his agency had obtained that footage. Walmart declined to release its surveillance footage, saying that it had been turned over to the MBI.

Karriem said the case reveals “broader concerns” around Mississippi’s rules for releasing body-camera footage, a subject he pledged the Black Caucus would address during the next legislative session.

House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, whose committee enforces compliance of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, violated the insider trading and transparency law, a NOTUS review of congressional financial records indicates.

Guest, a four-term Republican from Mississippi, was more than six months late disclosing three stock sales made by a family trust fund owned by his wife, Haley, involving shares of the oil giant Chevron, the lodging platform Airbnb and the cosmetics company e.l.f. Beauty.

By law, members of Congress must publicly disclose individual stock trades within 45 days of a trade’s execution. These include trades made by or on behalf of themselves, their spouses and their dependent children.

Guest’s STOCK Act violation is the seventh such violation this month by members of Congress.

It also comes less than a month after the House passed a bill, the Stop Insider Trading Act, that would in part ban federal lawmakers from buying individual stocks altogether. Guest voted for the bill, which is now pending in the Senate.

In a message Friday to the clerk of the House of Representatives, Guest wrote that he didn’t learn until Thursday of the three stock sales made on Dec. 16.

“A compliance firm missed them, discovering the oversight while preparing my annual House disclosure,” Guest wrote, adding that he’s notified House Ethics Committee staff and has “initiated additional compliance review.”

Guest indicated that each late sale was worth between $1,001 and $15,000 — lawmakers are only required to disclose values in broad ranges — and that the stock sales were made “at a loss.”

In an email to NOTUS, Guest’s chief of staff, Jordan Downs, said the congressman “does not have any decision-making role” in the trust and “was not consulted on these, or any other, transactions made by the trust.”

This is the second time Guest had violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure provisions. In 2021, he was more than eight months late disclosing sales of ExxonMobil and BP stock by a family trust benefiting his wife, Business Insider reported.

Guest’s committee is empowered to fine — and to waive fines — for STOCK Act scofflaws. The standard penalty for first-time violators is a $200 fine.

Guest “intends to pay” any late-filing fine and “doesn’t believe there will be any need to recuse” himself from the committee’s consideration of it, Downs said.

In the House, other STOCK Act violators during the past year include Reps. Michael Rulli (R-Ohio), Shri Thanedar (D-Michigan), Tracey Mann (R-Kansas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Linda Sánchez (D-California), Julia Letlow (R-Louisiana), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Lisa McClain (R-Michigan), Pat Ryan (D-New York), Sheri Biggs (R-South Carolina), Derek Tran (D-California), Donald Norcross (D-New Jersey), Tim Walberg (R-Michigan), Rich McCormick (R-Georgia), Ritchie Torres (D-New York), Troy Nehls (R-Texas), Dan Meuser (R-Pennsylvania), Jonathan Jackson (D-Illinois), George Whitesides (D-California), Val Hoyle (D-Oregon), Austin Scott (R-Georgia), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), Kelly Morrison (D-Minnesota), Christian Menefee (D-Texas), Daniel Webster (R-Florida), Ed Case (D-Hawaii), Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), Laurel Lee (R-Florida) and Scott Franklin (R-Florida). Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Oklahoma) was also late, although his office denies it.

Senators who’ve violated the STOCK Act during the past year include Sens. Alan Armstrong (R-Oklahoma), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Katie Britt (R-Alabama), Susan Collins (R-Maine), John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado), Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) and John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania).

This story is provided by a partnership between Mississippi Today and the NOTUS Washington Bureau Initiative, which seeks to help readers in local communities understand what their elected representatives are doing in Congress.

Showing up to Black Men’s Wellness Day might have saved Joseph Holiday’s life, he said while attending the fifth annual event in Mississippi. 

