Democrat Joe Biden won in the Mississippi Supreme Court central district by a comfortable margin of 220,405 votes to 193,785 votes against Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

While losing the 2020 election nationwide, Trump won Mississippi by an also comfortable margin of 756,764 votes to 539,393 votes. But the central district was a different story.

In elections with big turnouts, especially presidential elections, the central district is often a Democratic stronghold.

This November, it is a safe assumption that Vice President Kamala Harris will lose the state of Mississippi but will do as well if not better than Biden did in the central district.

And if Harris does have a strong showing in the 22-county central district, that should bode well for Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens, who currently is campaigning for a third term on the state’s highest court representing the aforementioned district.

What may be Kitchens’ easiest path to win reelection is to convince the central district voters he is more aligned with Harris than is his primary and most well funded opponent, state Sen. Jenifer Branning, R-Philadelphia.

Also running for the central district seat are Ceola James, a former Mississippi Court of Appeals judge, and Hinds County private practice attorneys Byron Carter and Abby Gale Robinson.

If no candidate garners a majority vote on Nov. 5, a runoff will be held between the top two vote-getters. Kitchens’ best bet to win the seat is in the first election on Nov. 5, when all the Harris voters will be going to the polls. A runoff election for a Supreme Court race days before the Thanksgiving holiday is the definition of a low turnout race.

There are not expected to be many competitive races this election cycle in Mississippi, but the central district Supreme Court race stands out. It also is vitally important. Supreme Court justices have significant impact on many aspects of the state.

Kitchens, a former district attorney, and fellow central district Justice Leslie King, are not as conservative as the other seven Mississippi Supreme Court justices. Some might describe Kitchens as a middle-of-the-road jurist, while others might contend he is a liberal.

At any rate, it is less likely that a non-conservative moniker will hurt him in the central district than in other parts of the state.

The problem that Kitchens might face is getting his credentials and philosophy out to the voters.

Judicial races in Mississippi are nonpartisan, and candidates have more restraints on what they can say on the campaign trail. And quite frankly, voters often do not pay attention to judicial races.

While judicial races are nonpartisan, that does not mean that political parties cannot endorse candidates. Branning has the backing of the Mississippi Republican Party.

Branning, who was elected to the Senate in 2015, currently serves as chair of the Transportation Committee. She has been one of the more conservative members of the Senate, and she is touting her conservativism on the campaign trail.

In the Senate, Branning voted against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the design in 2020 and voted against expanding Medicaid to provide health insurance to the working poor earlier this year. In 2023, she voted against a measure that eventually became law to allow women to remain on Medicaid for 12 months after giving birth opposed to 60 days.

In television commercials, she bills herself as “a constitutional conservative.” Kitchens’ initial television commercial took the approach of Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann by making the advertisement a play on his name. His wife maintains in the commercial he needs to be on the high court to keep him out of her kitchen.

Whether a cute commercial and a district stacked to his advantage will ensure a third term on the state’s highest court for Jim Kitchens remains to be seen.

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

Oct. 19, 1960

Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested along with students after thousands conducted mass sit-ins at Rich’s Department Store and other Atlanta stores, causing 16 segregated lunch counters to shut down. 

The students, led by Lonnie C. King and Julian Bond, denounced segregation as contrary to democracy, only to have Georgia’s governor accuse them of breeding “dissatisfaction, discontent, discord and evil,” speculating that communists were behind this movement. 

One of the main targets of the protests: Rich’s Magnolia Room, where white customers could try on clothing, use white-only washrooms and sit at a table in the Magnolia Room. Black customers, however, could not try on clothing or enter. 

The judge in the case sentenced King to four months in prison. “King was thought to be in grave danger after a manacled, late-night transfer from an Atlanta jail to a remote rural facility in Klan-infested DeKalb County, and soon thereafter to the state‘s notorious maximum-security prison in Reidsville,” The New York Times wrote. Bobby Kennedy, who was working as campaign manager for his brother, John F. Kennedy, reached out to the judge and asked for him to release King on bail. The judge did so. 

“The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life and Win the 1960 Election” by Stephen and Paul Kendrick focuses on this event and the role it played in helping Kennedy get elected. When civil rights leaders were unable to reach an agreement with Atlanta’s business and city leaders, students resumed protests the day after Thanksgiving. By fall 1961, Rich’s began to desegregate.

