A group of nonprofits in and around the capital city are teaming up to build new green spaces in Jackson, looking to offer environmental benefits such as limiting both flooding as well as a phenomenon known as “heat islands.”

Dominika Parry, a Polish native, founded the Ridgeland-based 2C Mississippi in 2017, hoping to raise awareness around climate change impacts in the state. The group has attempted relatively progressive ideas before, such as bringing climate curriculums to public schools and establishing the state’s first community solar program. 

With a lack of political appetite, though, those projects have struggled to get off the ground, Parry explained – “I realized that no one in Mississippi talks about climate change,” she told Mississippi Today. But she’s confident that the green spaces initiative will have a meaningful environmental impact. 

In one project with the Farish Street Community of Shalom, 2C Mississippi is building green spaces along the historic Farish Street in downtown Jackson. The groups recently acquired $1.5 million through the Inflation Reduction Act for the idea. 

A 2020 study in Jackson from consultant CAPA Strategies identified “heat islands,” or urban areas that absorb more heat because they have fewer trees and bodies of water. The study found that at times during the summer, parts of downtown were over 10 degrees hotter than areas around the edge of the city. 

The idea for the spaces, which will go in courtyards between Amite and Griffith Streets, includes new trees, vertical gardens, and a maintained grassy area for gatherings and events like the neighborhood’s Juneteenth celebration (renderings of the project from 2C Mississippi are shown below). Parry said they’ll start to plant the trees in January and have the whole spaces done sometime next year. Then, she plans to monitor the impacts, including on the energy needs of surrounding buildings. 

Dorothy Davis, Shalom’s president, said that the new tree canopy will give shelter from the simmering temperatures that brew over the city concrete. It’s a concern in an area where, Davis said, many live without reliable or even any air conditioning. Over a few weeks this summer, as an extension of the 2020 study, she and a group of local students measured the heat index along Farish Street, which Davis said never dipped below 100 degrees. 

“It wasn’t surprising because I’ve been in Mississippi all my life, I know how Mississippi heat is,” said Davis, who has been in Jackson since 1963. “But it was very concerning because we have a lot of elderly people in this area especially.”

According to the National Weather Service, which has temperature records dating back to 1896, five of the top 10 hottest years in Jackson have occurred in the last 10 years. 

In addition to the Farish Street project, 2C Mississippi is also working on building “microparks” around west Jackson. Voice of Calvary Ministries, another local nonprofit, partners with the city of Jackson to eliminate blight, and, along with some other groups, is working to restore and build new homes in about 150 properties around West Capitol Street near the Jackson Zoo. 

“We have a lot of lots that we can really do some reinvestment in, not just with housing, but the parks,” said VOCM’s president and CEO Margaret Johnson. “I think we can offer something new and different to an impoverished area of the city.” 

Johnson explained that the area is near a flood zone, and the microparks are a preemptive measure to reduce risk as well as the financial burden of flood insurance. 

Many of the lots have been abandoned for years, she said, often after people moved away or an owner died without a family member coming to take care of the property. With no one to tend to the land, it deteriorates, turning into an eyesore. 

“It seems to be more concentrated in west Jackson than some other parts of the city,” Johnson said, adding that the area doesn’t have a real park for children to play in or for people to get together. “There hasn’t been any real, new construction in west Jackson, of any significant level, in the last, 20, 25, 30 years.”

So far, VOCM and 2C Mississippi have picked about six neighboring lots on Louisiana Avenue to turn into microparks, which Parry said will be done by the end of 2025. The groups also plan to hold a community meeting Oct. 15 to invite residents’ feedback. Johnson hopes they can eventually expand the idea to other parts of Jackson.  

 “I think once we do this and people see it, we can go to other parts of the city and do the same thing,” she said. “So, I think this is just the start of something great for the city of Jackson.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Sept. 27, 1912

“Father of the Blues” W.C. Handy published “Memphis Blues,” what is believed to be the first commercially successful blues song. 

An Alabama native, Handy looked more like a preacher than a blues player. In 1902, the musician traveled throughout the Mississippi Delta, settling in Clarksdale, where he led an orchestra. While waiting for a train in Tutwiler, he heard a Black man “plunking a guitar beside me while I slept … As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. … The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.” 

Then he heard a Black man “crooning all of his calls in the key of G, … moaning like a presiding elder preaching at a revival meeting.” 

