BATON ROUGE, La. — Mayors from 10 states along the Mississippi River convened in Louisiana’s capital this week to announce a cooperative agreement between the working river’s ports. 

In town for the annual Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative meeting, the mayors also called upon the next U.S. president to prioritize several federal policy changes to support the 105 cities represented by the initiative. 

On Wednesday, mayors from the Midwestern Corn Belt joined mayors from Louisiana to sign the Mississippi River Ports Cooperative Endeavor Agreement. The agreement is the first to ensure cooperation between the inland ports in the heart of the corn belt and the coastal ports of Louisiana that export 60% of the nation’s agricultural products.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mayor George Flaggs praised the move in a statement on Friday, adding that he and the other mayors there were paying particular attention to environmental issues along the river such as the ongoing drought.

“This agreement ensures that ports from St. Louis to St. Paul will receive federal designation, a significant step that will bolster commerce and strengthen the economic impact of the entire Mississippi River region,” Flaggs said.

The inland ports between St. Louis and St. Paul were not federally recognized until 2022, said Robert Sinkler, executive coordinating director of the Corn Belt Ports. With the support of the Mississippi River cities initiative, the Corn Belt Ports initiative launched in 2019 to advocate for federal recognition of those ports.

Now, the corn belt and coastal ports will take on commerce-related policy actions together, for the first time in Mississippi River history, said Sinkler. The river moves nearly one trillion dollars in product through its ports annually, according to MRCTI. Maintaining the navigation capability on the river is a key part of the agreement. 

Drought disrupts commerce and drinking water along the Mississippi River corridor

For the third year in a row, the Midwest is under extreme drought conditions, which have led to low water levels that threaten to disrupt barge transports carrying fuel and grain. The 16-month drought spanning from 2022 to 2023 cost the nation $26 billion. The drought of 2012 cost the Mississippi River corridor $35 billion.

Belinda Constant, mayor of Gretna, Louisiana, said that droughts often cost more than floods, but do not qualify as “major disasters” worthy of relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

“We still are not able to capture federal disaster declarations for drought or intense heat,” Constant said. 

While drought is not considered a “major disaster” by FEMA, the president can declare one. President Joe Biden declared a federal emergency last September in Louisiana when the effects of drought caused salt water to intrude up the Mississippi River and threaten drinking water.

FEMA is not set up to provide relief for intense droughts or extreme heat, which are expected to become more extreme, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment. The federal government does offer support through other agencies, such as farm losses through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Constant asked the next U.S. president to update FEMA regulations to include droughts and extreme heat. Earlier this summer, dozens of labor and environmental groups filed a petition to push FEMA to declare extreme heat and wildfire smoke as “major disasters,” on par with other natural disasters such as floods and tornadoes. 

Constant said the next administration should also create a mechanism to incentivize or compensate manufacturers and farmers who recycle water or reduce water usage during dry periods. 

Louisiana is again dealing with drought. As of Sept. 13, 2024, the saltwater wedge had reached river mile 45, corroding drinking water infrastructure below Port Sulphur and inching toward Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana. Earlier this week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on an underwater sill near Myrtle Grove to help slow the creep of saltwater intrusion for the third summer in a row.

But the drought impacts all communities along the Mississippi River, not just those in southern Louisiana. And 50 cities with a total population of 20 million people depend on the Mississippi River for their drinking water.

“Memphis depends on the health of the corridor to power our international port and fuel our multi-billion-dollar outdoor recreation and tourism industry,” said Paul Young, mayor of Memphis, Tennessee. The tournament fishing industry is worth billions in revenue. 

“It is vital we work to safeguard the Mississippi River together,” he added.

Advocating for the Mississippi River corridor as a whole

The 105 cities represented by inititiuave also called on the next U.S. president to advocate for the corridor both at home and internationally. “We are asking the next president to please work with us to enact a federal Mississippi River program through which we can deploy infrastructure spending at a multi-state scale,” said Hollies J. Winston, mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. 

On the global stage, the initiative has advocated for the Mississippi River corridor at five United Nations climate meetings. Bob Gallagher, mayor of Bettendorf, Iowa, called on the next President to ensure that the nation remains a part of the Paris Agreement to sustain the corridor’s $500 billion in revenue.

“Serving as a past co-chair of MRCTI along with being from an agricultural state, I know firsthand that U.S. participation in the Paris Accord helps us compete and move our commodities and goods across the world to other markets,” said Gallagher. 

Pulling out of the Paris Agreement could trigger tariffs for goods coming from a non-signatory nation. Leaving the international climate accord would place farmers and manufacturers at a potential disadvantage in the global market, said Gallagher.

In 2017, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. In 2021, on President Biden‘s first day in office, the U.S. rejoined the international agreement to limit temperature increases.

“We can’t afford to make any policy decisions that will jeopardize the $164 billion in agricultural commodities the Mississippi River makes possible every year,” said Gallagher. 

