Mississippi Today

‘It’s been a long time coming’: Kamala Harris wants to be the first HBCU president

Published

3 weeks ago

October 31, 2024

mississippitoday.org – Nadra Nittle, Education reporter, The 19th – 2024-10-31 14:47:00

Vice President Kamala Harris not only grew up in San Francisco’s East Bay Area with the divorced mother who raised her but with various play-aunts and uncles too. These fictive kin included her Uncle Sherman, who taught her chess so she would know how to move in the world, and her Aunt Chris, who attended Howard University in the 1950s.

“She was one of my incredible role models growing up, and that was one of the big reasons I wanted to go to Howard University and pledge Alpha Kappa Alpha,” Harris revealed on the Club Shay Shay podcast Monday.

Earlier this month, Harris made it clear that she intends “to be the first HBCU president,” a possibility that has energized community members from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as the Harris-Walz campaign in October toured these academic institutions in battleground states. The HBCU students and faculty mobilizing for Harris hope that her candidacy draws attention to the unique experiences their schools provide. At the same time, they recognize how voter suppression, a gender divide and disinformation may shape this groundbreaking election in the end.

“Vice President Harris understands the importance of speaking directly to HBCU students and alumni about the issues that matter most to them,” Marcus W. Robinson, a Democratic National Committee senior spokesperson, told The 19th in a statement. “Democrats and the Harris-Walz campaign are listening to the voices of Black voters — and specifically young Black voters — who know that the stakes of this election are immensely high.”

Supporters cheer as Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak at South Carolina State University during a campaign event on February 2, 2024. Credit: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Harris is a 1986 graduate of Howard, which is in Washington. D.C., and counts the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall among its distinguished alumni. Nearly four years ago, she was sworn in as vice president with his Bible. Howard opened in 1867, a time when most White colleges excluded students of color.

“HBCUs place an emphasis on growing the student, nurturing the student, helping them to develop the skills to flourish in society and contribute to elevating justice and the human spirit,” said Silas Lee, an adjunct professor in the sociology department of Xavier University of Louisiana, the nation’s only Catholic HBCU. “They focus on the potential that students have and removing that sense of doubt and insecurity that many may have, so that is a critical element that they may not receive at other institutions, because what you have is culturally competent and responsive education at HBCUs.”

Black students who attend HBCUs are more likely to graduate from college than their counterparts at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), according to the White House, which estimates that HBCUs account for 70 percent of Black doctors and 80 percent of Black judges. During Harris’ tenure as vice president, the White House has directed $17 billion in federal funding to HBCUs, more than any other administration.

Howard University senior Christina Pierre-Louis, a political science major from New Jersey, is overjoyed to be casting her first ballot in a presidential election for a fellow Bison, the school’s mascot. She considers Harris to be a kindred spirit.

Born to immigrant parents — an Indian mother and a Jamaican father — Harris studied law and served as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general before becoming a senator and vice president. The 21-year-old shares the vice president’s Caribbean background and interest in the law, with plans to attend law school to become a civil rights attorney.

“Honestly, the big word for me is ‘representation.’ As a young Black woman who is attending her alma mater, who is studying some of the same things she studied, it just solidifies the idea that there’s no limit to what I can achieve,” said Pierre-Louis, the social justice director for Howard’s chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, a nonprofit that has advocated for Black women, families and communities since 1935. Its founding president, Mary McLeod Bethune, established Bethune-Cookman University, an HBCU in Florida.

Elsie L. Scott, director of the Ronald W. Walters Leadership & Public Policy Center at Howard, said that after Harris became the Democratic presidential candidate, student sentiment about the election shifted from indifference to enthusiasm. Women make up over 70 percent of students and they especially “are feeling like this is real empowerment for them,” Scott said. “The major issue where she’s captured their attention has been around abortion rights.”

Vice President Harris speaks at a Rally for Reproductive Rights at Howard University on April 25, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Credit: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Harris has made reproductive justice a focal point of her campaign in contrast to former President Donald Trump, who appointed three conservative judges to the Supreme Court, which led to the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and left abortion rights to the states. During campaign events, Harris has discussed Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old Black woman who left Georgia to obtain the abortion pill but died after experiencing rare complications because her medical care was reportedly delayed under the state’s abortion ban.

