Activist and author James Meredith relaxes in the back yard of his Jackson home, looking dapper in an off-white suit and Panama-style straw hat.
In his hand, he holds a copy of ‘Man on a Mission: James Meredith and the Battle of Ole Miss,’ a graphic novel as told by Meredith, written by Aram Goudsouzian and illustrated by Bill Murray.
The book tells Meredith’s dramatic story as the first Black American to attend the University of Mississippi and his fight against white supremacy in 1962, rife with the terrors of being Black in the Jim Crow era South.
There were riots and deaths on campus, protection from the National Guard and a deal struck between then U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Gov. Ross Barnett, allowing Meredith to register. Meredith’s determination and courage never faltered because he was on a mission. He graduated in 1963 with a political science degree.
In a hand-written statement, Meredith asks, “Who is James Meredith? I may not know yet! But I do know who I always thought I was… a man on a mission from God.”
His mission continues, the last he admits, with plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his entering Ole Miss by visiting every county in the state. Meredith wants to, “uplift moral character through the word of the Lord.”
That’s 82 counties, by a man born in 1933 … still determined, still fearless, still a man on a mission.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Activist and author James Meredith relaxes in the back yard of his Jackson home, looking dapper in an off-white suit and Panama-style straw hat.
In his hand, he holds a copy of ‘Man on a Mission: James Meredith and the Battle of Ole Miss,’ a graphic novel as told by Meredith, written by Aram Goudsouzian and illustrated by Bill Murray.
The book tells Meredith’s dramatic story as the first Black American to attend the University of Mississippi and his fight against white supremacy in 1962, rife with the terrors of being Black in the Jim Crow era South.
There were riots and deaths on campus, protection from the National Guard and a deal struck between then U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Gov. Ross Barnett, allowing Meredith to register. Meredith’s determination and courage never faltered because he was on a mission. He graduated in 1963 with a political science degree.
In a hand-written statement, Meredith asks, “Who is James Meredith? I may not know yet! But I do know who I always thought I was… a man on a mission from God.”
His mission continues, the last he admits, with plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his entering Ole Miss by visiting every county in the state. Meredith wants to, “uplift moral character through the word of the Lord.”
That’s 82 counties, by a man born in 1933 … still determined, still fearless, still a man on a mission.
New Albany is 14th city to join the Welcome Home Mississippi program.
On Monday, the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) announced that New Albany has been named Mississippi’s newest certified retirement city under the Welcome Home Mississippi (WHM) program.
The WHM program is administered by the MDA and attracts retirees from around the country to communities throughout the state. WHM will be managed locally by the community development division of the city of New Albany.
New Albany joins the cities of Aberdeen, Brandon, Cleveland, Clinton, Hattiesburg, Madison, Natchez, Oxford, Picayune, Southaven, Starkville, Tupelo and Vicksburg in the WHM program.
MDA Deputy Director Laura Hipp said that Mississippi is the perfect place to retire with a significant low cost of living, as well as welcoming communities.
“New Albany joining the Welcome Home Mississippi community gives retirees another great reason to come to Mississippi,” Hipp said. “New Albany offers an array of shopping in its vibrant downtown and numerous outdoor activities.”
“With 13 certified retirement communities, each one a vibrant and hospitable area, the options are plentiful, and each one offers a quality of living unmatched anywhere else in the U.S.,” the WHM program website states. “Whether you dream of living in the same city as the King of Rock ‘n Roll, or enjoy outdoor activities like golfing or festivals, retiring in the Magnolia State is full of options for every lifestyle.”
According to a July 2019 study conducted by Alan Barefield, Ph.D., and Kalyn Coatney, Ph.D., of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Mississippi State University (MSU), the economic impact of the WHM program was significant, especially in the communities engaged in the program in 2017.
Incoming retirees contributed $25.9 million to the state’s economy, and more than 200 jobs were created. The economists estimated that in 2017, 434 sectors of the state’s economy experienced increased output as a result of the program.
“In addition to the economic impact retirees have in their communities, they contribute in numerous other ways, including volunteering in and contributing monetary donations to local churches, schools, agencies and arts/cultural organizations,” MDA said in a release. “In turn, the study concludes the WHM program is a valuable asset to the state.”
Fifty-one years ago this week, Richard Nixon made the most consequential decision of his presidency – and it had nothing to do with Watergate.
On August 15th 1971, Nixon announced that the US dollar could no longer be converted into gold. Up until that moment, the dollar was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce under what was called the Bretton Woods System. This international agreement committed the American government to back every dollar overseas with gold.
“Big deal”, you might say. “What has some distant decision got to do with today?” Quite a lot, actually. It explains why government is big, inflation is high, capitalism is corrupted and why young Americans are voting left.
