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MAY 1, 2001

A jury convicted Thomas Blanton of taking part in the Ku Klux Klan’s 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls, and he was given four life sentences — one for each girl murdered. 

After the verdict was announced, U.S. Attorney Doug Jones announced, “Justice delayed is still justice, and we have it in Birmingham, Alabama.” 

Jones told the story of the conviction of both Blanton and Bobby Cherry in his memoir, “Bending Toward Justice.”

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Laurel native Ralph Boston, a three-time Olympic long jump medalist and surely one of the most accomplished athletes in Mississippi history, died April 30 in Nashville following a massive stroke suffered in late March. Boston would have turned 84 on May 9. 

In addition to his remarkable athletic accomplishments, Boston will be remembered as a smart, friendly, courteous gentleman, immensely proud of his Laurel and Oak Park High School roots and the fact that he was the first Black athlete ever inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame (1976).

Boston won a gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics, a silver medal in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and a bronze in the ’68 Olympics at Mexico City. “Yes sir, I got the complete Olympic set,” Boston once told this writer, which was as close to boastful as Boston would ever get.

The story behind the bronze medal at Mexico City might tell us more about Boston’s sportsmanship and character than all his other accomplishments. Those were the Olympic Games when Bob Beamon set perhaps the most astounding track and field record ever, leaping 29 feet, 2.5 inches, an amazing two feet beyond the world record.

Beamon, making a promotional appearance in Jackson three decades later, sat down for an interview with this writer. “What people don’t know is that I wouldn’t have done any of that if it hadn’t have been for Ralph Boston,” Beamon said. “I fouled on my first two attempts and was about to get disqualified and then Ralph told me how I needed to adjust my footwork leading to my takeoff. I figured I had better listen to the master, and I did. The rest, as they say, is history. I owe a lot to Ralph Boston.”

A few days later, Beamon’s words were recounted to Boston, who chuckled and then said, “He beat me by two feet; that’s a heck of a way to treat your teacher isn’t it. If you see Bob again, tell him I’m still waiting for my check.”

Another time, Boston recounted the day that made him famous. The 1960 U.S. Olympic track and field team was holding a conditioning meet in preparation for Rome at Mt. San Antonio College near Los Angeles. Boston leaped 26 feet, 11 inches, breaking the 25-year-old record of the legendary champion Jesse Owens. It was the last world record Owens owned.

“Suddenly people recognized me,” Boston said. “Before that night nobody outside of Laurel, Mississippi, knew who I was, and the people in Laurel knew me as Hawkeye Boston, not Ralph Boston.”

Boston remembered a short time later getting ready to board a plane for Rome and the Olympics. A handsome, strapping young man from Louisville, Ky., stopped him and asked if he could have his photo made with him. Said Boston, “He introduced himself as Cassius Marcellus Clay and told me, ‘You don’t know who I am yet, but you will soon.’ You don’t forget moments like that.”

Boston recalled entering the Olympic stadium in Rome for the opening ceremonies. “I was just a bright-eyed, skinny kid from Laurel who didn’t know which way was up. And then I walked into that stadium and there were more people there than I had ever seen in my life. I thought, man, what have I gotten myself into.”

And then the skinny kid from Laurel won the gold medal. “Boston! Boston! Boston!” a crowd of nearly 75,000 chanted. He had just turned 21.

Today, the same feat most likely would earn Boston millions in endorsements. Back then, there were no such rewards for Olympic athletes, who were amateurs in the strictest sense of the word. Boston worked as a school counselor and trained and competed on the side.

“I’ve got no complaints, no regrets,” Boston said when a writer mentioned that 40 years later. “I did OK for myself.”

He surely did. The 10th of 10 children born to a Laurel farmer and his wife, Ralph Boston did far, far better than OK.

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A new Siena College/Mississippi Today poll, conducted April 16-20, illustrates the complexity and internal conflict of the state’s electorate.

