Jan. 25, 1965

Annie Lee Cooper — portrayed by Oprah Winfrey in the film “Selma” — had been standing in line for hours outside the Dallas County courthouse in Selma, Alabama, once again attempting to register to vote. 

Sheriff Jim Clark and his deputies appeared. The 6-foot Clark had a reputation for racism and violence, carrying a billy club and cattle prod and telling others that the only problem with his job was “all this n—– fuss here of late. … You just have to know how to handle them.” He ordered the activists to leave, despite the fact they were legally entitled to register. 

Cooper recalled, “I was just standing there when his deputies told a man with us to move, and when he didn’t, they tried to kick him. That’s when (Clark), and I got into it. I try to be nonviolent, but I just can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing all over again if they treat me brutish like they did this time.” 

Clark began poking her over and over in the neck with his billy club. She finally struck back, knocking him down. Deputies attacked her, beating her with a billy club. They threw her into jail, where she began to sing spirituals. 

Cooper had returned to Selma to care for her sick mother three years earlier. She had registered to vote where she lived in Kentucky and Ohio, but when she tried to register, the clerk told her she failed the test. She kept trying and joined SNCC’s first Freedom Day, where she waited with 400 others to register to vote in fall 1963. She was fired from her job and struck with a cattle prod. And after she was jailed in 1965, she never gave up. 

The Voting Rights Act passed Congress, and she was able to vote. She lived to be 100, and the city of Selma named a street after her. Winfrey said she decided to portray Cooper because of “what her courage meant to an entire movement. Having people look at you and not see you as a human being — she just got tired of it.”

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

In 2023 as lawmakers were passing the bill that would establish a state-appointed court within Jackson, there was talk about appointing “the best and the brightest” judges from around the state to serve – a comment some Black legislators said implied they couldn’t be found within a majority Black Hinds County. 

Over a year later, the Capitol Complex Improvement District Court is set to open next week, and three judges with roots in Jackson and live in the capital have been appointed to serve. 

The judges who were sworn in during a Friday ceremony said they were interested in the positions because they wanted to serve the community where many of them grew up and live. 

“This is a very serious undertaking to citizens who live in this city,” said Judge Christopher Collins, who will serve on a part-time basis. He moved to Jackson for the role. 

Judge Stanley Alexander and James Holland will be the full-time judges.

Alexander is a former assistant district attorney in multiple judicial districts and he worked in the attorney general’s office, including as director of the Division of Public Integrity. Holland has practiced law for over 40 years and has trial experience, including defense in state and federal courts. He ran an unsuccessful race for Hinds County district attorney in 2015.

Collins has been a prosecutor and public defender. His judicial experience includes work as a circuit and municipal judge, intervention court judge and a judge for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. 

Bryana Smith McDougal was appointed as the court’s clerk. She previously was judicial assistant to former Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens and an assistant deputy clerk for the Supreme Court. She grew up in Jackson and lives in Madison.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Randolph, who appointed the judges and clerk, said he considered many from across the state and took recommendations. It was through letters of recommendation and conversations with the three judges that showed that they were the best for the position. 

“These judges have proven themselves,” Randolph said. 

House Bill 1020, passed in 2023, created the court. The CCID court was supposed to be operating last year, but it waited on a building to operate. Now business will begin operation Monday at 8 a.m. at its renovated facility at 201 S. Jefferson St., a former bus terminal in downtown. 

The CCID court will hear misdemeanor cases and initial appearances for felonies investigated by Capitol Police. Those cases have been handled in the existing Hinds County court system during the interim.

“We want to stay current (with cases.) Our goal is to support and supplement the current court system,” Holland said. 

At the Friday ceremony, Gov. Tate Reeves said the court and the ongoing work of Capitol Police will help make Jackson safer. 

“Make no mistake. Jackson’s best days are ahead of us,” he said. 

Reeves stood alongside various government officials, law enforcement and lawmakers, including House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, who authored HB 1020, and Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, whose agency includes Capitol Police. 

Lamar said the court will be for the regular people of Jackson who want to have their kids play safely in their yards, people who want an efficient and blind justice system and families who will be supported by future jobs that come to the city. 

HB 1020 also expanded the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police from within the district to Jackson. The district covers downtown, the area around Jackson State University, Belhaven, the hospitals, Fondren and up to Northside Drive. A bill has been proposed this session to expand the district even further. 