For as long as dollars could be converted into gold, there was a limit on the number of dollars that the US government could put into circulation. Why? Because someone might come along with dollars and ask to exchange it for gold. Once dollars could no longer be converted into gold, the US government was free to create as many dollars as it liked.
This is pretty much what has happened ever since.
Following Nixon’s announcement, the only thing restricting the amount of dollars that the government creates is the government. And governments, sadly, are not very good at saying “no” to themselves.
This has produced persistent inflation. Even before the latest price increases, there has been more inflation over the past half-century than in all the previous history of the American Republic, including the Civil War and two world wars.
The amount of money in circulation has increased rapidly since Nixon made his announcement. Indeed, the past three years have seen an unprecedented surge in the number of dollars out there.
The United States was founded by rebels demanding “no taxation without representation”.
Thanks to Nixon’s decision, in order to raise revenue today the US government does not need permission from our representatives in Congress to raise taxes. They can simply borrow instead.
The US government has had a budget deficit on 47 of the past 51 years. Now that the dollar is merely a paper promise, issued by the Fed, the federal government is able to borrow almost at will. I imagine George III would have looked at such a scheme with envy. No need to worry about taxing tea when you can borrow and spend billions at will.
Once the government is free to manipulate the currency to spend what it wants, it is also able to use monetary policy as a tool to steer the economy.
At first, the government only manipulated monetary policy to direct the economy in extreme circumstances, such as when the stock market crashed in October 1987. The US Fed used monetary policy to ride to the rescue. They slashed interest rates to boost spending, cut savings and make shareholding more attractive to investors than holding cash.
A decade later, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, the Fed did something similar. And then again with the collapse of LTMC, the world’s largest hedge fund. By the time the Fed used monetary stimulus in response to the dot com bubble bursting, or the collapse of Lehman bank, it was almost expected.
When Covid came, monetary stimulus in the form of low rates and QE was not a temporary measure. It had become a constant – but one that has begun to corrupt capitalism.
Years of low-interest rates and artificially easy money has caused all sorts of problems.
Easy money means that asset prices have been inflated. The explosion of asset values benefits those with assets (often older) over those without (the young). (Ever wondered why so many young Americans vote left and say they are skeptical about free-market capitalism?)
Real wages have stagnated. (Ever wondered why blue-collar America often seems so angry?)
You might not be able to see it right now, but an awful lot of bad investments have been made, with many ‘zombie’ companies – firms that are able to service their debts but not pay off the principle.
The ‘Nixon shock’ caught America by surprise in August 1971, but was soon overshadowed by Watergate. Half a century on, it seems that sanctioning a burglary was not the worst decision Nixon made in the Oval Office.
Where does all this leave conservatives today?
If we are serious about reducing the size and reach of government, we cannot remain part of the Greenspan-to-Powell consensus. A future conservative President and Congress are going to have to, at the very least, redefine the Fed’s terms of reference.
Nothing lasts forever, and certainly not paper promises.
Mississippi Senator assesses damage from the Biden tax hike.
As our economy enters a recession, Democrats in Washington have chosen to use the last remaining months of the congressional term to impose new taxes on the American people. Their $739 billion tax-and-spend bill, dishonestly titled the “Inflation Reduction Act,” has now passed both the House and Senate without a single Republican vote. As a result, job creators are now bracing for higher taxes and an economic slump with no end in sight.
It is stunning that Democrats approved this tax increase days after poor economic news had come to light. Last week, the Labor Department reported jobless claims had reached their highest level all year. The department also reported July inflation at 8.5 percent – only a meager drop from June’s dangerously high rate of 9.1 percent. Grocery prices rose by 13.1 percent in July and electricity costs soared by 15.2 percent, the largest increase since 2006. Meanwhile, workers took home three percent less in real weekly earnings as the dollar continued to lose value. This new round of taxes and spending will likely make inflation even worse and is the opposite of what working Americans need.
Small Businesses Brace for Impact
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, employing nearly half of the American workforce. Many of these small businesses did not survive the pandemic, and those that did are now treading water amid high inflation and a chronic worker shortage. The Democrats’ bill completely ignores these challenges. Under their legislation, small businesses that file as individuals will now have to shoulder an additional $50 billion in tax burden. They will also be much more likely to face audits from the IRS, which will now be hiring an army of 87,000 new agents. Because of this bill, Main Street businesses can expect more IRS harassment and higher compliance costs, making it that much harder to keep the doors open.
