Mississippi Today

Mississippi’s racial divides were on full display as HB 1020 got its final debate and passing vote

Published

2 years ago

March 31, 2023

Mississippi’s racial divides were on full display as HB 1020 got its final debate and passing vote

by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today
March 31, 2023

The state of Mississippi’s racial wounds and sordid history were again thrust into full view at the Capitol on Friday as the House debated and passed controversial bills that would impose state control over the judicial system in the majority-Black city of Jackson.

House Bill 1020 and its companion Senate Bill 2343 have for weeks attracted negative national attention for giving white state leaders new judicial and expanded police authority over capital city Jackson, the Blackest large city in the nation.

The measures would give the white chief justice of the state Supreme Court the authority to appoint judges to hear cases in the district. This is unique in that every other court district in the state has elected judges rather than appointed judges.

The bills would also expand the jurisdiction of Capitol Police, a state police agency managed by the Department of Public Safety and its appointed agency head who is white. Every other municipality in the state has a local police force with main jurisdiction.

The legislation that passed the House late on Friday was a compromise between House and Senate leaders. Because it passed the Senate late Thursday, it now heads to the desk of Gov. Tate Reeves for signature. It was one of the final bills passed by lawmakers in the combative 2023 session.

The controversial Jackson bills passed the white and Republican-controlled Legislature by an overwhelming margin. Every Black lawmaker in the House and Senate but one — Rep. Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia — voted against the bills.

Supporters of the legislation say that the judges, under the final version of the bill, will only serve for a limited period of time and that there still will be four elected judges hearing criminal cases in Hinds County.

Debate of the bill on the House floor on Friday became tense and heated, highlighting the racial tension that has been festering all session. House Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia and the author of HB 1020, told members on Friday he was going “to refuse to take the race-laced, unfactual rhetoric as bait” as he defended the bill.

Lamar said that he was unfairly labeled as a racist when all he was trying to do is aid the citizens of Jackson — many of whom he said had asked for help with the crime problems besetting Mississippi’s capital and largest city. Lamar said the bill had nothing to do with race.

“When you take away the right of people to elect their officials who have traditionally been elected, how else are they going to see it?” asked Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton. “…The right to vote may not mean much to some of you, but when you look at history that got us to where we are today, when it took so long and lost so many lives…

“Gentleman, you have not been beaten for asking for the right to vote,” Blackmon said to Lamar. “You have not been locked up for asking for that. I have. Yes, I am sensitive to that.”

Rep. Willie Bailey, a Democrat from Greenville, said in an impassioned, angry response from the well of the House chamber: “You don’t tell me not to talk about race.”

All session and on Friday, members of the Jackson delegation said that they had asked for help for their city, but lamented that the majority-white House leadership did not allow them to be involved in deciding the shape that help should take. They asked why money could not be provided for additional Jackson city police officers and for another elected judge in the city of Jackson.

They said majority white cities in the state would not be treated the same as Jackson — which is more than 80% African American and the Blackest city in the nation with a population of more than 100,000.

Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson, asked, “When people say they are just trying to help, but the elected officials from the city of Jackson say this is not help, why is that not enough?”

The legislation would create a separate judicial and law enforcement district within the Capital Complex Improvement District. Four judges would be appointed by Chief Justice Michael Randolph, who is white and from Hattiesburg. An additional court would be created within the district to hear misdemeanor cases and to conduct preliminary hearings in felony cases.

The legislation gives the state Department of Public Safety the authority to send to prison those convicted of misdemeanor crimes that carry jail time. Normally such sentences are served in local jails.

Unlike the original version of House Bill 1020, the specially appointed judges would be for a set period of time — through 2026 — instead of being in place permanently. The legislation gives a state police force primary jurisdiction within the Capitol Complex and secondary jurisdiction throughout the city.

Blackmon and Rep. Robert Johnson, a Democrat from Natchez, both said on the floor they were making a record during their remarks for the lawsuit that is likely to be filed because of the legislation. The basis of the lawsuit, they said, is that the proposal takes the right to vote away from the African American population of the city.

While the city is more than 80% African American, Blackmon pointed out the demographics of the Capital Complex District will be close to 50-50.

