March 6, 1857

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld slavery in a 7-2 vote. 

Dred Scott and his family were enslaved, and when he tried to purchase their freedom, they were refused. He and his wife, Harriet, each filed separate lawsuits, calling for their freedom. They noted that they had lived for years in both free states and free territories. 

A jury ruled in favor of Scott and his family. But on appeal, the Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans, whether slave or free, had no right to sue. 

In a stinging dissent, Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis wrote that the claim Black Americans could not be citizens was baseless: “At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens.” 

He noted that the Declaration of Independence didn’t say that “the Creator of all men had endowed the white race, exclusively with the great natural rights.

” The decision drew wrath from many, including future President Abraham Lincoln, who called it “erroneous.” Two months later, Scott won his freedom when the sons of his first owner, Peter Blow, purchased his emancipation, setting off celebrations in the North. 

The court decision helped lead to the Civil War, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were adopted to counter the ruling. In 2017, on the 160th Anniversary of the Dred Scott decision, the great-great-grandnephew of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney apologized to Scott’s great-great-granddaughter and all Black Americans “for the terrible injustice of the Dred Scott decision.”

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

A bill to license and regulate professional midwifery died on the calendar without a vote after Public Health Chair Hob Bryan, D-Amory, did not bring it up in committee before the deadline Tuesday night. 

Bryan said he didn’t take the legislation up this year because he’s not in favor of encouraging midwives to handle births independently from OB-GYNs – even though they already do, and keeping them unlicensed makes it easier for untrained midwives to practice. The proposed legislation would create stricter standards around who can call themselves a midwife – but Bryan doesn’t want to pass legislation recognizing the group at all.

“I don’t wish to encourage that activity,” he told Mississippi Today.

Midwifery is one of the oldest professions in the world. 

Proponents of the legislation say it would legitimize the profession, create a clear pathway toward midwifery in Mississippi, and increase the number of midwives in a state riddled with maternity health care deserts. 

Opponents of the proposal exist on either end of the spectrum. Some think it does too much and limits the freedom of those currently practicing as midwives in the state, while others say it doesn’t do enough to regulate the profession or protect the public.

The bill, authored by Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, made it further than it has in years past, passing the full House mid-February. 

As it stands, Mississippi is one of 13 states that has no regulations around professional midwifery – a freedom that hasn’t benefited midwives or mothers, advocates say.

Tanya Smith-Johnson is a midwife on the board of Better Birth Mississippi, a group advocating for licensure. 

“Consumers should be able to birth wherever they want and with whom they want – but they should know who is a midwife and who isn’t,” Smith-Johnson said. “… It’s hard for a midwife to be sustainable here … What is the standard of how much midwifery can cost if anyone and everyone can say they’re a midwife?”

There are some midwives — though it isn’t clear there are many — who do not favor licensure.

One such midwife posted in a private Facebook group lamenting the legislation, which would make it illegal for her to continue to practice under the title “midwife” without undergoing the required training and certification decided by the board.

On the other end of the spectrum, among those who think the bill doesn’t go far enough in regulating midwives, is Getty Israel, founder of community health clinic Sisters in Birth – though she said she would rather have seen the bill amended than killed. Israel wanted the bill to be amended in several ways, including to mandate midwives pay for professional liability insurance, which it did not.

“As a public health expert, I support licensing and regulating all health care providers, including direct entry midwives, who are providing care for the most vulnerable population, pregnant women,” she said. “To that end, direct entry midwives should be required to carry professional liability insurance, as are certified nurse midwives, to protect ill-informed consumers.”

The longer Mississippi midwives go without licensure, the closer they get to being regulated by doctors who don’t have midwives’ best interests in mind. 

That’s part of why the group Better Birth felt an urgency in getting legislation passed this year. 

“I think there’s just been more iffy situations happening in the state, and it’s caused the midwives to realize that if we don’t do something now, it’s going to get done for us,” said Erin Raftery, president of the group.