Concerned about the stakes of the presidential election, Howard students are taking action. In mid-October, Scott arranged transportation for a busload of them to engage in nonpartisan canvassing in battleground Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Pierre-Louis is organizing an event to raise awareness about voter suppression.

“I’ll have a station with really long lines,” she said. “I’ll have some students come up and give me their Bison ID, and I’ll tell them it’s invalid and have them go to the back of the line.”

In 36 states, the public must present identification to vote, with acceptable forms of ID varying from one state to another. In Georgia, for example, IDs from the state’s public colleges and universities are accepted while those from private institutions are not, a restriction that may be unfamiliar to students.

Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, recommends that voters verify their registration, address and ID before Election Day. College students casting absentee ballots should not wait until November 5 to put them in the mail either because some states require that votes be received by Election Day rather than postmarked by then. The Advancement Project encourages anyone who can early vote in-person to do so to address hiccups ahead of time. Early voting also helps to reduce lines on Election Day.

“Right now, Georgia does have this rule in place that you cannot provide food and water to people standing in line within 150 feet of a polling place,” Browne Dianis said, noting that during the 2020 election, voters queued up for as long as 10 hours. “What we’ve seen again and again is that Black people and students turn out in record numbers, and then what we see is the next year laws and policies are passed to do away with the things that made voting easier and more accessible.”

At Atlanta’s Spelman College, one of the stops on the Harris-Walz campaign’s HBCU tour, the community has invested heavily in educating students about voting, said Cynthia Spence, associate professor of sociology. During the Spelman and Morehouse College homecoming over the weekend, Planned Parenthood Votes Black Campaigns mobilized 40,000 Georgia voters who pledged to back candidates committed to abortion rights.

Harris has overwhelming support at the women’s college.

“They, in fact, every day inhabit these intersectional lives of being Black, being female,” Spence said. “They understand that the world responds to them in particular ways using certain racial tropes, certain gender tropes. They can imagine what Kamala Harris’ experiences have been.”

Members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority leave the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center after Vice President Harris spoke to approximately 20,000 members of her sorority on July 10, 2024 in Dallas, Texas. Credit: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

At nearby Clark Atlanta University, where the campaign also stopped, senior Jayden Williams said the vice president and her running mate give him hope that equality will remain a priority in this country. The 21-year-old from Stockbridge, Georgia, is a 2024 White House HBCU Scholar, a program that recognizes HBCU students for their academic excellence, civic and campus engagement, or entrepreneurial spirit. Williams named reproductive freedom, human rights, gender rights and student loan forgiveness as his top concerns, but the Harris supporter said he’s encountered some young Black men who are backing Trump.

“Can you name the policies that he wants to implement?” Williams has asked them. “Can you name his policies that were instrumental to the success of marginalized communities? What has he done for marginalized communities in your area?”

Usually, he said, they can’t answer.

Twenty-six percent of Black men ages 18-40 said they support Trump, more than double the percentage of Black women (12 percent) who said they would, according to the University of Chicago’s GenForward poll of over 2,300 young adults released October 23. The NAACP, meanwhile, said on a press call Monday that Black men under 50 became less likely to vote for Trump (27-21 percent) and more likely to vote for Harris (51-59 percent) from August to October, according to its polling data in partnership with Hart Research and HIT Strategies.

Pierre-Louis, the Howard student, said that the young Black men she’s met who support Trump have based that decision on disinformation. They question Harris’ loyalty to the Black community after Trump has repeatedly — and falsely — insinuated that she hasn’t identified as Black throughout her life. Others resent the fact that Harris was formerly a prosecutor, even though Trump intends to militarize law enforcement, ramp up executions and put thousands of people back into prison — policies that would directly affect Black men, who are disproportionately incarcerated. In contrast, Harris launched a program to lower recidivism as California’s attorney general.

Some Black Trump supporters tout the former president’s economic policy, Pierre-Louis said. “He gave us a stimulus check,” they’ve told her.

At an Atlanta rally with Harris on Thursday, former President Barack Obama disputed the notion that the public received stimulus checks from Trump after 2020’s coronavirus lockdowns. Trump’s name appeared on the checks, but Congress signed the legislation responsible for the economic impact payments.

“Do not fall for that okey-doke,” Obama told the crowd. “Don’t be bamboozled.”