Lamar said the Legislature opted to create the special court and police force instead of providing additional resources to the city government because the city leaders had shown incompetence in other areas — such as in in providing water, sewer and garbage services. In reality, though, city officials have nothing to do with the governance of the felony court district that includes the city of Jackson.

Rep. Nick Bain, a Republican from Corinth, said he had heard from many Jacksonians who said they wanted help with crime issues facing the city.

“This is the capital city of Mississippi,” Bain said. “It belongs to each and every one of us in this room.” He said the legislation passed Friday was intended to provide that help, not to create racial divides.

But those racial divides were front and center on Friday, and many lawmakers said these bills — and the debate of them — will leave a stinging feeling as lawmakers conclude their work in the final hours of the 2023 legislative session.

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 1906

Published

3 hours ago

January 22, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-01-22 07:00:00

Jan. 22, 1906

Willa Beatrice Brown served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol. Credit: Wikipedia

Pioneer aviator and civil rights activist Willa Beatrice Brown was born in Glasgow, Kentucky.

While working in Chicago, she learned how to fly and became the first Black female to earn a commercial pilot’s license. A journalist said that when she entered the newsroom, “she made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters suddenly went silent. … She had a confident bearing and there was an undercurrent of determination in her husky voice as she announced, not asked, that she wanted to see me.”

In 1939, she married her former flight instructor, Cornelius Coffey, and they co-founded the Cornelius Coffey School of Aeronautics, the first Black-owned private flight training academy in the U.S.

She succeeded in convincing the U.S. Army Air Corps to let them train Black pilots. Hundreds of men and women trained under them, including nearly 200 future Tuskegee Airmen.

In 1942, she became the first Black officer in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol. After World War II ended, she became the first Black woman to run for Congress. Although she lost, she remained politically active and worked in Chicago, teaching business and aeronautics.

After she retired, she served on an advisory board to the Federal Aviation Administration. She died in 1992. A historical marker in her hometown now recognizes her as the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license in the U.S., and Women in Aviation International named her one of the 100 most influential women in aviation and space.

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

Mississippi Stories Videos

Mississippi Stories: Michael May of Lazy Acres

Published

19 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – rlake – 2025-01-21 14:51:00

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey takes a trip to Lazy Acres. In 1980, Lazy Acres Christmas tree farm was founded in Chunky, Mississippi by Raburn and Shirley May. Twenty-one years later, Michael and Cathy May purchased Lazy Acres. Today, the farm has grown into a multi seasonal business offering a Bunny Patch at Easter, Pumpkin Patch in the fall, Christmas trees and an spectacular Christmas light show. It’s also a masterclass in family business entrepreneurship and agricultural tourism.

For more videos, subscribe to Mississippi Today’s YouTube channel.

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

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1921

Published

1 day ago

January 21, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-01-21 07:00:00

Jan. 21, 1921

George Washington Carver Credit: Wikipedia

George Washington Carver became one of the first Black experts to testify before Congress.

His unlikely road to Washington began after his birth in Missouri, just before the Civil War ended. When he was a week old, he and his mother and his sister were kidnapped by night raiders. The slaveholder hired a man to track them down, but the only one the man could locate was George, and the slaveholder exchanged a race horse for George’s safe return. George and his brother were raised by the slaveholder and his wife.

The couple taught them to read and write. George wound up attending a school for Black children 10 miles away and later tried to attend Highland University in Kansas, only to get turned away because of the color of his skin. Then he attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, before becoming the first Black student at what is now Iowa State University, where he received a Master’s of Science degree and became the first Black faculty member.

Booker T. Washington then invited Carver to head the Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department, where he found new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and other crops.

In the past, segregation would have barred Carver’s testimony before Congress, but white peanut farmers, desperate to convince lawmakers about the need for a tariff on peanuts because of cheap Chinese imports, believed Carver could captivate them — and captivate he did, detailing how the nut could be transformed into candy, milk, livestock feed, even ink.

“I have just begun with the peanut,” he told lawmakers.

Impressed, they passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922.

In addition to this work, Carver promoted racial harmony. From 1923 to 1933, he traveled to white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Time magazine referred to him as a “Black Leonardo,” and he died in 1943.

That same year, the George Washington Carver Monument complex, the first national park honoring a Black American, was founded in Joplin, Missouri.

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