Mitch Reynolds, mayor of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and the initiative’s co-chair, said that the advocacy work of the initiative is paramount to defending the health of the river and its communities. 

The Mississippi River Ports Cooperative Endeavor Agreement unites the communities along the corridor in a shared commitment to protect, restore and manage the river’s resources sustainably, said Sharon Weston Broome, mayor of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and host of the initiative’s 13th annual meeting.

“We urge the next administration to increase its focus on the river, its impact on the national economy and its continued need for stewardship,” said Broome.

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. MRCTI is also a Walton grantee. 

Mississippi Today environmental reporter Alex Rozier contributed to this report.

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

Editor’s note: Mississippi Today and the Mississippi Humanities Council cosponsored an event – “Reimagining Statuary Hall” – on Sept. 18 at The Station in Fondren. Several speakers suggested accomplished Mississippians to represent the state in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. Currently, statues of staunch segregationists Jefferson Davis and J..Z. George represent Mississippi. What follows is Mississippi Today investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell’s pitch from the event.

Medgar Evers dove onto the sand at Normandy. In the weeks following the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. He joined a million soldiers fighting to expand the beachhead. The Luftwaffe strafed and bombed them, hoping to push them back into the sea.

He was also part of the Red Ball Express, which provided fuel, food and other critical supplies as Allied troops pushed back the German forces.

As Allied forces freed more of France from Nazi occupation, Evers enjoyed life without the color line. He could eat in any restaurant he desired. He even fell in love with a French girl.

After battling the Nazis, he returned to Mississippi and fought racism all over again in the form of Jim Crow, which barred Black Americans from restaurants, restrooms and voting booths. When he tried to vote in his hometown of Decatur, Mississippi, he and other Black war veterans were turned away by an armed white mob.

After graduating from Alcorn College, he worked for his mentor, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, and was involved in passing out bumper stickers across the Delta that read, “Don’t Buy Gas Where You Can’t Use the Restroom.”

In January 1954, he tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi School of Law — only to be turned away. NAACP officials considered taking up his case but were so impressed with him they decided instead to hire him as the first field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP.

He investigated violence against African Americans, including the 1955 assassinations of the Rev. George Lee and Lamar Smith, who were killed because they helped Black Mississippians register to vote.

He worked with Dr. Howard on the lynching of Emmett Till and helped find new witnesses.

The economic threats and violence became so great that Dr. Howard and others left Mississippi, but Medgar Evers stayed.

He helped James Meredith enroll at Ole Miss, and he logged 40,000 miles a year traveling the roads, sometimes flooring it past 100 to escape those hell-bent on harming him. 

His telephone rang at all hours with threats. Some were short and emphatic: “We’re going to kill you, N-word.” Others described how they planned to torture him.

Evers told a CBS reporter, “They say I’m going to be dead soon, that they’re going to blow up my house, that they’re going to blow my head off. If I die, it will be a good cause. I’m fighting for America just as much as the soldiers in Vietnam.”

After the white mayor of Jackson chastised the civil rights movement in Mississippi in spring 1963, Evers won his FCC bid for “equal time” to respond. He talked on television about the mistreatment of Black Mississippians and in so doing he became even more of a target. The Evers’ home was firebombed.

Hours after President Kennedy told the nation that the grandchildren of those enslaved are “not yet freed from the bonds of injustice,” Evers was shot in the back as he stepped onto his own driveway in Jackson, Mississippi. His wife, Myrlie Evers, heard the shot, ran outside, saw the blood and screamed. When the children heard the scream, they ran outside and saw their father.

“Daddy, get up,” his 8-year-old daughter, Reena, said. “Daddy, get up.”

He never did.

On Evers’ birthday in 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act

Three decades later, his family finally saw his assassin convicted.

“All I want to say is, ‘Yay, Medgar, yay!’” Myrlie Evers declared as she wiped away tears. “My God, I don’t have to say accused assassin anymore. … what he failed to realize was that Medgar was still alive in spirit and through each and every one of us who wanted to see justice done.”

That justice inspired others. To date, 24 men have been convicted in civil rights cold cases.

A year after Evers’ killer went to prison, Myrlie Evers became chairman of the national NAACP and helped rescue the civil rights organization from the brink of bankruptcy.

She continues to break boundaries. She became the first lay person to deliver the inaugural invocation at Barack Obama’s second inauguration.

She cheered when Mississippi removed the Confederate emblem from the state flag, and she told me the reason we keep repeating its history is we don’t know our history.

Putting Medgar Evers in Statuary Hall would honor a fallen soldier in the war against hate and would help ensure that we know our history so that we don’t repeat it.

READ MORE: Other Southern states removed white supremacist statues from Washington. Will Mississippi?