He reminded the crowd that the public received stimulus checks during his presidency, too. An economic impact payment also went out at the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term, but neither he nor Obama put their names on the checks, which Trump insisted on reportedly.

To boost Black men’s support of her, Harris recently released her Opportunity Agenda for Black Men, which includes initiatives related to housing, healthcare, entrepreneurship and investments in HBCUS.

Beyond ignorance about Trump’s record is how gender factors into this election cycle, Williams said.

“I do think it’s hard for some people to vote for a woman,” he said. “However, we do have to remember that Hillary Clinton did get the popular vote.”

Wesley J. Bellamy, chair of the department of political science and public administration at Virginia State University, which the Harris-Walz campaign’s HBCU tour visited, doubts that young Black men will support Trump in significant numbers.

Former President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in Clarkston, Georgia on October 24, 2024. Credit: Drew ANGERER/AFP/Getty Images

“I’m the National Public Policy chairman for the 100 Black Men of America,” he said. “We’ve been on a 24-city tour across the country talking to men about voting, and I will say that 85 to 90 percent of Black men across all age groups have stated their emphatic support for Harris. Will you have the 10 to 12, maybe even 14 percent of individuals who say that they’re not? I think so, but I think that’s also on par with what we saw from the Biden campaign a couple of years back.”

Lee, of Xavier University, chalks up the young Black men voting for Trump to a generational divide. They grew up with a Black president in the 21st Century, a period markedly different from the social upheaval that characterized the 1900s — from the Montgomery Bus Boycott of the 1950s to the Los Angeles Uprising of the 1990s.

“There’s a different level of social cohesion that they have with the political and social institutions,” Lee said. “Older Black men . . . have been able to observe and live through the social and political changes of racism and discrimination, whereas the Gen Zers and the millennials — they are experiencing what we call, in sociology, laissez faire racism, whereby America may preach ideals, but it is not honest in fulfilling and eliminating those barriers.”

Harris also has detractors who are not Trumpers but progressive students who disapprove of Biden’s aid to Israel during its war in Gaza. They question why the vice president hasn’t committed to policies to stop civilian casualties.

“This is an issue that students have valid concerns about, and I, too, have those concerns,” said Spence, the Spelman professor. “What we’ve attempted to do is to just talk about how complicated these issues are . . . Kamala Harris cannot wave a magic wand and make it all go away, but certainly we do hope that she will become forceful in her position.”

If Harris unites voters with an array of interests to become the first “HBCU” and woman president, the start of her term will coincide with the National Council of Negro Women’s 90th anniversary year. When that organization began, it was inconceivable that a Black woman could achieve what Harris has.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Pierre-Louis said of a woman president. “I think even if she doesn’t win, just the Democratic nomination in and of itself is enough for our founder, Mary McLeod Bethune, to be proud.”

To check your voter registration status or to get more information about registering to vote, text 19thnews to 26797.

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1867

Published

23 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-23 07:00:00

Nov. 23, 1867

Extract from the Reconstructed Constitution of the State of Louisiana, 1868. Credit: Library of Congress

The Louisiana Constitutional Convention, composed of 49 White delegates and 49 Black delegates, met in New Orleans. The new constitution became the first in the state’s history to include a bill of rights.

The document gave property rights to married women, funded public education without segregated schools, provided full citizenship for Black Americans, and eliminated the Black Codes of 1865 and property qualifications for officeholders.

The voters ratified the constitution months later. Despite the document, prejudice and corruption continued to reign in Louisiana, and when Reconstruction ended, the constitution was replaced with one that helped restore the rule of white supremacy.

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

Mississippi Today

Crystal Springs commercial painter says police damaged his eyesight

Published

2 days ago

November 22, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-22 12:21:00

CRYSTAL SPRINGS – Roger Horton has worked decades as a commercial painter, a skill he’s kept up with even with the challenge of having what his wife has called “one good eye.”

It hasn’t stopped him from being able to complete detailed paint jobs and create straight lines without the help of tape. But last year following a head injury, he and others said people have been pointing out a change in his work. Horton says the sight in his right eye is clouded, like he is looking underwater.

