Former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman, who served in multiple state elected offices, including all three branches of government, has died.

A news release from the state Supreme Court announced Pittman, who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 2001 until 2004, died earlier this week at his Ridgeland home. He was 89.

Pittman was elected to the state Senate in 1964 representing his hometown of Hattiesburg. He went on to serve in the state elected offices of treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general. He served as attorney general from 1984 to 1988 before running unsuccessfully for governor.

After losing the gubernatorial bid in an ultra-competitive Democratic primary that included other statewide elected officials and a past governor, Pittman came back to capture a seat on the state Supreme Court in 1989.

“Chief Pittman provided exemplary leadership to the Mississippi Judiciary as chief justice,” said former Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., who served with Pittman on the state’s highest court “His accomplishments for efficiency, transparency and access to justice had a profound effect on our legal system. He championed the establishment of (shorter deadlines for hearing cases … brought rule changes to allow cameras in the courtroom and improved access to justice for the poor and disadvantaged, to name a few.

“The court system today is better for his untiring efforts and dedication to duty.”

As chief justice, Pittman was credited with making the Supreme Court more transparent, posting dockets and oral arguments online, according to a court press release. He also led the effort to put in place regulations to allow news cameras in the courtroom at a time when only a handful of states were allowing them. Pittman worked to garner public funding to provide access to the judiciary for the needy.

Pittman said at the time, “We have to recognize the fact that we in many communities are frankly failing to get legal services to the people who need it … It’s time that the courts help shoulder the burden of rendering legal services to the needy in Mississippi.”

In 2011, former Gov. Haley Barbour awarded Pittman the Mississippi Medal of Service.

 “The people of this state have honored me with a wonderful trip through life,” Pittman said at the awards ceremony.

Current Chief Justice Mike Randolph said, “Even though he served in all these important government positions, he never lost his common touch. I regret that I didn’t get to serve with him. I hope that when I’m done, that I will be as well thought of as he was.”

Randolph, also from Hattiesburg, now holds the post on the court that was held by Pittman.

“He was a consummate politician and public servant. He’s an important figure in Mississippi’s history,” said U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James Graves. Graves was the third Black Mississippian to serve on the modern Supreme Court. Earlier in Graves’ career, he was hired to a position in the Attorney General’s office by Pittman.

Pittman was last in public view when he was asked by then-Attorney General Jim Hood to look at the legality of a frontage road being built in Rankin County to provide easier access to busy Lakeland Drive for a small neighborhood where then Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves lived.

The end result of the controversy is that the access road was not built.

After retiring from the Supreme Court, Pittman joined a law firm in Madison County.

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

Sept. 27, 1912

“Father of the Blues” W.C. Handy published “Memphis Blues,” what is believed to be the first commercially successful blues song. 

An Alabama native, Handy looked more like a preacher than a blues player. In 1902, the musician traveled throughout the Mississippi Delta, settling in Clarksdale, where he led an orchestra. While waiting for a train in Tutwiler, he heard a Black man “plunking a guitar beside me while I slept … As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. … The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.” 

Then he heard a Black man “crooning all of his calls in the key of G, … moaning like a presiding elder preaching at a revival meeting.” 

In 1909, Handy and his band moved to Memphis, where they played in clubs on Beale Street, and he began to write, incorporating these local sounds into his music. Two years after his success with “Memphis Blues,” “The St. Louis Blues” became a million-selling sheet music phenomenon. 

Handy became one of the most successful African-American music publishers of his day, and when he died in New York City at the age of 84, more than 150,000 paid their respects. The same year he died, the film “St. Louis Blues” came to the big screen, telling a fictionalized version of his life story, starring Nat King Cole and others. 

Throughout his life, Handy continued his battle for the dignity of African Americans, some of whom happened to play music. In 1960, the still segregated city of Memphis built a bronze statue honoring Handy in a city park on Beale Street, and nine years later, the Postal Service honored him on a stamp. These days, a number of music festivals and awards bear his name, and Marc Cohn popularized Handy in his 1991 song, “Walking in Memphis,” which paid tribute to legends of the river city.

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

The head of Mississippi Medicaid told lawmakers on Thursday that the agency is working with the federal government to get approval of a new law that allows uninsured, low-income women short-term Medicaid coverage while they wait for their application to be approved.

The program, called presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, has been hailed as a way to get pregnant women earlier access to prenatal care in states that have not expanded Medicaid and to mitigate bad health outcomes for mothers and babies.

Mississippi is one of 10 states in the nation not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. 

Mississippi lawmakers wrote in the bill that women must provide proof of income before qualifying for presumptive eligibility, which is potentially at odds with federal regulations. 

“CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) does not like proof of income or proof of pregnancy,” Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder said Thursday in an annual legislative budget meeting. “To the current federal administration, a person’s word should be sufficient to get the temporary pregnancy coverage … I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to come to a resolution that is faithful to the state law and satisfies federal expectations.”

It’s not clear whether the state agency will be able to negotiate the details with the federal government or whether the Mississippi Legislature will need to rewrite the law during the 2025 legislative session.

Following the meeting, Snyder quickly left the building and refused to answer questions from a reporter about the status of the program. Mississippi Today has been allowed to communicate about pregnancy presumptive eligibility with the Division of Medicaid solely through email exchanges.

House Bill 539, spearheaded by Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, would allow low-income pregnant women to get prenatal care while waiting for an official Medicaid application to be approved. The way the bill is written, these women would need to bring proof of income, such as a paystub, to their doctor’s office. 

Federal guidelines, however, state that while the agency may require proof of citizenship or residency, it should not “require verification of the conditions for presumptive eligibility” – which are pregnancy and income. 

“It is my understanding that the Division of Medicaid is currently working with CMS for approval of our presumptive eligibility law, specifically with the language around proof of income,” McGee told Mississippi Today. “This is part of the process and I am optimistic that it will be approved.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, tasked with approving or denying the state’s plan for implementing presumptive eligibility, has until Oct. 9 to make a decision. 

CMS declined to comment on the status of Mississippi’s state plan amendment.

A spokesperson for Medicaid told Mississippi Today via email the agency is moving forward with implementation of the program despite the federal government’s concerns.

The Division is accepting applications from health care providers and conducting eligibility determination training sessions – the final requirement for providers before they can begin treating women under the new policy. Nine medical providers have had their applications approved so far, according to the Division of Medicaid. 

The Division hosted a training for participating Federally Qualified Health Centers Thursday and will be hosting a training for participating hospitals Oct. 10 and 11, according to a participating provider. 

In addition to the nine providers that have been accepted, the University of Mississippi Medical Center – the state’s largest public hospital and largest Medicaid provider – told Mississippi Today it submitted its application on Thursday. 

Below is a list of the nine providers that have been approved to participate as of Sept. 25: 

• Physicians & Surgeons Clinic – Amory
• Mississippi Department of Health, Dr. Renia Dotson – County Health Dept. (Family Planning Clinic)
• Family Health Center – Laurel
• Delta Health Center, Inc (Dr. H. Jack Geiger Medical Center) – Mound Bayou
• G.A. Carmichael Family Health Center Providers – Belzoni, Canton, Yazoo City
• Coastal Family Health Center, Inc. – Biloxi 
• Delta Health System – Greenville
• Delta Medical Group – Women’s Specialty Clinic – Greenville
• Southeast MS Rural Health Initiative Inc. – Women’s Health Center – Hattiesburg

Gwen Dilworth contributed to this report.

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