Another Step Toward Socialized Medicine
In addition to hurting our economy, this bill will likely undermine medical innovation, resulting in fewer life-saving drugs for American patients. The bill puts in place government price controls for prescription drugs, making it more risky and costly for drug developers to come up with new treatments and cures. Democrats who voted for this change want to make our system more like Europe, where socialized medicine has made many drugs “cheaper” but far less available. Between 2011 and 2018, for example, patients in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands had access to just 66 percent of new cancer drugs while Americans had access to 96 percent. With this step toward socialized medicine, we can expect fewer drugs to be developed and made available to seniors through Medicare.
Democrats Neglect Urgent Priorities
While Democrats were advancing this legislation, Republicans offered dozens of amendments to address the actual concerns of the American people. These included measures to lower energy prices by promoting U.S. energy production, including through the sale of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. We also sought to address the crisis on our southern border by hiring more border agents and extending the President’s deportation authority. In addition, we proposed measures to stop abortion providers from receiving special tax breaks and to prohibit the IRS from targeting religious nonprofits. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats blocked each of these amendments, revealing how out of step they are with the American people. With each passing month, Americans are losing patience with single-party rule in Washington that ignores their priorities.
As the police-led motorcade carrying the members of Mississippi country trio Chapel Hart made its way to the pavilion at Founders Square at the Neshoba County Fair on July 23, Devynn Hart was surprised by the number of cars she saw.
But she was truly shocked when they finally arrived, and she could see the crowd of people waiting to see her perform with her sister, Danica Hart, and cousin Trae Swindle, all childhood friends from Poplarville, on the Thacker Mountain Radio Hour. It’s a moment she won’t soon forget.
“Seeing everybody sing the words to our songs, [and] not just ‘You Can Have Him Jolene’—there were little kids there that knew all the words to almost every song that we performed—it’s mind blowing,” Devynn says.
Danica, who immediately outs herself as “the loud one,” agrees. “It sounded like we were performing at a stadium, and the only thing that I could think was, ‘Mississippi loud and proud, baby!’ I was right where I needed to be after all of this. You know, after everything exploded.”
She’s referring, of course, to Chapel Hart’s stunning televised audition on “America’s Got Talent” just four days earlier, which vaulted them onto the national stage. After performing their original song “You Can Have Him Jolene,” a response to Dolly Parton’s signature hit “Jolene,” the four celebrity judges—Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandell and Sofia Vergara—put their hands on the coveted “golden buzzer,” a unanimous sign of approval ushering them straight to the competition rounds.
Social media immediately went nuts for the group, especially after Parton herself weighed in the following morning with a tweet praising their take on her “Jolene” tale. The group’s new fans sent their 2021 album, The Girls Are Back in Town, to the top of the iTunes country charts the same day. Even Darius Rucker jumped in, announcing they would sing on his next album.
Three weeks later, the Chapel Hart train is still rolling strong. The group’s “AGT” performance has been viewed more than seven million times on YouTube—on top of the seven or so million who watched it live on NBC—and their video for “You Can Have Him Jolene,” filmed in Pass Christian and released a year ago, is clocking views in the millions, as well.
Seated on a couch in a Ketchum, Idaho hotel suite, the ladies of Chapel Hart are beaming with energy and enthusiasm. They’re on a short tour, playing gigs booked before their breakout moment, until they’re due back in Los Angeles to continue their bid for the “AGT” crown. But they know that no matter the outcome of the show, they’ve already won big. A month from now, they’ll fulfill a dream by performing on the Grand Ole Opry. And the numbers don’t lie; they have the attention of country music fans, and likely the industry gatekeepers, as well.
Wracked with emotion standing on the “AGT” stage, Danica responded to Cowell through tears when he asked how they’ve been working to establish themselves in the country music industry. “We’ve been trying to break into Nashville for the last couple of years,” she said, “but it’s been kinda hard when I think country music doesn’t always look like us.”
Trae picks up her cousin’s train of thought, using a pointed anecdote she heard at a recent conference organized by Change the Conversation, a Nashville group established to pursue gender equality in country music, about the unspoken rules dictating how non-white and female artists get pushed in Music City.
“They highlighted a very specific, pertinent point—and it wasn’t just for minorities, it was for women and marginalized communities as a whole—Nashville has forever had this, ‘just one at a time’ concept,” Trae says. “For a while it was just Darius Rucker, then they slowly added the Jimmie Allens and the Brelands and the Kane Browns. Mickey Guyton just got pushed to the forefront last year, although she’s been in Nashville and in the music industry for over 15 years.”
Country music trio Chapel Hart hails from Poplarville Credit: Rudy Melancon
Similarly, the overnight success of Chapel Hart has been brewing for years, built on their mutual love of the country music that has been omnipresent in their lives since they were kids.
“Growing up in Poplarville, country music was the music,” Danica says. “If you’re going in the grocery store, the music playing overhead’s country music; if you’re on the school bus and the school bus driver brings his or her radio, it’s country music; if you have a job and you’re at work and they have music that goes on at work, it’s country music. Even I remember at nap time when we were little and they turned on music when you get ready to lay down and go to sleep, and it was country music.”