Affected vision, short term memory and periods of irritability – potential symptoms of concussion – followed after he was arrested last September. During an encounter with several police officers, Horton alleges more than one slammed his head into a cruiser and placed handcuffs on so tight that he started to bleed.

“(The officer) was kind of rough with me and all, and he takes my head and I said, ‘What’d I do?’” he recalled recently.

Horton ended up being convicted of two misdemeanor charges and has paid off the fines, but a year later he still has questions about the arrest and treatment by the police.

To date, he has not seen a doctor to evaluate his eye and check for vision or cognitive issues. Horton and his wife Rhonda don’t have a car, and transportation to doctor’s appointments in the Jackson area remains a challenge.

The Hortons have lived in Crystal Springs all their lives, and they have lived in the home the past five years that belonged to Rhonda’s mother.

More than a quarter of all people in Crystal Springs live below the poverty line, and that includes the couple. Rhonda Horton said it’s hard to make a living because there aren’t a lot of jobs, but they support themselves as painters.

That’s how they met Yvonne Florczak-Seeman, who lived in Illinois and purchased her first historical property in Crystal Springs in 2019. She splits her time between the two states.

“We painted that porch bar and the rest is history,” Rhonda Horton said, adding that they went on to complete detailed work on mantles, kitchen cabinets and a cigar room at Florczak-Seeman’s North Jackson Street residence.

Over the years, the couple built a relationship with Florczak-Seeman, who is seeking to open a women’s empowerment center called the Butterfly Garden, in the building next to city hall.

Yvonne Florczak-Seeman poses for a portrait at her business, The Butterfly Garden, in Crystal Springs, Miss., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Florczak-Seeman has supported the couple numerous times, including helping them pay a late water bill and offering them work. She called them talented painters and hired them again to paint the interior of the future center, located at East Railroad Avenue.

In pieces, Rhonda Horton told Florczak-Seeman about her husband’s arrest and later the injuries she said he sustained from it. Florczak-Seeman had questions about the encounter and other potential injustices at play, so she offered to help.

“I just want them to pay for what they’ve done not just to him, but everybody,” Rhonda Horton said. “That’s what I want, justice.”

The Arrest

On Sept. 24, 2023, Horton was walking home from a friend’s house when officers approached him. One grabbed his arms to handcuff him, and he remembers them cutting his wrist and causing it to bleed.

Then, he said, a second officer slammed his head into the top of the police car, followed by another officer who slammed his head again. During the encounter, a bag of marijuana that Horton said he found fell out of his pocket onto the ground.

An officer put Horton in the back of the cruiser and took him to the station where Horton asked to speak to the police chief and call his wife. He said the police took his phone and clothes.

Afterward, he was taken to the Copiah County Detention Center in Gallman.

Police Chief Tony Hemphill disputed Horton’s allegation of mistreatment, saying he did not sustain any injuries that required hospitalization. He said Horton’s wrist was cut while he resisted arrest.

“He was not brutalized and targeted,” Hemphill said. “If he had just complied, he wouldn’t have had to come up there (to jail) that night.”

Two police reports from the night of the September 2023 arrest detail how officers had responded to a possible assault and were given the description of a white man. While in the area, they encountered Horton — the only person who fit that description.

Hemphill said a mother called police after her daughter told her she was assaulted. He said officers approached Horton on the street and tried to talk with him to rule him out as a suspect.

That’s when Horton began “fighting, pulling away, and kicking against (the officer’s) patrol vehicle, trying to run,” according to a police report from the night and Hemphill. Horton denies doing any of that.

The next day police took Horton from the county jail to the Crystal Springs police station. There, police informed him a teenage girl reported being assaulted. After learning about the assault allegation, Horton remembered feeling shocked and saying it couldn’t be true because he was not on the street where the alleged incident took place.

Hemphill confirmed the police investigated the assault allegation and found it not credible, meaning Horton wouldn’t face any related charges. He said he communicated this to Horton and his wife early on and since then, which the couple disputes.

As Horton was being arrested and detained, his wife grew worried because she had just spoken with him on the phone and expected him to arrive home shortly. Rhonda Horton and her adult son started calling Roger’s phone, each not getting an answer.

Then during one of the calls by her son, someone who did not identify himself answered Roger’s phone and said, ‘Your daddy’s dead’ and then hung up, Rhonda Horton said.