Take, for instance, one of the biggest issues of the 2023 governor’s race: Medicaid expansion. Based on the poll results, 55% of respondents say they “will only vote for a candidate” who supports expanding Medicaid. A meager 14% say they would only vote for a candidate opposed to Medicaid expansion.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has made it clear that he staunchly opposes Medicaid expansion, which he refers to as Obamacare. Meanwhile, Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, a Democrat who is challenging Reeves in November, has built much of his campaign around his support of expanding Medicaid to provide health care coverage to primarily the working poor.

But the same poll respondents who say by a strong majority they would only vote for a candidate supporting Medicaid expansion give incumbent Reeves a commanding 49% to 38% lead over Presley. It is important to understand that Siena did not just call a random group of people — 783 on cell phones and landlines — to garner these responses. This is a scientific poll that is weighted to match the likely demographics of voters in the November general election and in theory represents a snapshot of what the electorate is thinking.

And Siena is a good pollster, rated the best public pollster in America recently by the FiveThirtyEight blog, which breaks down and analyzes data.

READ MORE: Governor’s race poll: Brandon Presley slips, Gov. Tate Reeves remains unpopular

But there are conflicts in the Siena poll. Pollsters ask direct questions of whether a candidate’s position on an issue would impact their votes. Though time and again respondents’ answers were bad for Reeves, he is leading comfortably against Presley in the head-to-head race.

For instance, 58% say they “will only vote for a candidate that supports fully funding public education in Mississippi through the Mississippi Adequate Education Program or MAEP.” MAEP is the program that provides the state’s share of the needs for public schools.

Hardly no one, just 5%, said they would only vote for a candidate who opposes full funding of the Adequate Education Program. Reeves not only opposes MAEP, but tried to eliminate it.

The list goes on.

For instance, 58% say they would only vote for a candidate who supports eliminating Mississippi’s highest in the nation state-imposed grocery tax, while 7% say they would only vote for a candidate opposed to eliminating the tax.

On the other hand, less than a majority — 45% — say they would only vote for a candidate who supports eliminating the income tax while 17% would only vote for a candidate opposed to the income tax elimination.

Presley is campaigning on the more politically popular elimination of the grocery tax.

Reeves, on the other hand, has been an outspoken advocate for the less politically popular, according to the poll, elimination of the income tax.

The issue of transgender rights is shaping up as possibly another key issue. Top Mississippi Republicans have already tried to link Presley this year to national Democrats on the issue.

But according to the poll, it is not a winning issue. Just 35% said they would only vote for a candidate who supports “maintaining the ban on gender affirming care for transgender youth,” while a near even 31% would only vote for a candidate opposed to maintaining the ban.

On another issue, 35% say they would only vote for a candidate who supports restoring the initiative to allow voters to gather signatures to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot, while 7% say they would only vote for a candidate opposing the process.

Both Reeves and Presley say they support restoring the ballot initiative that was ruled invalid by the Supreme Court on a technicality in 2021. Presley, though, has been challenging Reeves to call a special session for legislators to restore the process.

Like other polls, this most recent one strongly indicates that Presley is winning on key issues. Still, according to Siena and other surveys, Presley would lose if the election was held this month.

Mississippi is a Republican state. Many Mississippians solely vote Republican or at least weigh all the issues and determine the overall beliefs of the Republicans are what they support despite what they might tell a pollster.

Remember, Mississippi has not elected a Democratic governor or lieutenant governor since 1999.

Presley’s chore — and it is a hard one — is to convince Mississippians that the issues are more important than party labels. Reeves’ chore — a much easier one — is to remind a majority of Mississippians they do not like Democrats.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 783 registered voters was conducted April 16-20 and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

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Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

James 1:9-11

The most famous work of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, was first published in 1776, the same year that the Thirteen American Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. In the years that followed, the new nation (along with most of what became the Western world) embraced this book and its argument, becoming one of the finest examples of economic prosperity that the world has ever witnessed—and, along the way, reinforcing for its population the unfortunate idea that human existence is largely about financial success.