In recent years, Capitol Police has been built up from a former security force for government buildings into a law enforcement agency. 

The court and police expansion were touted as solutions to crime and a backlogged Hinds County court system. Pushback came from Jackson lawmakers, advocacy groups and community members and two lawsuits were filed, but they have since been resolved. 

Prosecutors from the attorney general office’s Public Integrity Unit were also appointed to work in the CCID court, but they were not announced Friday. A spokesperson said their identities will be known once the court opens. 

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

Until a few years ago, the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s press releases and social media posts regularly touted the accomplishments of faculty and staff who worked to promote diversity, equity and inclusion at the public hospital. 

In one example from 2021, the vice chancellor for health affairs, LouAnn Woodward, affirmed the hospitals’ commitment to a range of administrative efforts, centered around the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, to comply with civil rights law and increase minority enrollment.

“Diversity among our workforce and student populations and an inclusive environment are, and must always be, core considerations at the Medical Center,” Woodward said. 

Then sometime before the start of this fiscal year, UMMC closed its diversity office. 

The public hospital is now refusing to answer questions about when or why that decision was made, if any employees were let go as a result, or what happened to the more than $1 million in funding that once supported the office. 

It is unclear if UMMC announced the decision internally; the hospital did not say if it had. Partially redacted faculty senate meeting minutes from 2024, obtained through a public records request, contain no mention of the move, even though the faculty have a committee dedicated to diversity and inclusion. 

A March 2024 announcement lists the now-defunct office’s chief diversity officer among new hires at the School of Population Health, indicating UMMC may have shuttered the office around that time. 

That’s also when UMMC appears to have scrubbed the office from its website, according to the Internet Archive. The URL for the office now redirects to a web page titled “Diversity and Inclusion at UMMC” which states “throughout UMMC’s three mission areas – education, research and health care – a climate of diversity and inclusion is present.” 

Missing from the webpage are the many initiatives the diversity office oversaw, including a professional development certificate. 

While UMMC is not the only institution of higher learning in Mississippi to shutter or reimagine its efforts to foster DEI on campus, the public hospital appears unique in its reticence about the decision. 

Other institutions in Mississippi have made their plans to revamp DEI offices more accessible. Last fall, the University of Mississippi announced its decision to reinvent its diversity division in a campus-wide email from the chancellor. Earlier in the year, Mississippi State University’s vice president for access, opportunity and success appeared before faculty to discuss the reasons behind the diversity division’s new focus.

In response to questions from Mississippi Today, UMMC’s director of communications provided a written statement with the preface that the hospital would have no further comments. 

“While we no longer have that office, our commitment to access and opportunity for all students, faculty and staff remains,” Patrice Guilfoyle wrote in an email. “If we are to effectively address Mississippi’s persistent and daunting health challenges, it will take everyone working together to fulfill our tripartite mission of education, research and patient care.”

Though funding fluctuated, the office was allocated $1,029,143 during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to budget documents obtained through a public records request. About a third of the office’s funding came from state appropriations. 

Until its closure, it appears the office was led by a member of Woodward’s executive cabinet, a role Woodward created shortly after she was appointed in 2015, according to a press release announcing the hire. The chief diversity officer was charged with creating a strategic diversity and inclusion plan for the hospital. 

“Not only did I want this work to be represented and visible at the highest level of leadership, this new institutional role would cover all three of our missions as well as coordinate diversity and inclusion efforts between them,” Woodward said. 

The chief diversity officer also oversaw three employees as of fiscal year 2023, according to information UMMC reported to the state auditor that year, including a cultural competency and education manager who ran workshops on topics like health disparities and a program coordinator who worked on the office’s annual award ceremony. 

Beyond that, the office also hosted a professional development program and held monthly conversations to foster “dialogue among members of the UMMC community on stimulating topics in pursuit of sharing and understanding experiences, emotions, and different perspectives,” according to a newsletter. 

This legislative session, lawmakers have filed multiple bills to ban DEI at state-supported institutions of higher learning, as well as one directed at public and charter schools. Mississippi has not passed such a ban, but lawmakers may be primed to do so on the heels of President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI in the federal government. 

UMMC has in the past curtailed programs after receiving pushback from lawmakers. 

In 2023, the hospital shuttered an LGBTQ+ focused clinic months after cutting gender-affirming care for trans minors because lawmakers complained.

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