The lifestyle they portray in songs like “Jesus & Alcohol” and “That’s a Redneck Summer Night” comes honestly. Although they were in the pews on Sunday morning—Danica and Devynn are the daughters of a preacher, and their grandfather was a minister—come Saturday night, they were in a field drinking beer with friends. Danica characterizes their upbringing as “Rebel Baptist.” “I’ll pray you up to heaven and drink a little Budweiser afterwards,” she laughs.
Once they came together as a musical group, they went through years of woodshedding, networking and pounding the pavement for opportunities. Chapel Hart had been making connections for years, and their growth was steady until the “AGT” rocket ride began. The MuzikMafia hitmakers they sang along with in their youth, like “Redneck Woman” singer Gretchen Wilson, Cowboy Troy and Big & Rich, are now in their phones; Danica still gets a thrill when John Rich texts her to check on them.
“We always used to say, we wanna bring country music back to country radio,” Danica offers. “And so the push is just good country music, you know what I’m saying? It’s the stuff we grew up on it. It’s nineties country.”
Although the trio has been based in New Orleans for several years, they make an effort to show love for their home state. Devynn wore a Mississippi shirt on a recent CMT appearance, and they refer to her in songs like “4 Mississippi.” Their love of home comes with few asterisks, if any.
“Honestly, I think the world needs to understand that Mississippi is a place of just pure love,” Trae says. “I know that there are lots of stigmas on Mississippi, being at the bottom of the list for a lot of things, from education to health to everything else. Danica often says it in our show, talking about growing up, a lot of people were too poor to even know the difference, so everyone came together. And I feel like seeing us do what we’re doing on such a scale is showing the power of that Mississippi hospitality. You have people who are in completely different socioeconomic classes, completely different culturally, but, like, being brought together all [for] the sake of good music.”
As the police-led motorcade carrying the members of Mississippi country trio Chapel Hart made its way to the pavilion at Founders Square at the Neshoba County Fair on July 23, Devynn Hart was surprised by the number of cars she saw.
But she was truly shocked when they finally arrived, and she could see the crowd of people waiting to see her perform with her sister, Danica Hart, and cousin Trae Swindle, all childhood friends from Poplarville, on the Thacker Mountain Radio Hour. It’s a moment she won’t soon forget.
“Seeing everybody sing the words to our songs, [and] not just ‘You Can Have Him Jolene’—there were little kids there that knew all the words to almost every song that we performed—it’s mind blowing,” Devynn says.
Danica, who immediately outs herself as “the loud one,” agrees. “It sounded like we were performing at a stadium, and the only thing that I could think was, ‘Mississippi loud and proud, baby!’ I was right where I needed to be after all of this. You know, after everything exploded.”
She’s referring, of course, to Chapel Hart’s stunning televised audition on “America’s Got Talent” just four days earlier, which vaulted them onto the national stage. After performing their original song “You Can Have Him Jolene,” a response to Dolly Parton’s signature hit “Jolene,” the four celebrity judges—Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandell and Sofia Vergara—put their hands on the coveted “golden buzzer,” a unanimous sign of approval ushering them straight to the competition rounds.
Social media immediately went nuts for the group, especially after Parton herself weighed in the following morning with a tweet praising their take on her “Jolene” tale. The group’s new fans sent their 2021 album, The Girls Are Back in Town, to the top of the iTunes country charts the same day. Even Darius Rucker jumped in, announcing they would sing on his next album.
Three weeks later, the Chapel Hart train is still rolling strong. The group’s “AGT” performance has been viewed more than seven million times on YouTube—on top of the seven or so million who watched it live on NBC—and their video for “You Can Have Him Jolene,” filmed in Pass Christian and released a year ago, is clocking views in the millions, as well.
Seated on a couch in a Ketchum, Idaho hotel suite, the ladies of Chapel Hart are beaming with energy and enthusiasm. They’re on a short tour, playing gigs booked before their breakout moment, until they’re due back in Los Angeles to continue their bid for the “AGT” crown. But they know that no matter the outcome of the show, they’ve already won big. A month from now, they’ll fulfill a dream by performing on the Grand Ole Opry. And the numbers don’t lie; they have the attention of country music fans, and likely the industry gatekeepers, as well.
Wracked with emotion standing on the “AGT” stage, Danica responded to Cowell through tears when he asked how they’ve been working to establish themselves in the country music industry. “We’ve been trying to break into Nashville for the last couple of years,” she said, “but it’s been kinda hard when I think country music doesn’t always look like us.”
