On this day in 1908

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
March 4, 2025

March 4, 1908

Dr. T.R.M. Howard was born in Murray, Kentucky. 

His mother worked as a cook for Dr. Will Mason, a white physician so impressed with the young Howard that he helped pay for much of Howard’s medical education. 

After getting involved in civil rights issues, Howard moved to the all-Black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where he became the first chief surgeon at the hospital. 

In 1951, he founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and mentored young civil rights activists Medgar Evers and Aaron Henry. The council carried out a successful boycott of service stations that refused to let Black patrons use the restrooms, blanketing the area with bumper stickers that read, “Don’t Buy Gas Where You Can’t Use the Restroom.” As many as 10,000 attended their annual rallies, where Thurgood Marshall and other national figures spoke. 

Howard also fought the credit squeeze by the white Citizens’ Council on those who dared to get involved in the civil rights movement. In 1955, he drew national attention when he became involved in investigating the Emmett Till murder. His compound became a safe place, and he escorted witnesses to the trial, including Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, through a heavily armed caravan. 

After the all-white jury acquitted Till’s killers, Howard spoke across the nation, including an overflow crowd on Nov. 27, 1955, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks heard the speech and four days later refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. She was quoted later as saying she was thinking the whole time about Emmett Till. 

Howard later spoke to 20,000 at Madison Square Garden alongside Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Before the year ended, the death threats and economic pressure became too much that Howard moved with his family to Chicago. 

In 1956, the Chicago Defender put him on the top spot on its national honor roll, and he served as president of the National Medical Association. In 1971, Jesse Jackson formed Operation PUSH in Howard’s home, and a year later, Howard founded the Friendship Medical Center, the largest privately owned Black clinic in Chicago. 

He died in 1976, and Jackson presided at his funeral. Historians David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito have written the definitive book on his life, “T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer.” ABC’s “Women of the Movement” featured Howard in the series.

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

Suspended attorney blamed for dismissal of $100M lawsuit

by Jimmie E. Gates, Mississippi Today, Mississippi Today
March 3, 2025

  A Jackson attorney suspended from the practice last year for taking contraband into a jail could face further Mississippi Bar disciplinary action for how he allegedly represented plaintiffs in a multimillion-dollar, wrongful death class action federal lawsuit, leading to its dismissal.       

A March 25 investigative hearing is scheduled before the Bar on Reggie Ruffin’s complaint against attorney Guy N. Rogers Jr.

Reggie Ruffin of Dallas initially filed a federal lawsuit in 2020 in Texas alleging his father, Jimmie Lee Ruffins, was exposed to asbestos while working as a machine operator and pest control worker at  the Frito-Lay plant in Jackson, causing him to develop lung cancer and ultimately die on July 4, 2010, at the age of 69.  However, the case was dismissed in Texas, citing statute of limitations

Ruffin then filed a class action lawsuit in Mississippi in 2021 against Frito-Lay North America and its parent company, PepsiCo, on behalf of his father and other workers at the Jackson plant.

In addition to Ruffin’s father, the lawsuit alleged three others died from cancer related to their employment at the Frito-Lay plant, and others were being treated. All the employees worked for more than 20 years at the Frito-Lay plant, which was located at 1325 Boling St. in Jackson, according to the lawsuit. The plant closed in 1999. 

The lawsuit said the workers suffered injury, damages and death from serious illnesses such as lung cancer, brain cancer, mesothelioma, Parkinson’s Disease, leukemia, ovarian cancer and other neurological disorders. “The direct and proximate cause of these injuries was plaintiffs’ exposure to unreasonably dangerous, disease-causing, hazardous, and toxic substances which were in use each day at the facility and in the structure/physical plant,” according to the lawsuit.

PepsiCo said in a statement for this story: “The safety, health, and well-being of our associates is one of our top priorities as a company. We have established policies and systems to provide and maintain a safe and healthy workplace, and we are dedicated to engaging with our employees to continually improve.”

U.S. District Judge Dan Jordan dismissed the lawsuit in December 2022 on a motion by Frito Lay North America Inc. and PepsiCo, citing the lawsuit was barred by Mississippi’s three-year statute of limitations clause in wrongful death cases.

But Jordan said in court papers the reason for dismissing the lawsuit was because plaintiffs didn’t respond to Frito Lay’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit in the timeframe set, which Ruffin lays squarely on Rogers.

Jordan said Frito-Lay and PepsiCo sought dismissal with prejudice in the motion, but the plaintiffs did not respond. He then entered a show cause order giving plaintiffs a second chance to respond and warning the motion would be granted if they did not. 

“The court therefore concludes that defendants’ motion to dismiss with prejudice should be granted on the merits, for failure to prosecute, and for failure to obey a court order,” he ruled.

