Jan. 26, 1870

Virginia was readmitted to the Union after the state passed a new constitution that allowed Black men to vote and ratified the 14^th and 15^th Amendments. The readmission came five years after Black men first pushed to vote. 

A month after the Civil War ended, hundreds of Black men showed up at polling places in Norfolk to vote. Most were turned away, but federal poll workers in one precinct did allow them to cast ballots. 

“Some historians think that was the first instance of blacks voting in the South,” The Washington Post wrote. “Even in the North, most places didn’t allow blacks to vote.” 

Black men showed up in droves to serve on the constitutional convention. One of them, John Brown, who had been enslaved and had seen his wife and daughter sold, sent out a replica of the ballot with the reminder, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” He won, defeating two white candidates. 

Brown joined the 104 delegates, nearly a fourth of them Black men, in drafting the new constitution. That cleared the way not only for Black voting, but for Virginia’s senators and representatives to take their seats in Congress. 

But hope of continued progress began to fade by the end of the year when the Legislature began to create its first Jim Crow laws, starting with separate schools for Black and white students. Other Jim Crow laws followed in Virginia and other states to enforce racism on almost every aspect of life, including separate restrooms, separate drinking fountains, separate restaurants, separate seating at movie theaters, separate waiting rooms, separate places in the hospital and when death came, separate cemeteries.

Following Mississippi’s lead, Virginia adopted a new constitution in 1902 that helped to disenfranchise 90% of Black Virginians who voted. States continued to adopt Jim Crow statutes until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land.

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

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the landmark contribution of $100 million by Jim Barksdale to improve reading skills in Mississippi.

Standing with state education officials on Jan. 20, 2000, in the old Central High School auditorium in downtown Jackson, Barksdale and his late wife Sally announced their historic gift that would launch the Barksdale Reading Institute, which would create an innovative reading program that would be implemented in public schools across the state.

The contribution, still one of the largest in the state’s history, made headlines across America and the world. Slate Magazine listed the contribution by Barksdale, former head of internet software provider Netscape, as the sixth largest in the nation for 2000. The New York Times, which praised the Barksdales on its editorial page, wrote at the time that the contribution was “thought by authorities to be by far the largest in the field of literacy.”

The $100 million gift not only provided tangible benefits to Mississippi’s schools and children, but it provided a critical symbolic boost to public education in the state.

In a letter to the editor published in The New York Times a couple days after the gift was announced, retired sociology professor Beth Hess of Mountain Lake, N.J, praised the Barksdales but added a telling addendum to her note.

“It is disturbing that the state of Mississippi will be rewarded for its continuing failure to tax its citizens fairly and to allocate enough money to educate students, especially in predominantly Black districts,” Hess wrote. “This should have been a public rather than private responsibility.”

Indeed, this exact point was on the minds of many Mississippians — certainly including the Barksdales — at the time. And given the then-fresh history of segregation of the state’s public schools, how could it not be?

The historic financial commitment made by the Barksdales came less than a quarter of a century from the vote in 1978 to finally remove from the state constitution the provision creating a “separate but equal” system to prevent the integration of the schools.

And it came much less than a quarter of a century from the vote in 1987 to finally remove from the constitution the provision that allowed the Legislature to disband the public schools rather than integrate them. That segregationist provision had been added to the Mississippi Constitution in 1960, with voters in only three of the state’s 82 counties rejecting it: Itawamba and Tishomingo counties in northeast Mississippi and Jackson County on the Gulf Coast.

To say in the year 2000 that there were still Mississippians not enamored with a fully integrated Mississippi public school system would be an understatement.

The history of public education in Mississippi, like the history of the state itself, is marred by racial strife and hate-inspired division that continues even today in some ways.

But on that January day in 2000, Jim Barksdale, a Mississippi native and one of the nation’s leading business executives, showed them and the nation another way forward, proclaiming his commitment “to keeping the main thing the main thing.” And it was clear that he believed the “main thing” was support of an integrated Mississippi public education system.

Barksdale’s brother, Claiborne, who ran the Barksdale Reading Institute that was created with the contribution, said that Jim and Sally Barksdale viewed their action as a $100 million investment in Mississippi and its children, not as a gift. If positive results were not being achieved, the Barksdales were prepared to halt the program and invest their money in other beneficial ways.