In 1909, Handy and his band moved to Memphis, where they played in clubs on Beale Street, and he began to write, incorporating these local sounds into his music. Two years after his success with “Memphis Blues,” “The St. Louis Blues” became a million-selling sheet music phenomenon. 

Handy became one of the most successful African-American music publishers of his day, and when he died in New York City at the age of 84, more than 150,000 paid their respects. The same year he died, the film “St. Louis Blues” came to the big screen, telling a fictionalized version of his life story, starring Nat King Cole and others. 

Throughout his life, Handy continued his battle for the dignity of African Americans, some of whom happened to play music. In 1960, the still segregated city of Memphis built a bronze statue honoring Handy in a city park on Beale Street, and nine years later, the Postal Service honored him on a stamp. These days, a number of music festivals and awards bear his name, and Marc Cohn popularized Handy in his 1991 song, “Walking in Memphis,” which paid tribute to legends of the river city.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The head of Mississippi Medicaid told lawmakers on Thursday that the agency is working with the federal government to get approval of a new law that allows uninsured, low-income women short-term Medicaid coverage while they wait for their application to be approved.

The program, called presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, has been hailed as a way to get pregnant women earlier access to prenatal care in states that have not expanded Medicaid and to mitigate bad health outcomes for mothers and babies.

Mississippi is one of 10 states in the nation not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. 

Mississippi lawmakers wrote in the bill that women must provide proof of income before qualifying for presumptive eligibility, which is potentially at odds with federal regulations. 

“CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) does not like proof of income or proof of pregnancy,” Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder said Thursday in an annual legislative budget meeting. “To the current federal administration, a person’s word should be sufficient to get the temporary pregnancy coverage … I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to come to a resolution that is faithful to the state law and satisfies federal expectations.”

It’s not clear whether the state agency will be able to negotiate the details with the federal government or whether the Mississippi Legislature will need to rewrite the law during the 2025 legislative session.

Following the meeting, Snyder quickly left the building and refused to answer questions from a reporter about the status of the program. Mississippi Today has been allowed to communicate about pregnancy presumptive eligibility with the Division of Medicaid solely through email exchanges.

House Bill 539, spearheaded by Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, would allow low-income pregnant women to get prenatal care while waiting for an official Medicaid application to be approved. The way the bill is written, these women would need to bring proof of income, such as a paystub, to their doctor’s office. 

Federal guidelines, however, state that while the agency may require proof of citizenship or residency, it should not “require verification of the conditions for presumptive eligibility” – which are pregnancy and income. 

“It is my understanding that the Division of Medicaid is currently working with CMS for approval of our presumptive eligibility law, specifically with the language around proof of income,” McGee told Mississippi Today. “This is part of the process and I am optimistic that it will be approved.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, tasked with approving or denying the state’s plan for implementing presumptive eligibility, has until Oct. 9 to make a decision. 

CMS declined to comment on the status of Mississippi’s state plan amendment.

A spokesperson for Medicaid told Mississippi Today via email the agency is moving forward with implementation of the program despite the federal government’s concerns.

The Division is accepting applications from health care providers and conducting eligibility determination training sessions – the final requirement for providers before they can begin treating women under the new policy. Nine medical providers have had their applications approved so far, according to the Division of Medicaid. 

The Division hosted a training for participating Federally Qualified Health Centers Thursday and will be hosting a training for participating hospitals Oct. 10 and 11, according to a participating provider. 

In addition to the nine providers that have been accepted, the University of Mississippi Medical Center – the state’s largest public hospital and largest Medicaid provider – told Mississippi Today it submitted its application on Thursday. 

Below is a list of the nine providers that have been approved to participate as of Sept. 25: 

• Physicians & Surgeons Clinic – Amory
• Mississippi Department of Health, Dr. Renia Dotson – County Health Dept. (Family Planning Clinic)
• Family Health Center – Laurel
• Delta Health Center, Inc (Dr. H. Jack Geiger Medical Center) – Mound Bayou
• G.A. Carmichael Family Health Center Providers – Belzoni, Canton, Yazoo City
• Coastal Family Health Center, Inc. – Biloxi 
• Delta Health System – Greenville
• Delta Medical Group – Women’s Specialty Clinic – Greenville
• Southeast MS Rural Health Initiative Inc. – Women’s Health Center – Hattiesburg

Gwen Dilworth contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.