Mississippi Today
Mississippi officials focus on red meat, presidential race in Neshoba County Fair stump speeches
Most of the Neshoba County Fair crowd stood Thursday and chanted “fight, fight, fight” at the behest of Republican Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson who vowed to battle the โliberal, woke agenda that has America in its jaws.โ
Fight was the cry of former President Donald Trump as he was helped up by Secret Service agents after barely escaping an assassination attempt at a recent Pennsylvania rally. Fight also is what Trump urged his followers to do in 2021 before they attacked the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
ย The animated crowd was an example of how the second day of political speaking at the red dirt Founder’s Square at the Neshoba County Fair on Thursday was mostly highlighted by red-meat statements stressing the importance of electing Donald Trump as president and less on state policy positions.
But the statewide officeholders, led by Gov. Tate Reeves, did promote what he called โcore conservative policiesโ that he and other speakers said have led to progress in Mississippi.
As is always the case at the fair during the fair’s political stumping, there was lots of speculation about what politicians will be jockeying for offices in Mississippi’s 2027 statewide elections.
One fair visitor making the rounds at cabins and glad-handing was the source of much talk Thursday: billionaire businessman Thomas Duff, a potential Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2027.
Duff, the co-wealthiest Mississippian along with his brother, has helped fund numerous other politicians’ campaigns over the years and could self-fund a serious one for himself.
Asked about any plans to run for governor as he met with movers and shakers at the fair, Duff said: โI’m very much considering it, and I’m very much interested in it.โ
Gipson told reporters he is not ruling out a run for governor in 2027.
โI am praying about that,โ Gipson said. โI โฆ have not made a decision,โ though he said he has started fund-raising efforts.
READ MORE: Hosemann, White trade jabs, hint at gubernatorial aspirations at Neshoba Fair
Second term Secretary of State Michael Watson, who also spoke Thursday, has reportedly been considering a run either for governor or lieutenant governor, though he did not tip his hand to his future political plans.
Watson, the chief administrator of Mississippi’s elections, used part of his speech to advocate for Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who did not speak at the fair because of a scheduling conflict, to prosecute election fraud crimes.
“I’m not here to attack, but I am here to ask people to do their jobs,” Watson said, who added that he would like to see an attorney with the Attorney General’s Office specifically assigned to prosecute election-related crimes.
Speaking at the fair for the first time on Thursday, House Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, said health care would again be a priority during the 2025 session. He said the House would maintain โan open mindโ on expanding Medicaid to the working poor and wants to reach a compromise with the governor and the Senate.
But Reeves, who said in his speech that he had spoken at the annual political speaking more than any governor in the history of the state, told reporters he still opposes Medicaid expansion, though he thanked the speaker for advancing conservative policy in other areas.
When a reporter pointed out the many bad health care outcomes in the state, such as the nation’s highest infant mortality rate, Reeves said, โWe want to work on these things, There are plenty of items we need to work on when it comes to health care.โ
He added some of those poor outcomes are not the fault of government.
This past session both chambers passed legislation to expand Medicaid, but that effort proved unsuccessful when the House and Senate could not agree on a final proposal.
Reeves said many of the policies he has espoused during his 20-year tenure as treasurer, lieutenant governor and governor were first unveiled at the fair.
โAs Donald Trump would say, we are winning like never before,โ Reeves said of Mississippi.
He added, โJoe Biden and Kamala Harris have steered the national economy into the ditch.โ
None acknowledged that inflation is coming down and that employment has dramatically increased nationwide, though, they cited strong employment numbers in Mississippi. None cited legislation supported by Biden that has helped spur the state economy, such as improving infrastructure and expanding broadband internet access.
Repeating the refrain from his successful 2023 reelect campaign, Reeves said, โMississippi has momentum. This is Mississippi’s time.โ
He added, โI don’t want to be just Mississippi good. I want to set the national standard. I wantย to beat Georgia’s ass.โ
After his speech, Reeves declined to respond when asked about comments Trump made Wednesday that Vice President Harris only identified as Black recently as she ran for president.
Reeves said he wants to instead focus on Harris’ record.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
A Mississippi town moves a Confederate monument that became a shrouded eyesore
GRENADA (AP) โ A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 โ a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.
Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land. A concrete slab has already been poured behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from the square.
But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments.
The Grenada City Council voted to move the monument in 2020, weeks after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. The vote seemed timely: Mississippi legislators had just retired the last state flag in the U.S. that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem.
The tarps went up soon after the vote, shrouding the Confederate soldier and the pedestal he stood on. But even as people complained about the eyesore, the move was delayed by tight budgets, state bureaucracy or political foot-dragging. Explanations vary, depending on who’s asked.
A new mayor and city council took office in May, prepared to take action. On Sept. 11, with little advance notice, police blocked traffic and a work crew disassembled and removed the 20-foot (6.1-meter) stone structure.
“I’m glad to see it move to a different location,” said Robin Whitfield, an artist with a studio just off Grenada’s historic square. “This represents that something has changed.”