Trae picks up her cousin’s train of thought, using a pointed anecdote she heard at a recent conference organized by Change the Conversation, a Nashville group established to pursue gender equality in country music, about the unspoken rules dictating how non-white and female artists get pushed in Music City.
“They highlighted a very specific, pertinent point—and it wasn’t just for minorities, it was for women and marginalized communities as a whole—Nashville has forever had this, ‘just one at a time’ concept,” Trae says. “For a while it was just Darius Rucker, then they slowly added the Jimmie Allens and the Brelands and the Kane Browns. Mickey Guyton just got pushed to the forefront last year, although she’s been in Nashville and in the music industry for over 15 years.”
Country music trio Chapel Hart hails from Poplarville Credit: Rudy Melancon
Similarly, the overnight success of Chapel Hart has been brewing for years, built on their mutual love of the country music that has been omnipresent in their lives since they were kids.
“Growing up in Poplarville, country music was the music,” Danica says. “If you’re going in the grocery store, the music playing overhead’s country music; if you’re on the school bus and the school bus driver brings his or her radio, it’s country music; if you have a job and you’re at work and they have music that goes on at work, it’s country music. Even I remember at nap time when we were little and they turned on music when you get ready to lay down and go to sleep, and it was country music.”
The lifestyle they portray in songs like “Jesus & Alcohol” and “That’s a Redneck Summer Night” comes honestly. Although they were in the pews on Sunday morning—Danica and Devynn are the daughters of a preacher, and their grandfather was a minister—come Saturday night, they were in a field drinking beer with friends. Danica characterizes their upbringing as “Rebel Baptist.” “I’ll pray you up to heaven and drink a little Budweiser afterwards,” she laughs.
Once they came together as a musical group, they went through years of woodshedding, networking and pounding the pavement for opportunities. Chapel Hart had been making connections for years, and their growth was steady until the “AGT” rocket ride began. The MuzikMafia hitmakers they sang along with in their youth, like “Redneck Woman” singer Gretchen Wilson, Cowboy Troy and Big & Rich, are now in their phones; Danica still gets a thrill when John Rich texts her to check on them.
“We always used to say, we wanna bring country music back to country radio,” Danica offers. “And so the push is just good country music, you know what I’m saying? It’s the stuff we grew up on it. It’s nineties country.”
Although the trio has been based in New Orleans for several years, they make an effort to show love for their home state. Devynn wore a Mississippi shirt on a recent CMT appearance, and they refer to her in songs like “4 Mississippi.” Their love of home comes with few asterisks, if any.
“Honestly, I think the world needs to understand that Mississippi is a place of just pure love,” Trae says. “I know that there are lots of stigmas on Mississippi, being at the bottom of the list for a lot of things, from education to health to everything else. Danica often says it in our show, talking about growing up, a lot of people were too poor to even know the difference, so everyone came together. And I feel like seeing us do what we’re doing on such a scale is showing the power of that Mississippi hospitality. You have people who are in completely different socioeconomic classes, completely different culturally, but, like, being brought together all [for] the sake of good music.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The Oxford Police Department released a statement Friday afternoon that the killing of Jimmie “Jay” Lee, a Black student who was well-known in the town’s LGBTQ community, is an “isolated incident” that does not reflect a broader threat to queer people in Mississippi.
The statement comes three days after a Lafayette County judge determined there was probable cause for police to arrest Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., a 22-year-old Ole Miss graduate, for Lee’s murder, and that he should be held without bond.
“Based on the information collected to date, our investigators believe this crime represents an isolated incident stemming from the relationship between Jay Lee and Tim Herrington,” the release states.
Members of the LGBTQ community in Oxford have been asking police to release more information about the nature of the case ever since Herrington was arrested three weeks ago. Many members said more transparency from police would help them make decisions about how to stay safe.
Police nodded to this perspective in the release: “More broadly, we want to stress that our agencies are committed to doing all that we can to maintain a safe environment for everyone in our community.”
Members of the LBGTQ community are more likely to be the victim of physical harm from domestic and intimate partners. This is especially true for Black queer people who face compounded discrimination due to homophobia and racism — a routine threat of violence that is personal and systemic, with roots much deeper than any one case.
The release also follows a story Mississippi Today published earlier this week based on accounts from 11 LGBTQ students, faculty and University of Mississippi alumni who said they no longer felt safe in Oxford. At least one community member is afraid to leave their house, said Jaime Harker, the director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at UM and the owner of Violet Valley, a feminist bookstore near Oxford.
Harker said she felt that OPD’s silence contributed to harrowing rumors in the community about the nature and reason for Lee’s killing.
“I think people are filling the void with what their biggest fears are,” she said.