Raftery says she was inspired to see the bill make headway this year after not making it out of committee several years in a row. 

“We are hopeful that next year this bill will pass and open doors that improve outcomes in our state,” she said. “Mississippi families deserve safe, competent community midwifery care.”

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

Voters from 15 Mississippi legislative districts will decide special elections this November, if a federal court approves two redistricting maps that lawmakers approved on Wednesday. 

The Legislature passed House and Senate redistricting maps, over the objections of some Democrats and DeSoto County lawmakers. The map creates a majority-Black House district in Chickasaw County and creates two new majority-Black Senate districts in DeSoto and Lamar counties. 

“What I did was fair and something we all thought the courts would approve,” Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby told Mississippi Today on the Senate plan. 

Even though legislative elections were held in 2023, lawmakers have to tweak some districts because a three-judge federal panel determined last year that the Legislature violated federal law by not creating enough Black-majority districts when it redrew districts in 2022.

The Senate plan creates one new majority-Black district each in DeSoto County and the Hattiesburg area, with no incumbent senator in either district. To account for this, the plan also pits two incumbents against each other in northwest Mississippi. 

READ MORE: See the proposed new Mississippi legislative districts here.

The proposal puts Sen. Michael McLendon, a Republican from Hernando, who is white, and Sen. Reginald Jackson, a Democrat from Marks, who is Black, in the same district. The redrawn district contains a Black voting-age population of 52.4% and includes portions of DeSoto, Tunica, Quitman and Coahoma counties. 

McLendon has vehemently opposed the plan, said the process for drawing a new map wasn’t transparent and said Senate leaders selectively drew certain districts to protect senators who are key allies. 

McLendon proposed an alternative map for the DeSoto County area and is frustrated that Senate leaders did not run analytical tests on it like they did on the plan the Senate leadership proposed. 

“I would love to have my map vetted along with the other map to compare apples to apples,” McLendon said. “I would love for someone to say, ‘No, it’s not good’ or ‘Yes, it passes muster.’”

Kirby said McLendon’s assertions are not factual and he only tried to “protect all the senators” he could. 

The Senate plan has also drawn criticism from some House members and from DeSoto County leaders. 

Rep. Dan Eubanks, a Republican from Walls, said he was concerned with the large geographical size of the revised northwest district and believes a Senator would be unable to represent the area adequately.

“Let’s say somebody down further into that district gets elected, DeSoto County is worried it won’t get the representation it wants,” Eubanks said. “And if somebody gets elected in DeSoto County, the Delta is worried that it won’t get the representation it wants and needs.”

The DeSoto County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday published a statement on social media saying it had hired outside counsel to pursue legal options related to the Senate redistricting plan. 

Robert Foster, a former House member and current DeSoto County supervisor, declined comment on what the board intended to do. Still, he said several citizens and business leaders in DeSoto County were unhappy with the Senate plan. 

House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins, presented the Senate plan on the House floor and said he opposed it because Senate leaders did not listen to his concerns over how it redrew Senate districts in Covington County, his home district. 

“They had no interest in talking to me, they had no interest in hearing my concerns about my county whatsoever, and I’m the one expected to present it,” Sanford said. “Now that is a lack of professional courtesy, and it’s a lack of personal respect to me.” 

Kirby said House leaders were responsible for redrawing the House plan and Senate leaders were responsible for redrawing the Senate districts, which has historically been the custom. 

“I had to do what was best for the Senate and what I thought was pass the court,” Kirby said. 

The court ordered the Legislature to tweak only one House district, so it had fewer objections among lawmakers. Legislators voted to redraw five districts in north Mississippi and made the House district in Chickasaw County a majority-Black district. 

Under the legislation, the qualifying period for new elections would run from May 19 to May 30. The primaries would be held on August 5, with a potential primary runoff on Sept. 2 and the general election on Nov, 4.

It’s unclear when the federal panel will review the maps, but it ordered attorneys representing the state to notify them once the lawmakers had proposed a new map. 

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