Downtown Jackson was one stop on the national “Wellness Day Tour” hosted by the African American Male Wellness Agency, and local organizers said over 450 people joined this year’s celebration. Volunteers and vendors worked in the sweltering 90-degree heat, offering tests for blood glucose and cholesterol levels, eye exams and education about prostate and colon cancers. Holiday, a first-time attendee, took full advantage of the free health screenings, especially the one for kidney disease.

“I’ve discovered that I have high numbers for my kidneys,” he said, referring to elevated protein levels that can indicate kidney damage. Holiday said he plans to go see the doctor right away — a big shift for someone with a self-described phobia of medical providers.

“My grandmother died from medical malpractice,” he told Mississippi Today, which contributed to his distrust of the healthcare system. “I needed to come out here so I could get away from self-therapy alone and really just take a chance with letting professional people aid me in my health.”

By completing all the screenings, Holiday got a T-shirt promoting “Wellness for everybody,” and actionable information for his own. 

Organizers wanted the fair to reach people who otherwise wouldn’t have gotten checked out, said Allan Cole, a marketing executive and co-coordinator of the Jackson event along with Dr. Timothy Norris, a licensed professional counselor. Cole said the wellness day was held on a Saturday so people wouldn’t need to take off work to join, and to be a “family affair.” 

“The challenge with getting men to the doctor is that men don’t like to go to the doctor,” Cole said. “It’s usually a family member, a loved one that will encourage (them).” 

Justin Turner, an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi’s School of Medicine and a member of the planning committee, encouraged attendees to get checked out early, noting that Mississippi has the highest rate of preventable deaths in the country. The Mississippi State Department of Health reported in 2022 that Black Mississippians had a 14% higher rate of death due to heart-disease than white Mississippians, and the death rate for men in general was 63% higher than for women. 

Turner pointed to several reasons why men might not seek medical care, including lack of health insurance and distrust in the healthcare system. A 2022 report from the Pew Research Center found that 55% of Black Americans had faced negative experiences at the doctor, including having their pain dismissed. Research shows that medical mistrust leads to delays in getting healthcare.

There’s also a mental aspect, Turner added. 

“A lot of men feel like they want to be in control of their life,” he said. “So if they find out they have some type of health condition, now they feel vulnerable and they lose control.”

Turner said he spoke to one man whose screening showed a blood-sugar level above 600 mg/dL, over three times the healthy level, and explained why that was concerning even though the man said he “felt fine.”

“An event like this, in a community center, provides a safe space for men to let their guard down, let their pride down,” he said, over the sounds of a DJ playing upbeat music and a game of double dutch. He said the health fair was one tool to help reverse Mississippi’s status as having among the lowest life expectancies in the nation. 

“Mississippi does not have to be last in healthcare,” he said. Referring to national statistics, he added, “And our Black men in particular die five to seven years younger than white men.”

Friendship through a 5K race

In addition to the health screenings, a central component of each wellness day is the 5k walk or run. Dozens of participants took a twisting route through downtown streets to start and finish at the park, running the last blocks with Mississippi’s Old Capitol building at their back. 

That’s where Will McDowell and Nikitna Barnes each made a new friend in each other. Looking at them chatting, an observer might not guess they had met just hours before. They showed up in nearly matching outfits, with black rimmed glasses, white athletic gear and silver jewelry. 

McDowell, who is retired from his IT role with the City of Jackson, has run the 5k every year since Black Men’s Wellness Day came to Jackson. For Barnes, who works for the Mississippi Community College Board, it was her first time at the event and her first 5k after getting a double knee replacement surgery years ago. 

She was rounding the home stretch, near the Mississippi Museum of Art, when she saw McDowell alternating between a walk and a jog. Barnes told him, “I’m rolling with you,” and the two formed a team.

“I said, ‘Well, great.’ ‘Cause I was about to give up,” McDowell recounted. “And I said, ‘the Lord sent you to me.’”

He did several of the screenings after crossing the finish line, but much of it wasn’t a surprise. 

“I’m one of those guys that know his numbers,” McDowell said. “On top of my health, I have three sons, and I want to be around for my sons.”