Lee, 20, was a well-known member of Oxford’s LBGTQ community who regularly performed at Code Pink, a local drag night. An open, confident person, Lee ran for homecoming king last year to promote a platform of “self love and living your truth.” He repeatedly spoke out about the harassment received for wearing women’s clothing.
For many people in the community, Lee’s outspokenness made his disappearance all the more terrifying.
Lindsey Trinh, a senior journalism student at Ole Miss, told Mississippi Today that after weeks of receiving no information about Lee’s killing, she decided she was too fearful and anxious to return to classes in person. She wrote an email to the university provost and her professors explaining how Lee’s case had affected her.
“At the time and because of the unknown of why this has happened to Jay and the whereabouts of his body, I have decided that I cannot physically come back to Oxford for my last semester this Fall,” Trinh wrote in her email. “I fear for my safety and well-being as an outspoken and proud gay person of color.”
Authorities believe that Lee’s body, still missing, is somewhere in Lafayette or Grenada County. But the circumstantial evidence that police have so far gathered was enough to bring charges, Lafayette County Assistant District Attorney Tiffany Kilpatrick argued in court on Tuesday.
“In 2022 you do not need a body,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s not the 1870s.”
During the preliminary hearing, Kilpatrick alleged that Herrington’s casual relationship with Lee was unknown to his friends and family. She said that early in the morning on July 8, Herrington “lured” Lee to his apartment, strangled him, and then “staged a cover up” by driving Lee’s car to Molly Barr Trails, a student housing complex.
Herrington then picked up a box truck belonging to his moving company, Kilpatrick said, and drove it to his parent’s house in Grenada where he retrieved a long-handle shovel and wheelbarrow.
Kilpatrick argued that Herrington should have been denied bond because his charge – first-degree murder – will likely be elevated to capital murder as police uncover more evidence; some of which is still being processed at a private crime lab. Kilpatrick also argued Herrington was a flight risk, noting that a forensic search of his MacBook showed he had searched for flights from Dallas to Singapore.
Herrington’s defense attorney, state Rep. Kevin Horan, disputed that Herrington, who has $1,910 in his bank account, could afford to flee the state. In his closing statement, Horan said the prosecution’s case amounted to “suspicion, conjecture and speculation.”
Horan called four witnesses who testified, in an effort to obtain bond for Herrington, to his character and connections to the community in Grenada. The witnesses included Herrington’s mother, an elder at his church, one of his teachers, and ??Emily Tindell, the principal of Grenada High School.
Tindell said that Herrington and his family have “the best of character in Grenada County.”
In her closing statement, Kilpatrick said that Herrington was not the same person that his teachers and family described.
“They don’t know this other Tim Herrington, his double life,” she said. “They don’t know the Tim Herrington who lives in anonymity. This Tim Herrington, your honor, is the Tim Herrington who killed Jay Lee.”
Jackson State University announced it has postponed move-in dates this fall as the capital city’s “unprecedented water pressure issues” are affecting water flow on the upper floors of student housing.
JSU’s campus is just west of downtown Jackson, an area contendingwith low pressure after the city pulled some water pumps offline earlier this week due to mechanical issues at the OB Curtis Water Treatment Plant.This comes as the city remains under a boil water notice issued two weeks ago by the Mississippi State Department of Health due to higher than average levels of turbidity, or cloudiness, in the water.
The university is now planning for the 750 new students who were scheduled to move-in this Saturday to come to campus starting Thursday, Aug. 18. The move-in date for returning students is now Saturday, Aug. 20. But those dates are still subject to the city restoring water pressure, according to a press release posted to the university’s social media.
Classes are still scheduled to start on Monday, Aug. 22.
“While we know this is a huge inconvenience, the postponement is the right thing to do to prevent students from arriving on campus while we’re experiencing these water issues,” university officials said in the press release.
Last week, city officials said that while they did not have a “definitive timeline” for lifting the boil water notice, they hoped service would be back to fully functioning starting today for well-system customers starting today and as early as Saturday for surface system customers.
The water issues are also affecting Jackson Public Schools, the superintendent told WAPT, affecting the ability of some larger buildings that are more than 50 years old to flush toilets.
“We’re at a place now where many of our buildings are failing us,” Errick Greene said. “HVAC systems, plumbing systems, electricity, we’re constantly patching, fixing, and running behind so many issues.”
JSU, a historically Black college, relies on the city water system but for years has sought for years for support from the Legislature to construct its own. Though lawmakers this session appropriated American Rescue Plan Act funds for capital projects at Mississippi’s eight public universities, most of the bills seeking infrastructure improvements for JSU – such as new dormitories – died in committee.
One of the unsuccessful bills, proposed earlier this year by Rep. Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia,sought $8 million for JSU for costs associated with building a separate water system.
