Note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a new platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here. This week, Children’s Hospital of New Orleans changed its name to Manning Family Children’s hospital.

I really do love Mississippi — all of it. Although my family has lived for more than 50 years in New Orleans, we still have a house in Oxford, and we have so many close friends all over the state.

Where to begin? I grew up in Drew, went to college at Ole Miss in Oxford, and married a gal from Philadelphia. Over the years, seems like I have spent time in every nook and cranny of the Magnolia State. William Faulkner once said that to understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi. While I don’t necessarily always understand it — not all of it — I do know that I love the place. It’s home.

For me, growing up in Drew was much like Opie Taylor growing up in Mayberry. Drew was a little, bitty place, but it had everything we needed. Everybody knew everybody. As kids, we rode our bikes all over town. We played ball every day, went to football games on Friday night, went to Sunday school and church on Sunday. Our house was right across the street from the school, so I didn’t have to go far to find a game. For me, Drew was absolutely perfect.

And so was Ole Miss where I played football and baseball, met the love of my life and mother of my three boys, and where I made some of the best and most loyal friends anyone could ever imagine.

But my love of Mississippi doesn’t end with Drew or Oxford. Olivia, my wife, is from Philadelphia where her family has owned and operated Williams Brothers General Store since 1907. I would challenge anyone to find anything more Mississippi than Williams Brothers, where you can buy anything from cowboy boots and running shoes to freshly sliced hoop cheese to bacon. 

Just down state Highway 19 from Philadelphia is Meridian, one of Mississippi’s largest cities and a place I’ve always loved to visit. Olivia and I had our rehearsal dinner at Weidmann’s, then owned by Mississippi State football great Shorty McWilliams. Shorty Mac twice finished in the top 10 in Heisman Trophy voting, once at Army and once at State. Shorty Mac was one of Mississippi’s football greats. And while we’re at it, I can’t tell you how I swell with pride about Mississippi’s football heritage. You’ve got Shorty Mac from Meridian, Charlie Conerly from Clarksdale, Walter Payton from Columbia, Jake Gibbs from Grenada, Brett Favre from Kiln, Jerry Rice from just outside Starkville, Steve McNair from Mount Olive, Lance Alworth from Brookhaven, Willie Brown and Ben Williams from Yazoo City, and Lem Barney from Gulfport. I could go on and on, and, believe me, I do when I brag on Mississippi to football people around the country.

My first three New Orleans Saints training camps were held in Hattiesburg where I made so many friends that I have to this day. Training camps were a lot longer back then when we played six preseason games, but I always enjoyed Hattiesburg, even in that heat of July and August. A couple things I’ll always remember about those training camps: one, was the national guardsmen who would come up from Camp Shelby and watch our practices. It was always fun for me to visit with those guys. And, two, was that the Southern Miss players and coaches would always be around for the last week or 10 days of training camp and we’d share the practice fields, the weight room and the training table. I became friends with a lot of the guys I had played against in college.

So many of my Ole Miss buddies moved to Jackson and the Capital City area, so I have spent a great deal of time there. Plus, I’ll never forget our Ole Miss games in old Memorial Stadium. That’s where we played most of our biggest games and won most of our greatest victories. I have fond, fond memories of Jackson.

All my years in New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast has been right next door. I have enjoyed the Coast, from Bay St, Louis and Pass Christian, to Gulfport and Biloxi, and on over to Ocean Springs and Pascagoula. I had my annual golf tournament to raise money for cystic fibrosis research at the great golf courses all along the coast, and if there’s a booster club I haven’t spoken to, I’m not sure what it is. I love everything about the Coast – the restaurants, the golf courses, the Deep Sea fishing and that drive down Highway 90. My son, Cooper, has a home there in Bay St. Louis, along with so many New Orleans folks who have second homes in Hancock County. Coop can get from his home in New Orleans to his home in Bay St. Louis in less than a hour. That’s how close we are to Mississippi. 

But as I go from place to place in Mississippi both in my travels and in my mind’s eye, I realize what I love most about my home state. It’s the people. There’s no place like Mississippi and no people like the folks in Mississippi.

Archie Manning, a native of Drew in the Mississippi Delta, lives in New Orleans. Manning played in the NFL from 1971 until 1984 and was selected to two pro bowls. He played his college football at the Ole Miss, where he was the Southeastern Conference player of the year in 1969 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. While Manning lives in New Orleans, he has remained active in Mississippi, including participating in numerous philanthropic activities. Manning and his wife Olivia have three sons.

Editor’s note: Olivia and Archie Manning are Mississippi Today donors. Donors do not in any way influence our newsroom’s editorial decisions. For more on that policy or to view a list of our donors, click here.

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

Feb. 6, 1961

The civil rights “jail-in” movement began when eight Black students and a civil rights organizer who became known as the “Friendship Nine” in Rock Hill, South Carolina, were arrested for requesting service at a “whites-only” lunch counter. 

They served jail time rather than pay fines, challenging the legitimacy of the laws. 

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to the nine and others who joined them in jail, including Charles Sherrod and Diane Nash: “You have inspired all of us by such demonstrative courage and faith. It is good to know that there still remains a creative minority who would rather lose in a cause that will ultimately win than to win in a cause that will ultimately lose.” 

