Oct. 31, 1950

Earl Lloyd became the first of three Black players (Chuck Cooper and Nat Clifton were the other two) in the National Basketball Association, paving the way for other African Americans who would follow. 

A native of Alexandria, Virginia, the 6-foot-6 phenom became a defensive star at Parker-Grey High School, nicknamed “Moon Fixer.” He received a scholarship from West Virginia State, whom he led to two tournament championships. He became an All-American, and in 1947-48, his Yellow Jackets were the only undefeated team in the nation. 

Nicknamed “The Big Cat,” he played his first game on Halloween. “The game was totally, unequivocally uneventful except for the date — Oct. 31,” he recalled later. “Maybe they thought I was a goblin or something.” 

The Korean War interrupted his career before he returned to the hardwood, first with the Harlem Globetrotters and then back with the NBA. In 1955, he helped the Syracuse Nationals (now the Philadelphia 76ers) defeat the Fort Wayne Pistons for the NBA Championship. 

He and Jim Tucker were the first African Americans to play on an NBA championship team. As a player, he endured prejudice, both in the arena and out, one Indiana fan spitting on him. In 1968, he became the NBA’s first Black assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons and became head coach in the 1971-72 season. He later worked for the public schools in Detroit, running programs that taught job skills to underprivileged children. 

In 2003, the Basketball Hall of Fame inducted him, recognizing his contributions to the sport. “It’s easy to be successful when you’re surrounded by the greatest,” he said. 

Four years later, his hometown of Alexandria named its newly constructed basketball court in his honor. The year he died, 2015, he became one of eight Virginians that the Library of Virginia named as the “Strong Men & Women in Virginia History.” 

The NBA honored Lloyd for his work as a pioneer, but he remained humble. “I don’t think my situation was anything like Jackie Robinson’s,” he said. “I remember in Fort Wayne, Indiana, we stayed at a hotel where they let me sleep, but they wouldn’t let me eat. … Did it make me bitter? No. If you let yourself become bitter, it will eat away at you inside. If adversity doesn’t kill you, it makes you a better person.”

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

Mississippians will go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 5, to elect federal and state judicial posts and some local offices, such as for election commissioners and school board members.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. To find your polling place, use the secretary of state’s locator, or call your local county circuit clerk.

READ MORE: View the Mississippi sample ballot.

The following is a list of the candidates for federal and judicial posts with brief bios:

President:

• Kamala Harris, current vice president and Democratic nominee for president. Her running mate is Tim Walz.
• Donald Trump, former president and current Republican nominee. His running mate is J.D. Vance.
• Robert Kennedy Jr. remains on the ballot in Mississippi even though he has endorsed Trump. His running mate is Nicole Shanahan.
• Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate. Her running mate is Rudolph Ware.
• Five other candidates will be on the Mississippi ballot for president. For a complete list of presidential candidates, see the sample ballot.

U.S. Senate

• Ty Pinkins is the Democratic nominee. He is a Rolling Fork native and attorney, representing, among other clients, those alleging unfair working conditions. He served 21 years in the U.S. Army, including combat stints, other overseas deployment and posts in the White House,
• Roger Wicker is the Republican incumbent senator. He resides in Tupelo and has served in the U.S. Senate since late 2007 after first being appointed to fill a vacancy by then-Gov. Haley Barbour. He was elected to the post in 2008. He previously served in the U.S. House and as a state senator. He is an attorney and served in the United States Air Force.

House District 1

• Dianne Black is the Democratic nominee. She is a small business owner in Olive Branch in DeSoto County.
• Trent Kelly is the Republican incumbent. He was elected to the post in a special election in 2015. He previously served as a district attorney and before then as a prosecuting attorney for the city of Tupelo. He is a major general in the Mississippi Army National Guard.

House District 2

• Bennie Thompson is the Democratic incumbent. He was first elected to the post in 1993. Before then, he served as a Hinds County supervisor and as alderman and then as mayor of Bolton.
• Ronald Eller is the Republican nominee. He grew up in West Virginia and moved to central Mississippi after retiring from the military. He is a physician assistant and business owner.

House District 3

• Michael Guest is the Republican incumbent and is unopposed.

House District 4

• Mike Ezell is the Republican incumbent first being elected in 2022. He previously served as Jackson County sheriff.
• Craig Raybon is the Democratic nominee. Raybon is from Gulfport and began a nonprofit “focused on helping out the community as a whole.”

Central District Supreme Court

• Jenifer Branning currently serves as a member of the state Senate from Neshoba County.
• Byron Carter is a Hinds County attorney and previously served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Armis Hawkins.
• James Kitchens is the incumbent. He has served on the state’s highest court since 2008.
• Ceola James previously served on the Court of Appeals.
• Abby Gale Robinson is a Jackson attorney. She previously was a commercial builder.

Southern District Supreme Court

• Dawn Beam is the incumbent, having been first appointed in 2016 by then-Gov. Phil Bryant and later winning election to the post. She is a former chancellor for the Hattiesburg area.
• David Sullivan is an attorney in Harrison County. His father, Michael, previously served on the state Supreme Court.

Northern District Supreme Court seats

• Robert Chamberlin of DeSoto County is unopposed.
• James Maxwell of Lafayette County is unopposed.

Court of Appeals 5^th District seat

• Ian Baker is an assistant district attorney in Harrison County.
• Jennifer Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge for Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties.
• Amy St. Pe is a Municipal Court judge in Gautier.