Cockerham said she has thought for years that JSU, her alma mater, needs its own water supply. This issue became particularly urgent, she said, after seeing how last year’s ice storm affected the campus. Students, faculty and staff didn’t have clean water, according to HBCU Advocate, and the university had to install portable showers and restrooms near the dorms.
The impact on students of the university pushing its move-in date underscores the need for her bill, Cockerham said.
“Some students live here locally, but a lot of students are coming from out of state,” she said. “This severely affects the parents, especially if they bought plane tickets, if they rented cars, if they’ve got U-hauls.”
The university’s press release states that the financial aid and business offices will be available to assist students with completing registration during the new move-in dates.
Four Mississippi universities have their own water systems, according to the Institutions of Higher Learning, including Alcorn State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Mississippi State University, and the University of Mississippi.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center uses its own water source for about 90% of campus with the remaining coming from the city, IHL’s spokesperson, Caron Blanton, wrote in an email earlier this year.
IHL has received $25 million in ARPA funds for capital projects at all eight public universities, but it’s likely not enough to cover the full scope of the need at every university, including JSU. Mississippi Today asked what portion of the $25 million was allocated to JSU, but IHL did not respond by press time.
For JSU alone, IHL had initially requested $17.8 million in ARPA funds for the university to implement a range of upgrades to its plumbing and sewage systems, such as installing water meters and filtration systems on the service lines for 52 university buildings and replacing a sewer line on Lynch Street.
The request would have also funded a plan “to implement an alternate water supply system to serve the JSU campus.”
JSU has also been seeking to build new dorms to alleviate a waitlist of more than 600 students seeking on-campus housing. At a town hall last month, President Thomas Hudson addressed the university’s housing issues, which he said stemmed from “years of underfunding,” according to a press release.
Hudson said the university is taking a “two-prong approach to this issue” that includes repairing the current on-campus housing and looking to build new dorms in the coming year.
“It’s long overdue for JSU, and it’s long overdue for a new residence hall that meets our growing demand and is more in line with what our students need and want,” Hudson said. “We ask that everyone be patient with us; work with us. We’re going to try and place as many students as we can this year.”
The traffic stop has gained social media traction implying that excessive force was used by the State Trooper, dash cam footage shows the incident in its entirety.
The Department of Public Safety (DPS) has provided dash camera footage in an incident involving a state trooper that occurred in McComb on August 5. The footage has been the subject of social media attention and media outlets, asserting that excessive force was used by the trooper.
“While DPS and MHSP recognize and respect the right of citizens to observe, and even record, law enforcement officers executing their duties, those rights are not without limitations. As you will see, this event is a prime example of how even a routine traffic stop can quickly turn into a dangerous situation for both citizens and law enforcement officers when subjects resist arrest and when uninvolved persons interfere,” said DPS Commissioner Sean Tindell.
Due to recent policy changes to encourage transparency, DPS released the footage along with a play-by-play of what is depicted.
The relevant events of August 5 are timestamped below, as follows:
Trooper Hayden Falvey initiated a traffic stop on Eugene Lewis after observing Mr. Lewis on Delaware Avenue in McComb traveling at a high rate of speed, passing vehicles on the right, not wearing a seatbelt and speeding up to travel through an intersection after the light turned from green to yellow.
Trooper Falvey pursued E. Lewis, ultimately stopping him on Schmidt Road. This area is rural and unpopulated. When approaching E. Lewis’ vehicle, Trooper Falvey smelled a strong odor of burnt marijuana coming from the vehicle. He noted that E. Lewis’ eyes were bloodshot and glassy and that there was a strong odor of burnt marijuana on his breath. It was determined at that time that E. Lewis’ driver license was suspended and that he was driving without liability insurance. E. Lewis admitted to Trooper Falvey that there may be a burnt marijuana cigarette, or “roach,” in his vehicle. [0:55]. He also admitted that he had smoked marijuana about 45 minutes to 1 hour prior to the traffic stop. [1:10].
Having developed probable cause that E. Lewis was driving his vehicle under the influence of marijuana and may be in possession of illegal narcotics, Trooper Falvey placed E. Lewis in handcuffs and began searching his vehicle. [2:10]. During the vehicle search, Gary and Derrius Lewis drove up in a Dodge Charger, stopped in the road, and exited their vehicle. [14:45]. They identified themselvesas E. Lewis’ brothers. [15:00]. Because he had no backup and was in an unpopulated area, Trooper Falvey directed G. Lewis and D. Lewis to return to their vehicle and leave the scene. This order was given for the safety of Trooper Falvey and all involved. After initially protesting, G. Lewis and D. Lewis left the scene.