Still, Whitfield, who is white, said she wishes Grenada leaders had invited the community to engage in dialogue about the symbol, to bridge the gap between those who think moving it is erasing history and those who see it as a daily reminder of white supremacy. She was among the few people watching as a crane lifted parts of the monument onto a flatbed truck.
“No one ever talked about it, other than yelling on Facebook,” Whitfield said.
Mayor Charles Latham said the monument has been “quite a divisive figure” in the town of 12,300, where about 57% of residents are Black and 40% are white.
“I understand people had family and stuff to fight and die in that war, and they should be proud of their family,” Latham said. “But you’ve got to understand that there were those who were oppressed by this, by the Confederate flag on there. There’s been a lot of hate and violence perpetrated against people of color, under the color of that flag.”
The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate.
“We are prepared to pursue such avenues that may be necessary to ensure that the statue is relocated to a more suitable and appropriate location,” she wrote, suggesting a Confederate cemetery closer to the courthouse square as an alternative. She said the Ladies Cemetery Association is willing to deed a parcel to the city to make it happen.
The Confederate monument in Grenada is one of hundreds in the South, most of which were dedicated during the early 20th century when groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy sought to shape the historical narrative by valorizing the Lost Cause mythology of the Civil War.
The monuments, many of them outside courthouses, came under fresh scrutiny after an avowed white supremacist who had posed with Confederate flags in photos posted online killed nine Black people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Grenada’s monument includes images of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a Confederate battle flag. It was engraved with praise for “the noble men who marched neath the flag of the Stars and Bars” and “the noble women of the South,” who “gave their loved ones to our country to conquer or to die for truth and right.”
A half-century after it was dedicated, the monument’s symbolism figured in a voting rights march. When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders held a mass rally in downtown Grenada in June 1966, Robert Green of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference scrambled up the pedestal and planted a U.S. flag above the image of Davis.
The cemetery is a spot Latham himself had previously advocated as a new site for the monument, but he said it’s too late to change now, after the city already budgeted $60,000 for the move.
“So, who’s going to pay the city back for the $30,000 we’ve already expended to relocate this?” he said. “You should’ve showed up a year and a half ago, two years ago, before the city gets to this point.”
A few other Confederate monuments in Mississippi have been relocated. In July 2020, a Confederate soldier statue was moved from a prominent spot at the University of Mississippi to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded part of the Oxford campus. In May 2021, a Confederate monument featuring three soldiers was moved from outside the Lowndes County Courthouse in Columbus to another cemetery with Confederate soldiers.
Lori Chavis, a Grenada City Council member, said that since the monument was covered by tarps, “it’s caused nothing but more divide in our city.”
She said she supports relocating the monument but worries about a lawsuit. She acknowledged that people probably didn’t know until recently exactly where it would reappear.
“It’s tucked back in the woods, and it’s not visible from even pulling behind the fire station,” Chavis said. “And I think that’s what got some of the citizens upset.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Crooked Letter Sports Podcast
Podcast: New Orleans sports columnist and author Jeff Duncan joins the podcast to talk about his new Steve Gleason book and the new-look New Orleans Saints.
Jeff Duncan went from the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson on Saturday to Jerry World in Dallas on Sunday where he watched and wrote about the Saints’ total dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys. We talk about both events and also about what happened in high school and college football last weekend and what’s coming up this weekend.
Stream all episodes here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1899
Sept. 18, 1899
Scott Joplin, known as โthe King of Ragtime,โ copyrighted the โMaple Leaf Rag,โ which became the first song to sell more than 1 million copies of sheet music. The popularity launched a sensation surrounding ragtime, which has been called America’s โfirst classical music.โย
Born near Texarkana, Texas, Joplin grew up in a musical family. He worked on the railroad with other family members until he was able to earn money as a musician, traveling across the South. He wound up playing at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, where he met fellow musician Otis Saunders, who encouraged him to write down the songs he had been making up to entertain audiences. In all, Joplin wrote dozens of ragtime songs.
After some success, he moved to New York City, hoping he could make a living while stretching the boundaries of music. He wrote a ragtime ballet and two operas, but success in these new forms eluded him. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in New York City in 1917.
More than six decades later, his music was rediscovered, initially by Joshua Rifkin, who recorded Joplin’s songs on a record, and then Gunther Schuller of the New England Conservatory, who performed four of the ragtime songs in concert: โMy faculty, many of whom had never even heard of Joplin, were saying things like, โMy gosh, he writes melodies like Schubert!’โ
Joplin’s music won over even more admirers through the 1973 movie, โThe Sting,โ which won an Oscar for the music. His song, โThe Entertainer,โ reached No. 3 on Billboard and was ranked No. 10 among โSongs of the Centuryโ list by the Recording Industry Association of America. His opera โTreemonishaโ was produced to wide acclaim, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his special contribution to American music.ย
โThe ragtime craze, the faddish thing, will obviously die down, but Joplin will have his position secure in American music history,โ Rifkin said. โHe is a treasurable composer.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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