James does not say that there is anything wrong with wealth. Through him, though, the Holy Spirit does remind the affluent that life in God’s world is not about the accumulation of riches. Rather, we are to remember that we are as frail as a summer flower and that riches are fleeting. James calls us to use godly wisdom, which enables us to view our possessions and circumstances from a perspective that is both right and radical—right because it is a view based on the reality of eternity; and radical because it will lead us to hold loosely to what we have, being far quicker to give it away than to grasp it tightly.

There is nothing wrong with wealth, but there is danger in having it. Jesus gave his own warning: “Be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). He spoke of a rich fool who didn’t apply this wisdom, instead building bigger barns in which to store all his crops and relying on his wealth to enjoy his life—yet that very night God demanded that life from him (v 16-20). This man relied on foolish wisdom rather than God’s, and Jesus said we, too, are foolish if we lay up treasure for ourselves and yet are not rich toward God (v 21).

True riches can never be found or placed in earthly banks, vaults, or portfolios. We might be tempted to use these as a basis for significance or security, but the wisdom of God shows their hollowness. So, instead of pursuing that which will fade, do as James instructs: focus on using your possessions wisely, generously, and for kingdom business—no matter how great or small they might be.

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The appropriate way for the Legislature to deal with vetoes is already in the state constitution. Section 72 provides that the Legislature can override any veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses.

Section 73 of Mississippi’s constitution gives the Governor power to veto parts of appropriations bills – “The Governor may veto parts of any appropriation bill, and approve parts of the same, and the portions approved shall be law.”

The Legislature over the years has worked to thwart the Governor’s partial veto power. When carefully crafted language in appropriation bills could not be parsed into distinct sections, the state Supreme Court would overrule partial vetoes.

That changed somewhat in 2020 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gov. Tate Reeves’ partial vetoes of specific line items in H.B. 1782. In that bill, the Legislature appropriated COVID related funds to four state agencies. However, within the appropriations to each agency, the Legislature detailed line item amounts for specific purposes, e.g., $4,000 for each licensed assisted living facility up to a total of $452,000.

The court ruled “The monies were appropriated to multiple, distinct, and separate entities, thus they were multiple separate appropriations” and subject to partial vetoes.

So, the Legislature came up with a new scheme in 2022. Rather than begin H.B. 1353 as “An Act Making an Appropriation,” its authors wrote “An Act to Direct the State Treasurer to Transfer Funds” and treated it as a general bill. But much like H.B. 1782 in 2020, H.B. 1353 in 2022 provided line item amounts for specific purposes.

Gov. Tate Reeves issued partial vetoes for 10 line items totaling almost $14 million. Interestingly, the Legislature neither challenged these vetoes in court nor moved to override them.

In 2023, the Legislature used the same approach in two “transfer” bills passed through the Appropriations Committees. Gov. Reeves has issued 15 partial vetoes totaling $23.1 million in both bills, H.B. 1089 and H.B. 603.  

In 2020, House Speaker Philip Gunn and Speaker Pro Tempore Jason White challenged the Governor’s vetoes in court. In 2023, will Gunn and White, now the outgoing Speaker and likely incoming Speaker, go to court again?

If so, there could be an interesting twist to one of the bills. Gov. Reeves in his veto message warned legislators that a court fight over H.B. 603 would place in jeopardy the remaining $699 million allocated to numerous projects across the state. Arguing that the court would clearly deem the bill an omnibus appropriations bill, he cited a provision in the constitution that appropriations bills may not be passed in the last five days of a legislative session. H.B. 603 was passed four days prior to adjournment.

Whether you agree with what Gov. Reeves vetoes or not, he has the constitutional power to issue partial vetoes.

At some point either the Supreme Court or the Legislature should put a halt to legislative scheming to thwart partial vetoes. The appropriate way for the Legislature to deal with vetoes is already in the state constitution. Section 72 provides that the Legislature can override any veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses.

“Professing to be wise, they became fools” – Romans 1:22.

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A rundown of the blocking and tackling of smoking meat, from choosing the right smoker to the science of achieving the perfect smoke ring. Plus, a couple of Mississippi brews that can keep you company during your “low and slow” cook.