Barnes said she’s seen men taking pride in not going to the doctor.

“Hate is a strong word,” she said. “But I hate that they take their health for granted. It’s okay to be tough and take care of yourself at the same time.”

“You’re right, man,” McDowell said, nodding beside her. “You’re right.”

This story was produced with support from the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism.

Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia and Notre Dame would be the top four seeds in the College Football Playoff based on the preseason AP Top 25 poll with Texas, Indiana, Miami and Texas A&M hosting first-round games.

One of the first-round matchups would feature No. 9 seed Mississippi at No. 8 Texas A&M. The winner would then meet No. 1 Ohio State.

The five highest-ranked conference champions — from the Power Four and one from the Group of Six — will qualify for the CFP. The other seven spots will be filled by the next highest-ranked teams. One of those at-large teams will be Notre Dame if the Irish are among the top 12 in the CFP’s final rankings.

The first poll-based bracket includes five teams from the Southeastern Conference, three from the Big Ten, one from Atlantic Coast Conference, one from the Big 12, one from the Pac-12 and one independent.

Teams seeded Nos. 5-12 by the CFP will play in the first round, with the higher seeds hosting the lower either on campus or at other sites designated by the higher-seeded school.

With the removal of historic tie-ins from the bowl assignment process beginning this season, the CFP Management Committee approved a format in which the top three seeds, in rank order, select their bowl path in the playoff.

First-round games are Dec. 18 and 19, quarterfinals Dec. 30 and Jan. 1, semifinals Jan. 14 and 15 and the championship game is Jan. 25 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Based on the AP rankings, the CFP would open like this:

— No. 9 seed Mississippi at No. 8 Texas A&M. Winner vs. No. 1 Ohio State.

— No. 12 seed Boise State at No. 5 Texas. Winner vs. No. 4 Notre Dame.

— No. 10 seed Oklahoma at No. 7 seed Miami. Winner vs. No. 2 Oregon.

— No. 11 seed Texas Tech at No. 6 Indiana. Winner vs. No. 3 Georgia.

The first three teams outside the bracket: LSU, Alabama and BYU.

The Tigers are ranked No. 11 by the AP but would get bumped by Texas Tech and Boise State. Texas Tech, at No. 12 in the AP poll, is the highest-ranked Big 12 team. Boise State of the revamped Pac-12 would be the automatically qualifying Group of Six champion. Boise State is not in the AP Top 25 but is the Group of Six team that received the most votes.

The AP will publish brackets based on the weekly Top 25 until the CFP selection committee unveils its initial rankings Nov. 3.

Gov. Tate Reeves on Monday appointed Amanda Jones Tollison, a private-practice attorney in Oxford, to a vacant seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court. 

Tollison is currently a partner with the law firm Butler Snow, where she has practiced since 2012. Before this, she served as legal counsel to former Gov. Haley Barbour from 2008 to 2012. In that role, she advised Barbour on legal, legislative, and policy matters, including judicial appointments, elections, budget issues, and disaster recovery efforts. 

“Amanda has distinguished herself throughout her career as an excellent attorney, respected leader in the Mississippi Bar, and dedicated public servant,” Reeves said in a statement. 

Tollison earned her law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law and an undergraduate degree from Mississippi State University. She has served as president of the Mississippi Bar, as a member of the Board of Bar Commissioners and as a trustee and fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation. 

“I am deeply grateful to Gov. Reeves for this appointment and humbled by his trust in me to fulfill the duties of a justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court,” Tollison said in a statement.

Tollison’s term will begin on Sept. 1, 2026, and continue until a special election fills the seat.

She replaces James Maxwell, also from Oxford, who left his seat on the state Supreme Court after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a federal judge in northern Mississippi. The appointment now fills all vacancies on the nine-member court.

When Tollison is sworn in, she will become the third woman on the court, serving alongside current justices Jenifer Branning from Philadelphia and Celeste Wilson of DeSoto County. This is the largest number of women who have served on the state’s highest court at the same time. 