Court of Appeals District 2

• Incumbent Latrice Westbrooks is unopposed.

Court of Appeals District 3

• Incumbent Jack Wilson is unopposed.                                                                                                      

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

When Mississippi voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide who should become the country’s next president, a large swath of voters will also participate in a battle for seats on the state’s highest court. 

Incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens, the second-most senior judge on the Mississippi Supreme Court, is facing a challenge from four opponents, most notably Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County. 

In the five-person race for the Central District, which covers part of the Delta and the state’s capital Metro Area, the Republican Party has thrown its infrastructure and money behind Branning, a self-described “constitutional conservative.” There are three other challengers: Ceola James, a former Court of Appeals judge, and Byron Carter and Abby Gale Robinson, both private-practice attorneys.

Kitchens, first elected to the court in 2008, is a former district attorney and private practice attorney. On the campaign trail, he has often touted his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his time prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases. 

“It’s one thing to talk about being tough on crime and another to sign your name at the bottom of a death warrant,” Kitchens said at the Neshoba County Fair. “You heard me right — a death warrant. I’ve done that, too, and I’m the only candidate who’s done that.” 

Kitchens has raised over $288,000 and spent around $189,000 of that money, leaving him with roughly $98,000 in cash on hand. Most of his campaign donations have come from trial attorneys around the state. 

Kitchens is one of two centrist members of the high court and is widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democratic elected officials, though the Democratic Party has not endorsed his candidacy. Not only are GOP forces working to oust one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high court, they appreciate Kitchens is next in line to lead the court as chief justice should current Chief Justice Mike Randolph step down.

Branning, a private practice attorney, was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She has led the Senate Elections Committee and the Senate Transportation Committee. During her time at the Capitol, she’s voted against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, voted against expanding Medicaid to the working poor and supported mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crime.

While campaigning for the judicial seat, she has pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she has stopped short of endorsing policy positions. 

“The bottom line is this: We can elect conservatives to our executive and legislative branches,” Branning said at the Neshoba County Fair this summer. “But if we elect liberal, activist judges to our judicial branch, they will undermine the will of the voters and undo the conservative policies that are helping our state grow.” 

Branning has raised over $666,000 and spent roughly $312,000, leaving her with around $354,000 in cash on hand. Several special interest groups and trade associations have donated to her campaign, but the donations have been supercharged by a $250,000 personal loan she gave her campaign. 

Branning and Kitchens have spent thousands of dollars on TV ads in recent weeks, blitzing the airwaves before the election.

One of Kitchens’ ads is a play on his name and similar to ads he’s aired in past elections. His wife, in the commercial, maintains he needs to be on the high court to keep him out of her kitchen.

One of Branning’s ads contains footage of a violent riot (not in Mississippi) with a narrator claiming “radical judges are overturning laws, threatening our safety and putting our freedom at risk.”

“As a constitutional conservative, I will always follow the law, and I will never legislate from the bench,” Branning says in the ad. “That means I will call balls and strikes instead of writing the rules of the game.” 

Judicial races in Mississippi are supposed to be nonpartisan, and candidates have some restrictions on what they can say on the campaign trail. But these elections are essentially nonpartisan in name only. During a recent hearing over how Supreme Court justices are elected, an attorney with Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office even said partisan politics plays a large role in the elections. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group specializing in civil rights litigation, has endorsed Kitchens’ bid for reelection, while the state GOP has endorsed Branning’s campaign. 

Southern Supreme Court Seat 

David Sullivan is also challenging incumbent Justice Dawn Beam for her seat in the Southern District, which includes Hattiesburg and the Gulf Coast area. 

Sullivan is a public defender in Harrison, Stone and Pearl River Counties and has been a municipal judge in D’Iberville since 2019. A Gulfport resident, Sullivan comes from a family of attorneys and judges. His father, Michael D. Sullivan, also served as a Supreme Court justice. 

Beam joined the state Supreme Court in 2016 after former Gov. Phil Bryant appointed her to the bench to fill the seat left vacant by former Justice Randy Pierce. She was later elected to a full eight-year term and is now running for her second term. She is the only woman on the court.

Before joining the state’s highest court, Beam served as a chancery court judge. Throughout her career, she has focused on improving child welfare in the court system.  

Open Court of Appeals seat 

Three candidates – Ian Baker, Jennifer Schloegel and Amy Lassiter St. Pe –  are competing for the open seat on the Mississippi Court of Appeals. The seat, concentrated in South Mississippi, opened up when Judge Joel Smith decided not to seek reelection. 

Baker is an assistant district attorney for Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties. Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge in Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties. St. Pé is an attorney in private practice, a municipal court judge in Gautier, and a city attorney for Moss Point. 

The state Supreme Court often has the final say in cases involving criminal, civil and death penalty appeals, questions on the state’s laws and its constitution, and legal issues of public interest. To prevent a backlog of cases, the Supreme Court assigns cases for the Court of Appeals to consider.

The top two courts in recent years have had the final say over legislation to create a support court system within the city of Jackson, struck down Mississippi’s ballot initiative process and ruled on whether the Legislature can appropriate public tax dollars to private schools. 

Absentee voting is currently ongoing, and in-person absentee voting ends at noon on November 2. Voters can cast in-person ballots for judicial races on November 5 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

With more than two candidates competing in the Central District Supreme Court seat and the Court of Appeals race, a runoff election would take place on Nov. 26 if no single candidate in the two races receives a majority of the votes cast.

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