When Trooper Falvey advised E. Lewis that he was under arrest and attempted to place and restrain him in the front passenger seat of Trooper Falvey’s police cruiser, E. Lewis became belligerent and physically resisted. [16:45]. At this time, Trooper Falvey radioed Dispatch and requested assistance. [18:28]. Trooper Falvey was still attempting to place the resisting E. Lewis into the cruiser and buckle him in when G. Lewis and D. Lewis returned to the scene, again stopped in the road and again exited their vehicle. [18:50]. Believing that he had buckled E. Lewis into the front seat of his cruiser, Trooper Falvey stepped to the back of the cruiser and again directed G. Lewis and D. Lewis to return to their vehicle and leave the scene. [19:06]. Unfortunately, E. Lewis had not been buckled in, and he immediately exited the vehicle and began shouting at Trooper Falvey.
All three Lewis men ignored repeated commands by Trooper Falvey to return to their respective vehicles (E. Lewis to the police cruiser). All three men continuously shouted expletives at Trooper Falvey and made it clear that they had no intention of following his commands. This placed Trooper Falvey in an untenable position and created a dangerous situation for all four men. Nevertheless, Trooper Falvey never struck any of the Lewis men or used any force beyond the necessary restraining techniques used upon E. Lewis.
Eventually, another man pulled up to the scene. [21:00]. Keeping his distance, he asked Trooper Falvey if he needed to call someone to come assist. [21:25]. Trooper Falvey advised him that additional police were already on the way and asked the man to watch G. Lewis and D. Lewis and make sure that they did not attack Trooper Falvey from behind while he worked to place E. Lewis back in the police cruiser. The man agreed, and Trooper Falvey commenced his efforts to place E. Lewis back in the cruiser. E. Lewis physically resisted these efforts, resulting in both E. Lewis and Trooper Falvey falling to the ground. [21:31]. Trooper Falvey immediately worked to secure E. Lewis with his knees and legs so that he (Falvey) would have access to the tools on his belt in case G. Lewis and/or D. Lewis approached him. Eventually, E. Lewis indicated that he would willingly move to the cruiser. [24:13]. Trooper Falvey helped E. Lewis to his feet and brought him back to the passenger side, front seat of the cruiser. E. Lewis again resisted Trooper Falvey’s efforts to place him fully in the vehicle, but Falvey was ultimately able to secure him with the vehicle’s seatbelt. [24:40].
Once E. Lewis was secured in the cruiser, Trooper Falvey approached G. Lewis and D. Lewis, advising both men that they were under arrest. [25:15]. At this time, Trooper Joshua Huhn arrived at the scene and assisted Trooper Falvey with completing his arrests. [26:15]. Trooper Falvey noticed that D. Lewis had a strong odor of intoxicating beverage from his breath and was slurring his speech. D. Lewis admitted to drinking earlier but refused a preliminary breath test (“PBT”). G. Lewis was unable to produce a valid driver’s license, and the tag on his vehicle was expired.
E. Lewis indicated that he needed to go to the hospital. [30:27]. Trooper Falvey immediately contacted Dispatch again and requested an ambulance. [30:31]. E. Lewis began violently thrashing around in the police cruiser and damaging equipment therein. [30:55]. Paramedics ultimately arrived on the scene, examined E. Lewis and determined that 1) his vital signs were normal, 2) no injuries were observed and 3) he was medically clear to be transported to jail.
The three men involved were transported to the Pike County Jail. Eugene Lewis was charged with Careless Driving, Seatbelt Violation, Disregard forTraffic Device, Window Tint Violation, No Proof of Insurance, DUI Other 1st Offense, Resisting Arrest, and Failure to Comply. Gary Lewis was charged with two counts of Obstructing a Public Street, Resisting Arrest, Failure to Comply, No Driver’s License on Demand, Seatbelt Violation, Expired Tag, Improperly Displayed Tag, and Window Tint Violation. Derrius Lewis was charged with Resisting Arrest, Failure to Comply, Public Drunkenness, and Disturbing the Peace.
“A review of this incident by MBI agents and command staff produced no evidence of criminal conduct by the trooper throughout the encounter,” said Lt. Col. Charles Haynes, Director of MBI.
DPS and MHSP released a statement saying that the departments take all allegations of excessive force and other employee misconduct seriously and that those allegations will always be investigated and given due consideration.
The statement added that given the number of traffic stops and other interactions between law enforcement officers and members of the public that occur every day, unpleasant incidents are an unfortunate inevitability.
“MHSP’s internal review of this matter revealed no evidence of excessive force,” said Lt. Col. Malachi Sanders, Director of the MHSP Enforcement Division. “All evidence indicates that Trooper Falvey demonstrated exemplary patience, judgment and skill in maintaining the safety of all involved throughout what could have easily become a tragic incident.”