She is also the wife of current 3rd Circuit Court Judge and former state Sen. Gray Tollison.

When a panel of state lawmakers convenes in Tupelo on Tuesday to hear from the public on how, or whether, the state should redraw Mississippi’s legislative, judicial and congressional districts, the hearings will be open to the public. 

State and local authorities plan to provide security for the hearings before a joint House and Senate committee on redistricting on what has become an intensely debated topic.

Alex Gibert, spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said no threats have been made against any legislator. Still, the Mississippi Highway Patrol will work alongside other divisions within the agency to “ensure the safety of legislators and civilians who are present.” 

Many civil rights leaders, Black lawmakers and voting rights advocates believe the hearings are a pretext for the Legislature moving to dismantle several majority-Black districts and weakening Black political power in the state.

Republican leaders believe that when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Callais decision on a Louisiana casae, it cleared the way for the Legislature to redraw political lines to make it easier for Republicans to get elected.

The committee is encouraging the public to participate. The public can offer comments at any of the eight public hearings, or submit a redistricting plan to the committee, according to the directions on the committee’s website. 

This is not the first time state police have protected board members during an impassioned policy debate.

In 2000, former Gov. William Winter led a 17-member advisory council on changing Mississippi’s former state flag that featured a Confederate battle emblem in the upper left canton that many Black citizens viewed as racist and white citizens viewed as part of the state’s history. 

The council conducted hearings across the state to gather input on how state officials should proceed after it was revealed that the state never actually adopted an official state flag. Some of the hearings grew heated and saw citizens argue with one another.

Below is the schedule of planned redistricting hearings. Each will start at 6 p.m. 

• Aug. 18 at Itawamba Community College in Tupelo 
• Aug. 27 at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia 
• Sept. 1 at Delta State University in Cleveland 
• Sept. 8 at Alcorn State University in Natchez 
• Sept.10 at Meridian Community College in Meridian 
• Sept. 17 at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg 
• Sept. 22 at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport 
• Sept. 24 at the state Capitol in Jackson

Deep South Today, a nonprofit network of newsrooms in Louisiana and Mississippi that will soon launch a new newsroom in Arkansas, is pleased to announce it has received a $150,000 grant from Local News Hub to increase its coverage of women in politics across the communities it serves.

“We are very pleased to be able to build upon our strong track record of nonpartisan political reporting to strengthen our coverage of how women participate in government and are impacted by it,” said Deep South Today President and CEO Warwick Sabin. “This focus is particularly important during a time of rapid political evolution in our region, and we are grateful to Local News Hub for providing the resources to make it possible.”

With this new support, Deep South Today will deepen and enhance its reporting about redistricting, statehouse races and local elections in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas, allowing each newsroom to sustain coverage of how these events affect women’s political participation and representation.

“Women have long been under-represented in politics in the Deep South, for a wide range of cultural and political reasons, and the challenges are especially steep for women of color,” said Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Emily Wagster Pettus, who started covering politics in the state in the mid-1990s. “One mission of our nonprofit newsrooms at Deep South Today is to examine how political systems affect people’s lives, and our coverage of women in politics is an important part of that.”

Deep South Today will coordinate enterprise projects across all of its newsrooms, including a series examining how the post-Callais redistricting landscape is reshaping the pipeline of women entering public office across Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. That reporting will track which districts are being redrawn, what those changes mean for women — particularly Black women — and what communities are doing in response. In conjunction with this work, Deep South Today will create interactive databases of who represents our states in the legislatures and the courts, focusing on how many women are elected to these influential roles.

About Deep South Today

Deep South Today is a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News, and The Current. Its new Arkansas Today newsroom will launch in fall 2026.

Founded in 2016, Mississippi Today is now the largest newsroom in the state, and in 2023 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Verite News launched in 2022 in New Orleans, where it covers inequities facing communities of color. The Current is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2018 serving Lafayette and southern Louisiana.