READ MORE: J.Z. George’s descendant advocates for removing the statue of the Confederate icon from the nation’s Capitol

READ MORE: Mississippi’s Jefferson Davis statue has new neighbor in U.S. Capitol: Arkansas civil rights leader

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

Editor’s note: Mississippi Today and the Mississippi Humanities Council cosponsored an event – “Reimagining Statuary Hall” – on Sept. 18 at The Station in Fondren. Several speakers suggested accomplished Mississippians to represent the state in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. Currently, statues of staunch segregationists Jefferson Davis and J..Z. George represent Mississippi. What follows is Mississippi Today sports columnist Rick Cleveland’s pitch from the event.

I have spent a lifetime writing about football, primarily Mississippi football. I have watched and written about many of the greatest football players to ever play the sport. And I am here to tell you Walter Payton of Columbia and Jackson State is easily the greatest all-around football player I have ever seen or ever hope to see.

You don’t have to take it from me. The National Football League is the most popular and easily the most successful sports organization on Earth. Since the league began, tens of thousands have played and coached. And here’s the deal: The most cherished award the NFL gives is known as the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which recognizes excellence both on and off the field. At first, the award was known just as the NFL Man of the Year. Payton himself won it in 1977. Shortly after Walter’s untimely death in 1999, the league renamed the trophy as a tribute to Walter’s incredible work ethic, his football greatness and his legacy as a giver, a humanitarian.

Now then, choosing just two people to represent Mississippi in the National Statuary Hall Collection is an incredibly difficult task. That said we can do a whole lot better than we have. Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black population in the United States. To have two Confederate leaders, champions of slavery, representing us in the U.S. Capitol is nothing short of appalling. Mississippi’s two statues should be of people who represent what we do best. They should represent the best of Mississippi, not the worst. We do many things exceedingly well, including writing books, making music and playing sports.

You could argue — and I will — that we excel at nothing more than we do football. Mississippi has produced more NFL players per capita than any other state. And it’s not just quantity; it’s quality. We have produced more Pro Football Hall of Famers per capita than any other state, as well.

Our football heroes, Black and White, have emerged mostly from small towns. Walter Jerry Payton, nicknamed “Sweetness,” grew up in Columbia and came along at the cusp of integration. Walter was part of the first integrated football team at Columbia High School. In many ways, Columbia was a microcosm of Mississippi society as it pertains to integration: Black kids and White kids were playing organized sports together for the first time, working together, sweating together as teammates and being all the better for it. The late Maurice Dantin, a political leader and a candidate for governor, was a lineman on that first integrated team. He was, as he put it, one of seven White guys, blocking for four Black guys. Maurice told me: “The first time I saw Walter I was like everybody else. I was astounded. He did things on the football field I could never have imagined. Off the field, he was a good guy, a regular guy, a great teammate.” The two, Payton and Dantin, were friends for life.

That happened in small towns across Mississippi. Sports, football especially, showed the way. We were better for it. It says something about Mississippi a little more than half a century ago that Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Southern Miss, the three major football colleges in the state, did not recruit such a remarkable talent. I was a neophyte sports writer in Hattiesburg at the time. We had a Columbia correspondent, an elderly woman named Eva B. Beets, who called in the Columbia results every Friday night. I’ll never forget her rich, melodious Southern voice. “Rickey,” she’d drawl, “you are not going to believe what that Payton young’un did tonight…” In his last high school game, Walter scored six touchdowns, and on the last one he ran the last 35 yards backwards. Nobody could catch him.

Well that was it for the coaches at historically white universities. They weren’t about to have their first Black football player be a showboat drawing attention to himself. It remains singularly the dumbest thing I have ever heard. You can teach a player how to run forward and then hand the ball to the referee after scoring a touchdown; you can’t teach him how to score six touchdowns. Walter led the nation in scoring and set an NCAA scoring record at Jackson State. With the Chicago Bears, he scored a remarkable 125 touchdowns and handed the ball to the official after nearly every one.

Walter became the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, but he also excelled as a blocker, a receiver, a passer, a kick returner and even as a punter and kicker. He would have been a helluva strong safety, too. I once asked the great linebacker D.D. Lewis of Mississippi State and the Dallas Cowboys who was the hardest guy he ever had to tackle. D.D. didn’t hesitate. “Walter Payton, by far,” he answered. “It hurt. I mean, it really hurt. Trying to tackle Walter was like trying to tackle a 215-pound bowling ball.”

D.D., as any player who played with or against Walter, had the utmost respect for No. 34. Walter Payton was the epitome of what any athlete should strive for: Uncommon ability, superhuman work ethic, beloved teammate.

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know who Mississippi’s two statues in the U.S. Capitol should be. I do know there are so many great choices other than what we have. And I believe Walter Payton, the greatest to ever do what Mississippians do best, should be strongly considered.

READ MORE: Other Southern states removed white supremacist statues from Washington. Will Mississippi?

READ MORE: J.Z. George’s descendant advocates for removing the statue of the Confederate icon from the nation’s Capitol

READ MORE: Mississippi’s Jefferson Davis statue has new neighbor in U.S. Capitol: Arkansas civil rights leader

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