JACKSON, Miss.—Mississippi House Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat representing Hinds County, warned of “a true effort to roll back everything that we have accomplished since the Civil Rights Movement and even further than that” while speaking on the steps of the Mississippi Capitol earlier this month.
She was there with NAACP members for a rally as part of the organization’s annual Advocacy Day on Feb. 6, where members of the civil rights organization meet lawmakers to lobby for policies related to Black communities.
Education equity, Medicaid expansion and efforts to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs were among the issues on the mind of Mississippi NAACP leaders as they rallied this year.
“Now is not the time to sit silent. Now is the time to organize and mobilize and let people know that elections have consequences,” Summers said.
@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 99px;}}@media ( min-width: 320px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 99px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}} Lawmakers Debate ‘Divisive Concepts’ In Schools
The day before members of the NAACP rallied outside the Mississippi Capitol Building, state lawmakers held a lengthy debate over House Bill 1193, a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs that House members passed in a 74-41 vote.
If it becomes law, the legislation says it would “prohibit public schools, state-accredited nonpublic schools and public postsecondary educational institutions from creating, promoting and implementing” DEI programs, which are designed to foster fairness and equal participation in public life.
The legislation would also bar schools from maintaining programs that promote or endorse what Hood calls “divisive concepts,” including the use of gender-neutral pronouns, and would require schools to “teach, promote and distribute information based on the scientific policy that there are two genders, male and female.”
Rep. John Faulkner, D-Holly Springs, asked Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, what “diversity, equity and inclusion” had been used for historically. Hood said he was speaking on the floor to discuss the bill, not the history of DEI. Faulkner is pictured clapping for veterans who visited the Mississippi Capitol’s House chamber on Feb. 3,