With its regional scale and scope, Deep South Today is rebuilding and re-energizing local
journalism in communities where it had previously eroded, ensuring its long-term growth and
sustainability.

About Local News Hub

The mission of Local News Hub is to support the essential work of local and independent news organizations across the country by providing consultations and advice, distributing grants, and acting as a fiscal sponsor. Local News Hub operates as a program of the Lexington Observer under the Lexington Observer’s non-profit tax status.

Through fiscal sponsorship and re-granting efforts, Local News Hub has distributed funds to nonprofit newsrooms in Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin through an invitation-only grant-making process.

Local News Hub’s role as an adviser, grant giver and fiscal sponsor is due to the support of partners such as Pivotal Ventures.

Professor Kamal Ali and his team of Jackson State University student researchers spent their summer tending to a crate of oysters, magnets and wires. 

The team has been developing tiny sensors that attach to oyster shells to collect data on how the creatures respond to changes in their environment. 

The marine research project is part of the Mississippi Based RESTORE Act Center of Excellence, or MBRACE, and one of 400 research projects at Jackson State. 

It’s also an example of a much larger ambition: JSU leaders want to join the nation’s highest tier of research institutions, a designation they believe could help the university attract top faculty and students, compete for larger federal grants and expand its national reputation.

In April, Jackson State was among 14 historically Black colleges and universities to launch the Association of HBCU Research Institutions. The coalition aims to help HBCUs to compete for larger grants and expand their campus programs. The coalition will also work with the country’s top research universities and receive support from Harvard University. For now, Howard University is the only HBCU in the country with such status. 

“As JSU succeeds, so does the city of Jackson and the state of Mississippi, and the collaboration positions us to drive meaningful economic growth and transformative discovery at scale,” Jackson State President Denise Jones Gregory said in an email. 

Gaining the designation as one of the nation’s top research universities requires spending at least $50 million annually on research and development and awarding at least 70 research doctorates, according to the American Council on Education, which helps manage the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, a system used to group and rank colleges and universities.  

The project Ali and his students are working on is also an example of how that research can have a broad impact. EMBRACE, funded with a $26 million, 15-year grant from the U.S. Department of the Treasury,  partners JSU with Mississippi State, the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi.

“Oyster reefs used to be a $100 million industry and prime indicator of the health of the Mississippi Gulf Coast but hurricanes, disease, seawater pollutants and other environmental factors frequently affect these habitats,” said Ali, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “So protecting Mississippi’s culture, traditions and revenue from the Gulf is an important part of what we do here that has the potential to bring jobs and money to the state.” 

In 2023, JSU spent nearly $19.5 million in research and development, said Almesha Campbell, the university’s vice president of research and economic development. Jackson State’s key research areas include cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, health disparities, materials science and civil engineering. 

For JSU to reach that $50 million benchmark, the university will need to seek larger research grants, not just from the federal government, but from private industry. By partnering with the coalition, the university can gain more visibility and work with other universities who are looking to share resources. 

“We’re now asking how do we get more contracts, more grants and opportunities? How do we partner and bring in money that’s not from the federal government into the institution to expand its capacity,” Campbell said. 

University leaders are also working to recruit and hire new faculty who could take on research and expand programs to recruit students, Campbell said. 

JSU is already close to one of the Carnegie benchmarks. The university awards nearly 68 doctoral degrees annually, close to the 70 research doctorates required for the high research status, said Preselfannie McDaniels, provost and vice president of academic affairs.

JSU has 13 doctoral programs. The College of Education and Human Development awards more doctorates than other programs at the university, McDaniels said. JSU’s top programs have produced 27 education doctorates, 12 health professional doctorates and eight psychology doctorates. Research doctorates are degrees classified by the federal government as focused on research or scholarship.

The university also has an internal quality assurance committee that reviews doctoral programs and student research, she said. 