The program worked, however, and looking back over these past 25 years since the gift, the results are clear. The historic investment produced historic gains that are now dubbed “The Mississippi Miracle.”

“The state ranks second in its reading scores for children in poverty and seventh for children from households of color,” Claiborne Barksdale wrote this week for Mississippi Today Ideas. “… Tens of thousands of Mississippi children are reading, and reading proficiently, thanks to Jim and Sally’s persistent desire to help them achieve a brighter future. I’d say that’s a pretty damn good return on their investment.”

It could still be argued, as the retired sociology professor did on the New York Times editorial pages in 2000, that Mississippi leaders are not doing enough for public education. But important strides have been made. The state still funds a reading initiative based on the Barksdale model.

While state politicians line up to claim credit for Mississippi’s improved reading scores and “The Mississippi Miracle,” it’s worth remembering that it all started with the Barksdales’ investment 25 years ago.

Editor’s note: Jim and Donna Barksdale are Mississippi Today donors and founding board members. 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.

In 2023 as lawmakers were passing the bill that would establish a state-appointed court within Jackson, there was talk about appointing “the best and the brightest” judges from around the state to serve – a comment some Black legislators said implied they couldn’t be found within a majority Black Hinds County. 

Over a year later, the Capitol Complex Improvement District Court is set to open next week, and three judges with roots in Jackson and live in the capital have been appointed to serve. 

The judges who were sworn in during a Friday ceremony said they were interested in the positions because they wanted to serve the community where many of them grew up and live. 

“This is a very serious undertaking to citizens who live in this city,” said Judge Christopher Collins, who will serve on a part-time basis. He moved to Jackson for the role. 

Judge Stanley Alexander and James Holland will be the full-time judges.

Alexander is a former assistant district attorney in multiple judicial districts and he worked in the attorney general’s office, including as director of the Division of Public Integrity. Holland has practiced law for over 40 years and has trial experience, including defense in state and federal courts. He ran an unsuccessful race for Hinds County district attorney in 2015.

Collins has been a prosecutor and public defender. His judicial experience includes work as a circuit and municipal judge, intervention court judge and a judge for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. 

Bryana Smith McDougal was appointed as the court’s clerk. She previously was judicial assistant to former Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens and an assistant deputy clerk for the Supreme Court. She grew up in Jackson and lives in Madison.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Randolph, who appointed the judges and clerk, said he considered many from across the state and took recommendations. It was through letters of recommendation and conversations with the three judges that showed that they were the best for the position. 

“These judges have proven themselves,” Randolph said. 

House Bill 1020, passed in 2023, created the court. The CCID court was supposed to be operating last year, but it waited on a building to operate. Now business will begin operation Monday at 8 a.m. at its renovated facility at 201 S. Jefferson St., a former bus terminal in downtown. 

The CCID court will hear misdemeanor cases and initial appearances for felonies investigated by Capitol Police. Those cases have been handled in the existing Hinds County court system during the interim.

“We want to stay current (with cases.) Our goal is to support and supplement the current court system,” Holland said. 

At the Friday ceremony, Gov. Tate Reeves said the court and the ongoing work of Capitol Police will help make Jackson safer. 

“Make no mistake. Jackson’s best days are ahead of us,” he said. 

Reeves stood alongside various government officials, law enforcement and lawmakers, including House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, who authored HB 1020, and Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, whose agency includes Capitol Police. 

Lamar said the court will be for the regular people of Jackson who want to have their kids play safely in their yards, people who want an efficient and blind justice system and families who will be supported by future jobs that come to the city. 

HB 1020 also expanded the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police from within the district to Jackson. The district covers downtown, the area around Jackson State University, Belhaven, the hospitals, Fondren and up to Northside Drive. A bill has been proposed this session to expand the district even further. 

In recent years, Capitol Police has been built up from a former security force for government buildings into a law enforcement agency. 

The court and police expansion were touted as solutions to crime and a backlogged Hinds County court system. Pushback came from Jackson lawmakers, advocacy groups and community members and two lawsuits were filed, but they have since been resolved. 

Prosecutors from the attorney general office’s Public Integrity Unit were also appointed to work in the CCID court, but they were not announced Friday. A spokesperson said their identities will be known once the court opens. 

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