The “Jail, No Bail” strategy became the model for the Freedom Riders months later. 

In 2015, Circuit Court Judge John C. Hayes III threw out the convictions of the Friendship Nine, who had been convicted of trespassing and protesting at the McCrory store in Rock Hill. Hayes, the nephew of the original judge who sentenced the Friendship Nine to jail, told them, “We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history.” 

The nine were represented by Ernest A. Finney Jr., who defended their case 54 years earlier and went on to become the first Black chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court since Reconstruction.

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

Systemic failures have led Black women in the Mississippi Delta to have disproportionately high death rates from cervical cancer, a new report concludes.

The Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic & Social Justice and Human Rights Watch collaborated on the report. It is the result of publicly available information, and interviews with 49 experts and 159 Black women from Bolivar, Washington and Humphreys counties.

Oleta Fitzgerald, the initiative’s co-founder and regional administrator, explained the significance of the issue. “It is a cancer that is preventable and highly treatable if people have access to the right kind of medical professionals and screenings and the HPV vaccination,” she said. “It is also a cancer that is rampant and particularly and indiscriminately in Black women in the rural areas where we work, and there is something we can do about it.”

The American Cancer Society predicts about 4,320 women will die from cervical cancer in 2025. Black women are 75% more likely to die from cervical cancer than white women. 

The report found that issues such as lack of access to health care, poverty, racism and lack of education are the main culprits. 

Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the nation with some of the worst health indicators, and has one of the highest rates of uninsured people. According to KFF, 9.5% of Americans between zero and 64 years old were uninsured in 2023. In Mississippi, it’s 12.6%. 

The Mississippi Cancer Registry found that between 2017 and 2021, the cervical cancer death rate for Black women in the Delta was 1.4 times higher than white women’s.

The report found that the lack of Medicaid expansion led to people not having health care coverage, a situation exacerbated by a  shortage of OB-GYNs and more rural hospital closures. Eight of the 18 Delta counties are maternity care deserts.

Without health insurance or Medicaid, many women can’t afford regular check-ups, cancer screenings and follow-ups necessary to catch cervical cancer early. They may also not have transportation, public or private, to get to the doctor’s office. 

Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the former state health officer, explained that the lack of OB/GYNs is part of a national trend. “There’s been a transition in the medical environment where physicians coming out to practice don’t locate to rural areas as much,” said  Dobbs, now dean of the school of population health at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

The Association of American Medical Colleges Research and Action Institute found that states with strict abortion bans, like Mississippi, get fewer applicants for residency programs.

Racial discrimination in the health care system has caused Black women to distrust medical providers. Leland resident and substitute teacher Stacy Wiggins recalled how many people she knew avoided going to the doctor because of how poorly they were treated. She didn’t understand what they meant until she had her own battles with cancer.

“When I got down sick, that’s when I saw that the health care in my area is not equipped to handle a lot of situations,” she said. 

Wiggins survived both thyroid and ovarian cancer. Before being diagnosed with cancer, she had health insurance through her job at Family Dollar. She did not qualify for Medicaid or the low premiums under the Affordable Care Act.

Before her cancer diagnosis, her doctor advised her to seek treatment outside of the county. She took the physician’s advice, and was treated for both cancers in Jackson. She believes if she hadn’t, she would not be alive today.

Wiggins, whose cancer is in remission, gets assistance from Medicaid’s Elderly and Disabled Medicaid Waiver program, which covers transportation and an aide.

There is also a dearth of education on reproductive and sexual health. One of the strongest tools against cervical cancer is the HPV vaccine. Some HPV infections can lead to certain cancers. It’s recommended that children ages 9 to 14 get two doses over 6 to 12 months, and three doses over six months at ages 15 to 26. People can receive the vaccine up to age 45.

Mississippians have some of the lowest HPV vaccination rates in the country. In 2023, about 38% of Mississippi teens received all doses of the HPV vaccine. 

Greenville family nurse practitioner Dr. Patricia Barber said that a lack of awareness is a serious problem. “I really think a lot of it is a lack of information because every time I talk to my patients about the HPV vaccine, they’re very receptive,” she said.

The Delta’s demographics also play a role. Census data from 2023 shows that in the three counties studied, Black residents make up 64 to over 73% of the population, and women make up over 53%. The counties’ combined population is 75,130.

The report makes several recommendations for state lawmakers. Expanding Medicaid, adopting “rights-based, scientifically accurate” sex education in schools, and increasing awareness of HPV vaccines were among them. They also support more funding and improvements for telehealth, community-based health centers and county health departments.

Advocates are still pushing for Medicaid expansion in the current legislative session. The House and the Senate both passed Medicaid expansion “dummy” bills. These bills are meant to be placeholders while state lawmakers wait to act until the Trump administration weighs in.

Fitzgerald says that members of Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative are part of the efforts to expand Medicaid and will continue working to improve outcomes across the state.

“This environment will be more difficult because policymakers are moving in lock-step with the national policy agenda,” she said. “But we never give up.”
Dobbs recommended that people take advantage of the Mississippi Medicaid Family Planning Waiver, a limited benefit that pays for women’s health care, including pap smears. The Mississippi Department of Health also has a program that covers breast and cervical cancer screenings for women who meet income and age requirements.

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