Since mankind harnessed the power of fire, it’s been used to turn chunks of meat into tasty morsels. For some meat, the high heat of direct flame, yields the best result. But early man discovered that applying indirect heat, from the smoke of a fire, aided survival. Slow smoked meat extended its “shelf life,” creating a preservative effect.

Today, we don’t smoke meat to preserve it. We do it because it is tasty. Very tasty. Technology largely evolved from open firing smoking, but the concept remains the same. Hardwood smoke, huge chunks of ornery meat, and time. Precious time.

Smoking meat is both simple and an art. There’s some science sprinkled in, too. For the uninitiated there are a lot of questions. What is smoking? What type of smoker to use? How about wood variety? How do I achieve the gold star of a proper smoke ring?

For everyone one of these questions, there are thousands of opinions, tips, and tricks. Plumbing their depths would require a book. I don’t have time to write that and am sure someone else already has. So here’s what I’ve learned over the years to produce what my family enjoys to eat.

“Low and Slow”

You will frequently hear smoking purists distinguish barbecue from grilling. Grilling is throwing a steak on a 600 degree grate for the sear. Barbecue is what happens when you take an unwieldy chunk of pig or steer and break its will, “low and slow,” with the tender caress of woodfired smoke. This means indirect heat, typically with grate-level temperatures between 225-250 degrees for hours…and hours…and hours. There are specific cuts of meat that make the most sense for smoking “low and slow.”

Pulled pork comes from what is called a pork butt or Boston butt. Contrary to the name, this is actually the front shoulder of the animal. It’s filled with fat and connective tissue. Both pork ribs and beef short ribs similarly have a lot of connective tissue. Then there is the Texas grandaddy, the beef brisket. All of these cuts are tough and near inedible if cooked over high heat or to low internal temperatures. No one wants a medium rare brisket. Trust me.

But something magical happens with these cuts when cooked “low and slow.” The heavy collagen content begins to break down at around 160 degrees internal temperature. By 180 degrees of internal temperature it is soluble gelatin. What was tough becomes tender and moist.

In future installments, I’ll provide some step-by-step instructions for prepping and cooking butts, briskets, and ribs. We might even go wild with a spatchcock chicken, a smoked turkey, or some tuna. Today, we’ll just cover some basics.

Choosing Your Smoker

If you want to be a traditionalist, I’m talking the loin cloth wearing variety, build a fire and hang some meat over it. Francis Mallman has built his own legend doing gaucho-style Argentine barbecues with nothing more than open flame and some rods from whence he hangs the meat. It’s definitely worth learning about Mallman and Argentine barbecue, but we will save it for another day.

Offset Smokers

In the South, when we think of traditional smokers, we think of repurposed propane tanks. These cylinder smokers, both the propane tank variety and the more commercial units, are what is known as offset smokers. They have a firebox attached where wood is burnt to create the smoke that drifts across meat-laden grates and out of a smoke stack. You will sometimes hear people refer to these units as “stick burners” or “horizontal smokers.” There is no heat source directly under the meat.

Offset smokers produce the most authentic and delicious barbecue, in my opinion. We’ll get into some of the scientific reasons this opinion is a good one later. Offset also require the most work. They must be fed with new fuel over the course of long cooks. There are fewer fancy gadgets to help you to stay in the temperature sweet spot. You control the temperature by how much air you let in and out of the smoker.

Charcoal Smokers

These are vertical smokers, where the heat source is under the meat. They come in a wide variety of configurations, that include everything from an old oil drum (we like to reuse petroleum products) to Kamado smokers like the Big Green Egg. Even an old Weber kettle can technically be considered a charcoal smoker. Regardless of its form, the concept is the same: charcoal is used in combination with hardwood to produce smoke from under the meat. Typically, some sort of deflector plate, and some distance between fire and grate, is used to prevent the meat from directly contacting flame.

These can produce a good product, but like offset smokers, require a bit more work. There are a wide assortment of handy gadgets, though, to help with things like temperature maintenance. Some offset smokers, particularly Kamado smokers like the Big Green Egg can be difficult for longer cooks, because it is hard to add additional fuel for the fire.