She was starting to assume the worst had happened. Rhonda Horton wouldn’t have confirmation her husband was alive until he called from the county jail in the early morning.

The next morning as she talked with the police chief, Rhonda Horton asked the chief about who answered the phone and told her son that Roger was dead. The chief told her the person who answered must have been from the county.

Hemphill later told Mississippi Today that he did not know about the call and that type of behavior by his staff “is not going to be tolerated.” Similarly, Copiah County Sheriff Byron Swilley said he had not heard about it and could not say whether a member of his department made the comment to Rhonda and Roger Horton’s son.

A Sept. 25, 2023, citation signed by Hemphill, shared with Mississippi Today, summoned Roger Horton to municipal court for the misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest and directed him not to have contact with the alleged victim in the assault case. No contact orders are typically for cases such as domestic violence and sexual assault and they are set by a judge.

LaKiedra Kangar, who works in municipal court services, said the no contact order was put in place because of the assault allegation. She confirmed Horton was not charged with the offense following the police department’s investigation of the allegation.

Weeks passed. Roger Horton went to court for the misdemeanor charges, to which he pleaded guilty. Felony assault charges were not part of the hearing. Municipal Court Judge Matthew Kitchens ordered Roger to pay over $900 in fines for the misdemeanors.

Horton was able to pay for some of the fine through at least 10 hours worth of court-ordered community service, which he said involved painting buildings for the city.

Months later after learning about Horton’s arrest and how he said the police treated him, Florczak-Seeman said she wanted to know more. Horton didn’t have access to his arrest documents, so she accompanied him and his wife to the police department to ask for them.

The first visit, Horton asked but did not receive the arrest report. Florczak-Seeman asked if he had a fine for any of the charges, which police said Horton did even after completing some community service hours. Florczak-Seeman paid for the remaining balance and had him work for her for two days to pay that off.

This year, they went to the police department a second time so Horton could ask for his arrest paperwork. An officer told him he didn’t need it and that the rape allegation had been investigated and found not to be credible, Horton told Mississippi Today.

Florczak-Seeman asked why Horton couldn’t receive the report. She said Hemphill asked if she was Horton’s attorney, and Florczak-Seeman clarified she was his representative.

The chief left for a few minutes and returned with two pieces of paper and handed them to Horton. Hemphill told Mississippi Today he did not recall whether he was the one who handed the report to Horton.

Florczak-Seeman took the document from Horton and began to read it as they stood in the lobby. She said she was horrified to see the name of the alleged, underage victim and her address in the report.

Hemphill said the victim’s personal information should have been restricted and not doing so was an oversight.

After reading the report, Florczak-Seeman went down the street to the mayor’s office at city hall to explain what happened, and how she believed the mayor had grounds to fire the police chief because he provided that document to Roger with the alleged victim’s information.

Crystal Springs Mayor Sally Garland Credit: Crystal Springs website

Mayor Sally Garland confirmed she had a conversation with Florczak-Seeman about the police chief’s employment.

She said she reviews all complaints about city officials, and Garland said she goes to the department head to get a better understanding of the situation. If she determines there are potential grounds for termination, a hearing would be scheduled with the Board of Aldermen, and the group would vote on that decision.

Garland did not find grounds for termination, and Hemphill remains police chief.

A Strange Visit

The Hortons and Florczak-Seeman hadn’t given much thought about the 2023 arrest, until weeks ago when a teenaged girl suddenly showed up in Florczak-Seeman’s yard.

At the end of September at the North Jackson Street home, Florczak-Seeman heard screaming and found the teenage girl who came onto her property. She asked what was wrong, and the teenager said she was chased by a dog, which Florczak-Seeman and Rhonda Horton did not see.

The teenager asked for a soda, and Rhonda Horton went inside to get one. Florczak-Seeman asked where the teenager lived, and she gave an answer that Florczak-Seeman said conflicted with what two girls who were standing nearby on the public sidewalk said she told them.

Then Florczak-Seeman asked the teenager’s name and recognized it as the name of the alleged victim on Horton’s arrest record. Immediately, Florczak-Seeman said she turned to Horton and told him to stay back, and she told the teenager to get off her property, which she did.

At the moment, they were not able to verify whether the teenager was the alleged victim from the report. Neither the Hortons nor Florczak-Seeman had seen her before, and they only knew her name from the arrest report.

