mississippi
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Black Voters in Mississippi File Lawsuit to Challenge Racist Election Law
A group of black voters represented by a foundation affiliated with former Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee is challenging Mississippi’s Jim-Crow era laws written to place black candidates for statewide office at a disadvantage. According to ThinkProgress, four voters filed suit with the U.S. District Court of Southern Mississippi Thursday, challenging election…
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Blow Struck: Federal Judge Blocks Mississippi’s ‘Hearbeat’ Abortion Law
Down goes Frazier—at least, for now, when it comes to Mississippi’s new so-called heartbeat law, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. I n a strongly worded ruling Friday, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction barring enforcement of the law that makes abortion illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can…
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Mississippi Jury Awards $3 Million to Black Strippers in Workplace Discrimination Case
A jury in Mississippi has awarded more than $3 million to five black strippers after a federal judge found their working conditions worse than those of their white counterparts. According to NBC News, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate presided over a week-long trial, and jurors decided the women would split the money, including funds for…
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Unita Blackwell, Civil Rights Activist and the 1st Black Woman to Be Elected a Mayor in Mississippi, Dies at 86
Unita Blackwell, a veteran of the civil rights movement and winner of a MacArthur “genius” grant who was the first black woman to be elected a mayor in the state of Mississippi, has died. She was 86. Blackwell’s son confirmed that she died Monday, according to the Associated Press. Blackwell was born in the impoverished…
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Black Mississippi High School Grad Charges Her Salutatorian Honor Was Given to Less Qualified White Student to Appease Racist Townspeople
Apparently, in at least one Mississippi town, black folks can’t even come in second place without raising racist ire. According to a federal lawsuit, recent high school graduate Olecia James charges she was denied her rightful place as salutatorian of her Mississippi high school’s graduating class in a move the district made so as not…
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Who is Leaving Bowls of Mashed Potatoes around Jackson, Mississippi?
Jackson, Mississippi has a new villain. Lurking in the shadows until the optimal time to strike, this dastardly ne’er-do-well walks among Jacksonians without raising suspicion. Their reasons are unknown. They haven’t left demands. Do they peel the skin, or leave them on? Someone’s been leaving mashed potatoes around Jackson, Mississippi, and people don’t know how…
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Paying Respect: Medgar Evers’ Mississippi Home Becomes National Monument
The Mississippi home of civil rights leaders Medgar and Myrlie Evers became a national monument Tuesday, as part of a sweeping, bipartisan public lands bill signed by Donald Trump. Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran who became the Mississippi NAACP’s first field secretary in 1954 was at the foreground of the Civil Rights Movement,…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness With VSB | Day 9: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Publisher Synopsis: Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family’s struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie’s story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having…
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A Pregnant Woman Was Found Dead in a Mississippi Jail After Complaining About Stomach Pains. Her Family Has Yet to See Her
A pregnant mother of two was found dead in a Madison County, Mississippi jail cell sometime last week after complaining to jail officials of stomach pains, her family says. Now, the family of 37-year-old Lanekia Michelle Brown is trying to piece together what happened to her in a death they deem “very suspicious.” “We talked…
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We're Being Too Hard on Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith
Racism is so embedded in Southern culture that Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith truly believes that she’s not racist; that her comment about being front row at lynching were not racist; that wanting to suppress the liberal vote is not necessarily racist or posing in Confederate artifacts is racist. Wait, what? On Tuesday, the same day…