Pellet, Electric, and Propane

These are very different kinds of smokers, but I’m lumping them together for one reason: I don’t like them. I know people who swear by them. Send your hate mail elsewhere. Pellet smokers heat compressed wood pellets to approximate hardwood smoke. They are loaded with features that make them operate more like an oven. They are very popular with new barbecue enthusiasts for their ease. These are the Traegers you’ve heard of. Electric and propane smokers tend to heat up wood chips. There is science behind why these smokers just cannot produce the same result of their older counterparts. Doesn’t mean the barbecue isn’t still tasty.

Curating Your Wood and Preparing it for Battle

Unless you’ve been air drying some wood logs or chunks for 3 to 12 months (do not use green wood), you can buy wood at barbecue supply places. I’ve even noticed grocers selling it now. If you’re cooking on an offset, you’ll go with “logs.” On a charcoal smoker, “chunks.” If an electric or propane variety, chips. And if a pellet grill, well, pellets.

Everyone has their own opinions about the best hardwood to use. Some of it just depends on personal taste, some depends on what you are cooking. Fruitwoods, like apple, tend to offer a milder flavor and pair well with poultry or fish. I’m personally a huge fan of cherry wood on most everything I smoke. I think it produces a great “bark” and gives a balanced smoky flavor to the finished product. I will sometimes mix it with pecan, which is another great all-around wood choice. The king of Texas brisket smoking is post oak. Hickory is good, but can become bitter if overplayed in longer cooks. Mesquite is in that same camp and can quickly overpower your cook. Use sparingly.

Once you get your fire started, there are four stages of wood combustion. I won’t bore you with each, but I will tell you what to look for in knowing when your fire is ready to add the meat. If your smoker is belching big plumes of white or gray smoke, it is not ready. The wood has not yet combusted. Putting meat on at this stage will produce an acrid product, which is the last thing you want after a long cook.

The fire must get hot enough for the wood to combust. You will know this has happened when the smoke gets “thin” (not bellowing) and takes on a bluish hue. Blue smoke is good smoke. Add your meat.

The Science of the Ring

I’ve mentioned science a few times already. I sort of feel like Ron Burgundy in Anchorman. But here we go. For many enthusiasts the mark of good barbecue is the presence of a smoke ring. A smoke ring is a scientific reaction between myoglobin in meat and nitric oxide released by wood.

Myoglobin is a protein that gives meat its pink or red color. Different meats have different levels of the protein. Beef has a lot more than chicken, hence the color difference.

Nitric oxide released by combusted wood clings to outer surface of meat in the early stages of smoking and reacts with the myoglobin to “lock in” its natural pink or red hue. This chemical reaction only occurs until the meat temperature reaches 140 degrees. After that point the reaction stops. You either have a smoke ring at 140 degrees or you don’t.

But it gets a little tricky. For wood to release nitric oxide it has to get hot and combust. That blue smoke range is 650-750 degrees at fire level. So you need a hot fire, but for the temperature of the smoker at food level to be low. This is one of the reasons an offset smoker works so well, because the fire is removed or offset from the cooking compartment.

The need for a steady supply of nitric oxide is also one of the reasons that offsets and charcoal vertical smokers work better than some of the new-fangled alternatives. Huge chunks of wood can produce a better, more consistent supply of nitric oxide than little pellets or wood chips.

Moisture is Important

Nitric oxide produced by smoke clings to moisture. This is one of the reasons that regardless of the smoker you use, you will want to include some sort of water pan in the smoker. It’s also why I keep a spritz bottle by my smoker to spray on the meat once an hour or so in the early hours of cooking.

The meat is not the only thing that will need to be hydrated during the cook. By all means, have some water. Or, consider a Mississippi brew. I’ve been digging Crowd Control IPA lately, brewed by Southern Prohibition Brewing in Hattiesburg. Excellent suds. Or if you want something a bit lighter, a Good Bug, brewed by Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company out of Kiln (or correctly, the Kiln).