“That didn’t make sense at all,” Rhonda Horton told Mississippi Today.

Florczak-Seeman called 911 to report the situation and ask for police to come, which they did not. Hemphill told Mississippi Today a dispatcher informed him about the call with Florczak-Seeman, including details with the teenage girl and how she wanted to report the girl for trespassing.

Florczak-Seeman is one of the people who have noticed a difference in Horton’s vision. It’s clear when comparing the detailed and clean paint job Roger completed at her Jackson Street property in 2019 and the center where he painted last year.

During an interview at the center in October, Florczak-Seeman pointed to the ceiling and noted spots that Horton did not paint. She remembers telling him about them and realized that he couldn’t see them.

“The spots on my ceiling are still not painted, and they’re not painted as a reminder of the injustices that happened in this situation and why I got involved,” Florczak-Seeman said.

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

Mississippi Today

Job opening: Jackson Reporter

Published

2 days ago

November 22, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Mississippi Today – 2024-11-22 15:00:00

Mississippi Today, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom focused on investigative and accountability journalism, is building a dedicated team of reporters to provide in-depth coverage of Jackson, Mississippi.

As the state’s largest and capital city, Jackson matters greatly to us and all Mississippians. Launched in 2016 as the state’s flagship nonprofit newsroom focused on Mississippi government and policy, Mississippi Today is focusing our lens beyond the statehouse and to the city of Jackson, serving our readers with the watchdog reporting they’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today. Our newsroom, with a proven record of providing impactful government accountability, aims to serve the city more directly with this team.

Our Jackson team will focus on sharp investigative reporting, watchdog accountability journalism and meaningful cultural storytelling. We aim to both elevate the voices of those working for positive change in the community while offering a balanced perspective on the city’s obstacles and triumphs. Our goal is to deliver impactful, honest journalism that will inform, inspire and empower Jackson’s citizens.

The team will be led by Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Wolfe, an investigative reporter with a decade of experience covering Jackson.

Roles and Responsibilities:

We are purposefully casting a wide net, hoping to connect with journalists of many different backgrounds who may be uniquely qualified to help us launch this team. If you’re a reporter with any of the following experience or attributes, this team may be for you.
Investigative reporting focused on uncovering systemic issues within government and politics. The bigger the impact of your reporting on government leaders or systems, the better.
Political reporting covering not only high-profile candidates for offices, but experience delving into issues and ideas that affect a community. We hope to delve deeply into a deep distrust in the city’s institutions.
Cultural reporting that highlights the often-overlooked success stories of citizens who are making a positive impact on their communities.
Strong understanding of Jackson (or similar large urban centers) and the unique challenges facing the city and its residents.
Commitment to the mission of balanced, impactful journalism that centers and respects the voice of the community.
Collaborative mindset and ability to work within a team-oriented newsroom.

The starting salary for this position is $58,000. Compensation is commensurate with experience level.

Expectations:

Work with a small team of journalists who are focused on social inequities and racial equality in our area.
Willingness to collaborate closely with a small team of like-minded journalists.
Get people to talk, find willing sources and protect them while telling sensitive and timely stories.
Build trust: Many people who have been impacted by inequities in Mississippi have been victims of predatory practices and forces. This will require empathy, patience and savvy.
Work with our Audience Team and data and visual journalists to create compelling story presentations.

Qualified candidates should have:

Experience working as a reporter in a newsroom.
Ability to work quickly, with accuracy and good news judgment.
Comfortability in digital or multimedia journalism spaces.
Ability to independently develop and cultivate sources.
Ability to use social media for research and to engage readers.

What you’ll get:

The opportunity to work alongside award-winning journalists and make significant contributions to Mississippi’s top nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news and information sources.
Highly competitive salary with medical insurance, and options for vision and dental insurance.
Use of appropriate technology and equipment.
29 days paid time off.
Up to 12 weeks of parental family leave, with return-to-work flexibility.
Simple IRA with 3 percent company matching. Group-term life insurance provided to employees ($15,000 policy).
Support for professional training and attending industry conferences.

How to Apply:

We’re committed to building an inclusive newsroom that represents the people and communities we serve. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply for this position, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people and people who are differently abled. Please apply here.

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