Days after a grand jury declined to charge anyone in Nolan Wells’ death, questions still remain about what happened to the teenager, who was found dead on July 6, two days after he took a boating trip with friends on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. At a Thursday news conference, Andrew Garrett, a digital forensic expert […]
Mississippi
Posted inCriminal Justice, History
A Series of Hanging Deaths Has Black Families Demanding Answers
This story discusses suicide, self-harm, and mental health crises. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, help is available. You can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or use the chat feature at 988lifeline.org to connect with trained counselors 24/7. A teenage immigrant is reported […]
Posted inNews, Partner Content
Tasia Fortune: Suspect Arrested in Hanging Death in Mississippi
For more than a month, Tasia Fortune’s family has waited for answers after she was found hanging from a tree outside a vacant house in Jackson, Mississippi. This week, authorities arrested a suspect. Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said at a news conference Friday that police had secured search and arrest warrants for Jarques Ratliff, […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Unsafe Water
Federal Court Rules There Is No Constitutional Right to Safe Drinking Water
A federal appeals court has used a decades-long water crisis in one of the Blackest cities in America to rule that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee Americans the right to clean and safe drinking water. The Sept. 4 ruling came even after Jackson, Mississippi, residents alleged officials knew the water was contaminated and assured […]
Posted inEconomic Development, Politics & Policy
A Data Center Promises Jobs in This Black Town, but Residents Aren’t Convinced
CLARKSDALE, Mississippi — Rumors of a potential data center had loomed over Voneshay Walker like a cloud for months. She’d heard the whispers and seen reports of other centers popping up in small towns across the South. She didn’t expect it to hit so close to home. Walker is a native of Tutwiler, Mississippi, a […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
The Battle Over Black Representation in a White Mississippi County
DeSOTO COUNTY, Mississippi. — Hester Jackson-McCray witnessed the beginning of the economic boom in this Mississippi Delta county when she moved south from Chicago in 1999. Year after year, she has watched the county attract newcomers and grow culturally and economically, cotton fields giving way to subdivisions and shopping centers. Other Black families like hers […]
Posted inCourts, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Trump Ordered to Release Billions in Climate Grants Meant for Black Communities
Dominika Parry never stopped fighting for Jackson, Mississippi, residents even after the Trump administration terminated a multibillion-dollar program last year meant to help the Black city still reeling from a water crisis. For years, if water did flow out of Black households’ faucets in Jackson at all, it was often brown. It left elders and […]
Posted inCourts, History, Rural Issues
How One Woman Landed in Jail Over a Fight to Protect Her Family’s Land
Jennine Labuzan spent two weeks in federal custody in June — shuttled from her residence in Georgia to Tennessee to Mississippi — after refusing a judge’s order to sign away more than 1,300 acres of land she says her family has owned for generations. Her arrest and release came after a legal battle she never […]
Posted inMaternal Health, Partner Content
Pregnant Woman’s Roadside Death Triggers Push to Reopen Mississippi Delta Hospital
This story was originally published on Mississippi Today and KFF Health News. BELZONI, Mississippi — Harmony Ball-Stribling’s path to pregnancy had been turbulent, from an endometriosis diagnosis to an arduous in vitro fertilization process and sky-high blood pressure. But as her due date approached in the summer of 2021, her health improved and those storm clouds […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Partner Content
Jackson Residents Warn New Pearl River Plan Won’t Stop the Next Flood
JACKSON, Mississippi — Tamitha Dill worries her house could be in danger every time it rains. Her northeast Jackson neighborhood is highly susceptible to flooding from the nearby Pearl River and its tributaries, and she was one of many residents who evacuated in 2020 when the river crested at near-record levels. Dill has followed evolving government plans […]