“We were never totally worried about meeting that particular challenge,” McDaniels said. “But we have been very dedicated to making sure that we weren’t focused on numbers when it came to our dissertations. But, we were focused on rigor and on the product itself being the very best.” 

Sharolyn Love, a member of JSU alumni group Thee 1877 Project, said the university must end leadership turnover and create a long-term strategic plan to reach its goals. Then it could also attract the support of billionaire donors and other investors.

“We’re seeing a resurgence of HBCUs despite what is happening in the state and across the nation,” Love said. “The designation could open up just a huge avenue of possibilities for the university for the future.” 

Strengthening Jackson State’s status as a research university also opens career paths and opportunities for students, Ali said. 

“A lot of people don’t know that some of the research we’re doing is work behind the scenes supporting large projects in the state of Mississippi,” Ali said. “But the exposure of the work leads to innovation and opportunity for our next generation of scientists, researchers and engineers.” 

Democrat Scott Colom is trying to do what has not been done since 1942 – defeat an incumbent United States senator from Mississippi.

Colom, the district attorney for the Columbus area in parts of northeast and east central Mississippi, is considered a longshot to defeat Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith for a number of reasons.

First of all, Mississippi is considered a solid Republican state that has not elected a Democratic governor since 1999 and has not elected a Democratic U.S. senator since 1982.

And to make matters worse for Colom, former Democrat Ty Pinkins is running as an independent in the November general election and could siphon more votes from him than from Hyde-Smith in a contest where the challenger needs every vote he can get.

And finally, Mississippians do not vote incumbent senators out of office. There is no better definition of job security than holding one of Mississippi’s two U.S. Senate seats.

For those reasons and others, it really is not surprising that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee opted not to allocate any of the $40 million pledged on electing Democratic senators this November to Colom in Mississippi. Based on polling data, the Democrats have a realistic chance to garner control of the Senate and the powers that be chose not to spend their finite resources in a state where the odds of winning appear long.

Still, Colom and Democrats can cite reasons for a glimmer of hope. In high-profile statewide elections the past few years – Senate races between Hyde-Smith and former U.S. Rep. Mike Espy and recent gubernatorial elections – Democrats have been relatively close to victory.

So, Colom continues the campaign grind, hoping to do what has not been done since 1942 – defeat an incumbent Mississippi senator.

But the specifics of the 1942 campaign also do not provide Colom much reason for hope. It was an unusual turn of events that led to James O. Eastland defeating incumbent Wall Doxey in 1942. After that fateful 1942 election, Eastland, a Democrat, went on to serve until he retired in 1978 and was replaced by Republican Thad Cochran.

Eastland was originally appointed in 1941 by Gov. Paul Johnson to fill a Senate seat vacated when Pat Harrison died in office. But in accepting the appointment, Eastland promised not to run in the upcoming special election later that year. He did not. Doxey won the special election, but a short one year later lost the regularly scheduled election for the full six-year term to  Eastland, who had sat out the special election to fulfill his promise.

Actually at the start of the process where senators were elected by the people instead of the state legislatures, it was not that uncommon for an incumbent Mississippi senator to lose. The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1913, provided for the election of senators by the people.

In 1912, Mississippi opted to hold the first popular vote to elect a U.S. senator, jumping ahead of the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913. In that election, Delta planter LeRoy Percy, who originally was elected by the Legislature, lost to notorious racist James K. Vardaman. Then Vardaman, who was one of six senators to vote against America entering World War I, was defeated in 1918 by Harrison. In 1934 incumbent Hubert Stephens of Union County was upended by another notable racist – Theodore Bilbo. And then there was the 1942 election.

Those are the examples where incumbent Mississippi senators have been defeated in popular elections or by a vote of the people – Percy, Vardaman, Stephens and Doxey.

Scott Colom is hoping to add Hyde-Smith’s name to the list of defeated U.S. senators from Mississippi.

Perhaps, in reality the odds are in his favor. It is bound to happen eventually.