The Stall and the Crutch

If you are smoking a big cut of meat like a pork butt or a brisket, you are not going to pull them from the smoker until they reach an internal temperature of 203-205 degrees. (This is where having a good meat thermometer comes in handy). There are other ways to know when it’s done that I’ll get into at a later date.

If you have a thermometer monitoring the cook, you will get to 160-170 degrees internal temperature with no sweat. It will feel like things are going faster than perhaps they should. Then the meat will begin sweating. The evaporation process cools the meat. The end result is something called “the stall,” where the internal temperature of the meat stops climbing. The stall can last hours and create a lot of anxiety if you aren’t used to it.

There are two things you can do. Let it cook through the stall, which I frequently do, or speed the process up. You can speed up the process by using something called the “Texas crutch.” The Texas crutch is a cool way of describing wrapping your meat in either tin foil or butcher paper. When I do it, I prefer foil for a pork butt and butcher paper for a brisket. The butcher paper helps maintain the bark on the brisket. The bark is the thick almost black crust that forms on the outside of well-smoked barbecue. It’s not burnt. It’s flavor. In foil, the bark gets soggier.

I tend not to wrap until the meat gets to at least 170 and I’m happy with the bark formation on the outside. Some people put things in with their meat when they wrap. On a pork butt, I will typically add a little apple juice to the package. With a brisket, I will add some beef tallow, a tip I picked up from watching Aaron Franklin, of Austin’s famous Franklin Barbecue, smoke briskets.

Finally, Rest

If you are smoking a pork butt, you can expect the process to take 10-12 hours. A brisket, 12-14 hours. Even a good rack of baby backs in a 4-5 hour cook. This is a serious investment of time. It can also be a seriously relaxing, and ultimately delicious, hobby.

But there is a tendency after all that hard work to want to dig in. Resist the urge. On a big cut of meat, like a butt or brisket, let it rest for at least two hours. I let my brisket rest a lot longer than that. If you have a warming drawer on your oven, you can let it “rest” at 170 degrees. Or you can create a “faux cambro” by wrapping your meat in foil, then wrapping it a few ratty towels and sticking it in a cooler. It will keep the heat for hours. The juices and gelatin will redistribute throughout the meat. The flavor will be much, much better when you finally dig in.

If you struggle with temptation, throw some sausage on at the end of your smoke and use that as an appetizer with another Crowd Control.

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But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.

1 Samuel 8:6

How do you react when something displeases you?

It is understandable that when the people of Israel asked for a king, the prophet Samuel was displeased. After all, there was a personal slight in the request. Samuel had judged the people well, demonstrating leadership at its finest. He had preached repentance, and the people had repented. He had prayed for them, and the Philistine forces had been vanquished without any weapons being lifted in defense or to attack (1 Samuel 7:5-10). Finally, a stone of remembrance had been set up to signify God’s goodness to Israel for time immemorial (v 12-13). Samuel had done his best—and his best had been good.

But the years had passed since those victories. Samuel had grown old, and the leaders of Israel had decided it was time for a change. They were ready to push Samuel out and move on.

Samuel’s immediate and understandable reaction was to be unhappy and angry. But he didn’t dwell there. Instead, his second reaction was to pray. Samuel’s disapproval led him to talk to God about all that was happening and to seek His counsel and His intervention.

We see a similar first and second reaction in the book of Nehemiah. When Nehemiah heard the news that had come out of Jerusalem concerning the destruction and chaos that was taking place there, he sat down and wept. But then, for many days, he prayed to God and fasted (Nehemiah 1:1-4). His first reaction was to weep; his second reaction was to pray.

The actions of Samuel and Nehemiah set us a challenging example. When something displeases you and your first reaction to a situation is anger, sorrow, or disappointment, what’s your second reaction? Perhaps you tend to tell everybody how let down you have been, or you brood in self-pity or lash out. But here’s the challenge: while it is understandable to weep or to feel displeased, we are not to stay like that, and we are to make sure that our second reaction is to pray. Like Samuel, when something has caused you displeasure, let your second reaction be to talk to God about all that is happening, seeking His perspective and His help in the situations before you.

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