Project commemorating Freedom Summer coming to City of Moss Point
Moss Point will soon commemorate its role in the Civil Rights Movement through a memorial project. ‘The Witness: The Freedom Memory Project’ is led by the…
civil rights
Trump moves oversight of special education and civil rights out of the Education Department
By ANNIE MA WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is further dismantling the Education Department, moving oversight of special education and civil rights to other agencies. The Department of Justice will take on enforcement of civil rights in education, while the…
Bernard LaFayette, Selma voting rights organizer, has died
By TRAVIS LOLLER NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Bernard LaFayette, the advance man who did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died. Bernard LaFayette,…
Civil Rights champion Annie Devine honored with Trail Marker
A trail marker was unveiled in the state to honor a champion of Civil Rights. A marker was unveiled on February 25th for Annie Devine of Canton.…
Civil rights icon James Meredith is honored in his Mississippi hometown
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS KOSCIUSKO, Miss. (AP) — A new historical marker has been unveiled in the hometown of James Meredith, honoring the Black man who fought white supremacy by integrating the University of Mississippi in 1962. Meredith, 91, wore a red Ole…
Fannie Lou Hamer honored with historic marker in New Jersey
A piece of Mississippi history has made its way to New Jersey. Governor Tate Reeves was in Atlantic City for the unveiling of a…
Federal court orders some of Mississippi’s state legislative maps to be redrawn
A federal court has ordered Mississippi to redraw its 2022 state legislative maps in several areas after concluding those maps unlawfully dilute the voting strength of Black Mississippians. The ruling was issued Tuesday night and requires the creation of new…
Three prison officials sentenced for beating defenseless inmate
Three former Department of Corrections officials were sentenced Wednesday for using excessive force against an inmate, involving the use of dangerous weapons and resulting in bodily injury. All three defendants previously pleaded guilty to their respective roles assaulting the…
Biden will establish a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teen lynched in Mississippi
BY DARLENE SUPERVILLE WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will establish a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teenager from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, and…
Harry Belafonte, activist and entertainer, dies at 96
By HILLEL ITALIE NEW YORK (AP) — Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96. Belafonte died…
Community with Confederate monument gets Emmett Till statue
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi community with an elaborate Confederate monument plans to unveil a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, decades after white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager for allegedly whistling at a…
EPA civil rights case targets Mississippi over Jackson water
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, MATTHEW DALY and AARON MORRISON Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced it is investigating whether Mississippi state agencies discriminated against the state’s majority-Black capital city by refusing to fund…
Police to limit Mississippi capital roadblocks after lawsuit
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Police in Mississippi’s capital city have agreed to pull back on aggressive roadblocks in response to a lawsuit that said Jackson officers were violating people’s constitutional right to be free of unreasonable search and…
Troubling questions unresolved in latest end to Till case
By JAY REEVES By her own telling, Mississippi authorities provided Carolyn Bryant Donham with preferential treatment rather than prosecution after her encounter with Emmett Till led to the lynching of the Black teenager in the summer of 1955. Instead of arresting Donham…
Justice Department opens probe into Louisiana State Police
By JIM MUSTIAN and JAKE BLEIBERG BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is opening a sweeping civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police amid mounting evidence that the agency has a pattern of looking the other…
New historical marker for Biloxi Beach Wade-Ins installed
It was a ceremonious rekindling of American history, the marker signifying the Biloxi Wade-In protests has been replaced after it was knocked down by storms. The Biloxi Wade-Ins…
Report: Till slaying still being investigated 65 years later
By JAY REEVES The Justice Department is continuing its investigation into the killing of Emmett Till, the Black teenager whose slaying 65 years ago in Mississippi sparked outrage and illustrated the brutality of racism in the segregated South. The department’s…
Case files on 1964 civil rights worker killings made public
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Never before seen case files, photographs and other records documenting the investigation into the infamous slayings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi are now open to the public for the first time, 57 years after…
Martin Luther King Jr. Day: 5 surprising facts about the civil rights hero
By Stephen Sorace Martin Luther King Jr. carved his way into history as a civil rights hero whose influence and legacy continue to inspire people around the world more than half a century after his death. While the civil rights…
Mississippi politico, civil rights figure Charles Evers dies
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Charles Evers, the older brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers and a longtime figure in Mississippi politics, has died in Mississippi. He was 97. A coroner says Evers…
Local artists create mural featuring Civil Rights Icon John Lewis
As the nation continues to mourn the loss of Civil Rights Icon John Lewis, local Bay St. Louis artists are honoring his contribution to the Civil Rights movement with a mural. The mural came to be last week as the…
Local artists create mural featuring Civil Rights Icon John Lewis
As the nation continues to mourn the loss of Civil Rights Icon John Lewis, local Bay St. Louis artists are honoring his contribution to the Civil Rights movement with a mural. The mural came to be last week as the…
Biloxi Beach Wade-In Memorial
It’s been 60 years since the Biloxi Wade-Ins when unarmed African American protesters suffered while taking a stand to desegregate the beaches. The Biloxi beaches are known as a place to lay in the sun and relax. In the 1960s,…
Memorial service in honor of Biloxi Beach Wade-Ins
It’s been 60 years since the Biloxi Wade-Ins when unarmed African American protestors suffered while taking a stand to desegregate the beaches. To honor those like Dr. Gilbert R. Mason Sr. and Clemon P. Jimerson Sr., a memorial service will…