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

At 3 p.m. on a sunny Wednesday in Cleveland, like clockwork, parents streamed into the children’s room of the Robinson Carpenter Memorial Library with their kids in tow. The year has just started for schools in the area, and everyone is in search of a book. 

A lot of things in a library change over time. The books on the shelves are crammed with copies of whatever’s in demand and new copies of old favorites. The technology is updated, and the kids grow up. But one thing that has been a constant in Cleveland’s public library is Youth Services Librarian Bobbie Matheney. 

Matheney, a native of nearby Merigold, has worked in the Bolivar-County Library System since 2006. After working part time at the Merigold branch to help her elderly parents, Matheney landed a job at the Cleveland branch where she has worked for 17 years. Known for her fun outfits and bright personality, she is affectionately known by community members and patrons of the library as Mrs. Bobbie. 

Though she never imagined being a librarian, she quickly realized her passion for the job. 

“I’ve always been a people person. I got into being a librarian as a part timer, and started to enjoy it. My director told me that I finally had found my calling after working different jobs as a receptionist throughout the years,” she said. “I think it was my calling, also. I love what I do.”

Her desk is in the children’s room of the library, flanked by walls of colorful books. Next to her desk is a pair of rocking chairs, where she does story hour and show and tell with preschool and homeschooled kids on Friday morning. For young children, she says, reading is important to helping with their learning abilities. 

“Reading to babies helps because they’re listening. Believe me, kids are listening to you,” she said. “You might not realize it, but reading to them while they’re young, it helps their vocabulary. It, you know, it keeps them alert. It’s just the beginning of the learning process for children.” 

Families entering the library break up this conversation. As one child uses his library card for the first time, Matheney explains to him all the things he can do with it, and the money he’s saving by checking out books instead of buying them. 

Kids leaving with books is Matheney’s favorite thing about her job — but it’s not always easy. 

“There are those non-readers and helping them to find something on their level is challenging, because we can go through books and books and books, and it’s like, nope, nope, nope, nope,” she said. “So, it’s challenging trying to get the reluctant readers books that they might enjoy, but when they finally say yes, I celebrate.”

The Bolivar County Public Library System, at one point, operated eight libraries across the county. Three are still open — Rosedale, Merigold, and the main branch in Cleveland where Matheney works. While the role of the library has changed over time, it’s still an important community pillar in Cleveland, often going beyond just providing books for the city’s roughly 10,500 residents. 

“The library has changed in order to provide more information to the community. You would be surprised by the information that we provide for people that come in,” Matheney said. 

People come to the library for tax forms, voter registration forms and sometimes even to find phone numbers. Community elders often visit the library for help with electronics and electronic services. Some services, though, like the databases offered through the library, are underused. The library, Matheney said, is a learning and resource center. 

While most of Matheney’s work in youth services is with younger children, she also has a passion for working with teenagers. One of her fondest memories working at the library is when she operated the Teen Advisory Group, or TAG. 

“This was a group of teenagers that would come in and volunteer and plan different programs for the library,” she said. “The library is considered a safe place. I like to give teenagers something positive to do — they might not want to read a book or use the computer, but it was a safe place.”

TAG began with one teenager and at its height grew to a regular group of about 17. The goal was for the program to be something positive kids could participate in. TAG dissolved due to COVID, but it’s something Matheney wants to get started again. The library hosts teen game day every Wednesday at 3:30. And while it can be hard to get teens into the library, Matheney says you have to start somewhere. 

“A lot of people focus on a lot of people participating in a program,” she said. “If you can touch one person — that means a lot.” 

Cindy Williamson, her predecessor as youth services librarian, has worked with Matheney on and off nine years. She says Matheney is good with both kids and adults. 

“She’s just a very personable person. She’s a firecracker and just always has a smile on her face,” she said. 

Matheney couldn’t guess how many kids she had seen pass through the library during her time there. One of the highlights of her job, she said, is having the chance to watch people grow up. 

“It’s good to see some of the patrons who started out as kids coming in here,” she said. “It’s good to see them grow into adults, and it’s good for them to stop by and say, ‘Mrs. Bobbie, I just stopped by to see if you were still working here.’ Sometimes, I have to take a second look at them like — ‘who is this child? Who is this?’ You know, because they’ve grown up.”

A long-time pillar in one of the community’s most important institutions, Mrs. Bobbie is well known and well loved in Cleveland. In turn, she wants to be thought of as someone who loves everyone, too. 

“Bobbie loves everybody. That’s how I want to be thought of,” she said. “Mrs. Bobbie loves everybody.”

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