Now almost three years later, Ruffin’s Bar complaint blames Rogers, who represented him and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, for dismissal. Ruffin said Rogers refused to serve Frito-Lay and file documents in the case. He cited other factors as well. But Ruffin said in a phone interview that had he known documents weren’t being filed; he would have driven from his home in Dallas to Jackson to file them in court.

Repeated efforts to reach Rogers regarding Ruffin’s allegations failed. Phone numbers and emails associated with Rogers when he was a practicing attorney are no longer in service.

Since Rogers is already on suspension, it’s uncertain what disciplinary action he could face if Ruffin’s complaint is deemed credible. 

Without mentioning Rogers’ case, Mississippi Bar General Counsel Melissa Scott said a suspended attorney can face additional disciplinary action in a separate case.

Scott said each case is different, but an investigatory hearing generally involves a notice for the respondent attorney to appear at a set date and time. She said an attorney in her office will question the respondent attorney about the allegations in the informal Bar complaint.  

The Office of General Counsel then reports its findings back to the Committee on Professional Responsibility, which will make the decision on whether to recommend disciplinary action to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Retired Texas attorney Kevin Kurtz said in Ruffin’s complaint to the Mississippi Bar that Rogers was given contact information for the process server to serve summons to Frito-Lay at the company’s national headquarters in Dallas, but it didn’t occur. 

“Who files a $100 million civil suit and fails to serve the defendants?” Kurtz said in Ruffin’s Bar complaint.

Kurtz said the lawsuit against Frito Lay was dismissed because Rogers disgraced himself, his profession and worst of all his clients who counted on him to seek justice. 

Although Jordan dismissed the lawsuit based on the failure to respond to the motion to dismiss, he cast doubt on it being successful, saying the federal claims were meritless, and the current claims as written would not survive the statute of limitations.

Ruffin said he and other plaintiffs knew about the statute of limitations, but argued they didn’t learn until 2018 that workers may have been exposed to contamination. Also, he said some workers, who suffered long-term medical conditions were alive when the class action lawsuit and some are alive today.

In August of last year, the Mississippi Supreme Court suspended Rogers after he entered a plea to a felony charge in Warren County of possessing contraband in a jail facility. The Mississippi State Bar called for Rogers’ disbarment and opted for suspension.

Rogers entered a best-interest plea, which is technically a guilty plea. The Warren County Circuit Court withheld the plea subject to a 36-month probationary period, which could lead to the charge being dismissed if Rogers doesn’t violate the terms of the probation.

Rogers argued in court papers he shouldn’t be disbarred for accidentally taking a cellphone wire into the Warren County Jail. He said at the most, he should be subjected to some type of disciplinary action, but not the drastic sanction of disbarment.

Rogers said at the time that he only entered the Alford plea to avoid trial, even though the state could not prove their case. He said prosecutors wouldn’t offer a misdemeanor plea or anything less than a felony plea because he used profanity towards a plain-clothes deputy of the Warren County Sheriff Department.

The indictment against Rogers said he attempted to furnish or assist In furnishing two black Android cellphone cords to an inmate at the Warren County Jail. 

The state high court struck Rogers’ name from the Bar roll and immediately suspended him from the practice of law, but denied the Bar’s request for disbarment, saying disbarments are reserved for final convictions. If Rogers successfully completes his 36-month probation and has the charge against him dismissed, he can petition for reinstatement to the Bar.

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

Elections Committee Chairman Noah Sanford has successfully pushed some House members to scrap a Senate proposal to establish early voting in Mississippi and expand the state’s absentee voting program instead. 

Sanford, a Republican from Collins, last week got the committee to adopt a plan clarifying voters who anticipate their employers might require them to work on Election Day and adding that people who care for children or disabled adults can vote by absentee. 

“I’m the poster child for this,” Sanford said. “I’ve got a 5-year-old, a 2-year-old and a 9-month-old. I can promise you, you don’t want me bringing them into the polling place. They’d be knocking something over, and it would be a bad experience for all of us.” 

The plan passed the Elections Committee with no audible opposition, and it can now go before the full House for consideration. 

Sanford’s proposal also establishes an early voting task force, although Sanford held a hearing over the summer to study the issue. It also allows election workers to process absentee ballot forms leading to Election Day. 

To vote by absentee, a voter must meet one of around a dozen legal excuses, such as temporarily living outside of their county or being over 65. Mississippi law doesn’t allow people to vote by absentee purely out of convenience or choice. 

The Senate passed a proposal, authored by Republican Sen. Jeremy Englad of Vancleave, that would have established 15 days of no-excuse, in-person early voting and required voters to present a valid photo ID to an elections worker. 

Sanford told committee members that the Senate proposal does not have enough support from House members needed for it to pass. If the House passes Sanford’s proposal, it would return it to the Senate for consideration. 

Mississippi is one of only three states that do not have no-excuse early voting or no-excuse absentee voting.

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