JACKSON, Miss. (AP) \u2014 Random gunfire, repeated break-ins and a decaying city water system are constant challenges at Mom\u2019s Dream Kitchen, the soul food restaurant Timothy Norris\u2019 mother opened 35 years ago in Mississippi\u2019s capital.
\n\u201cI have some cousins that live in Ohio,\u201d said Norris, who has spent most of his 54 years in Jackson and now owns the restaurant. \u201cThey came last year. They hadn\u2019t been here in 22 years. They were completely shocked at Jackson.\u201d
\nCiting rising crime, Mississippi\u2019s Republican-controlled House recently passed a bill that would expand areas of Jackson patrolled by a state-run Capitol Police force and create a new court system with appointed rather than elected judges. Both would give white state government officials more power over Jackson, which has the highest percentage of Black residents of any major U.S. city.
\nThe state Senate has also passed a bill to establish a regional governing board for Jackson\u2019s long-troubled water system, with most members appointed by state officials. The system nearly collapsed last year and is now under control of a federally-appointed manager.
\nThe proposals for state control have angered Jackson residents who don\u2019t want their voices diminished in local government, and are the latest example of the long-running tensions between the Republican-run state government and the Democratic-run capital city.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s really a stripping of power, and it\u2019s happening in a predominantly Black city that has predominantly Black leadership,\u201d said Sonya Williams-Barnes, a Democratic former state lawmaker who is now Mississippi policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. \u201cYou don\u2019t see this going on in other areas of the state where they\u2019re run by majority white people.\u201d
\nNorris notes state government officials have long been unwilling to help Jackson with the water system and other problems.
\n\u201cWe had to go through all this by ourselves. Solo,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, all of the sudden you want to come and take it and say, \u2018OK, well, we\u2019re going to take over.\u2019 You know, treating us like kids. We\u2019re not kids.\u201d
\nMayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the proposal for courts with appointed judges reeks of apartheid and \u201cplantation politics.\u201d
\n\u201cIf we allow this type of legislation to stand in Jackson, Mississippi, it\u2019s a matter of time before it will hit New Orleans, it\u2019s a matter of time before it hits Detroit, or wherever we find our people,\u201d Lumumba said.
\nThe sponsor of the expanded police and court bill, Republican Rep. Trey Lamar, from a rural town more than 170 miles (275 kilometers) north of Jackson, said it\u2019s aimed at making Mississippi\u2019s capital safer and at reducing a backlog in the judicial system.
\n\u201cI can assure you that the bill has zero racial intent whatsoever,\u201d said Lamar, who is white, in response to arguments that courts with appointed judges would disenfranchise Jackson voters. \u201cThere is nothing racial about the bill on its face, and there is no intent for the effect to be racial.\u201d
\nStill, Black lawmakers say creating courts with appointed judges would strip away voting rights in a state where older generations of Black people still remember the struggle for equal access to the ballot.
\nJudges for the proposed new courts would not be required to live in Jackson or even the county where it\u2019s located. They would be appointed by the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court \u2014 a position currently held by a white conservative man from outside Jackson.
\nAbout 83% of Jackson\u2019s nearly 154,000 residents are Black, and some 25% live in poverty. The pace of white flight accelerated in the 1980s, about a decade after public schools integrated. Many middle-class and wealthy Black families have also left the city. The potholes marring its streets are a jarring reminder of the struggle to maintain aging infrastructure.
\nMississippi\u2019s current Republican governor, Tate Reeves, campaigned on withholding state financial support the city requested. During last year\u2019s water crisis, Reeves, speaking elsewhere, said, it was \u201cas always, a great day to not be in Jackson.\u201d
\nJackson residents have a longstanding distrust of the water system because of frequent warnings that the water must be boiled to kill contaminants before it\u2019s safe to drink. During crises in August and September and again in December, people waited in long lines for bottled water.
\nStill, opponents of a regional water board note that state officials sought a role only after the federal government approved hundreds of millions of dollars for the troubled system.
\nThe Capitol Police are intended to supplement rather than replace the short-staffed Jackson Police Department. The state-run force has in the past year been involved in several violent incidents, including the shooting death of a Black man during a traffic stop and a crash that killed another Black man during a police chase.
\nAt Mt. Helm Baptist Church, near the Mississippi Capitol building, the Rev. CJ Rhodes said many people in his predominantly Black congregation strongly object to expanding Capitol Police territory and creating courts with appointed judges.
\n\u201cThey feel \u2014 viscerally feel \u2014 like this is taking us back to the 1950s and 1960s,\u201d said Rhodes, who is the son of a civil rights attorney.
\nPeople pushing the legislation failed to consult with most Jackson lawmakers or Jackson residents, the pastor said.
\n\u201cIt feels like this sort of white paternalism: \u2018We\u2019re going to come in and do what we need to do, citizens of Jackson be damned,\u2019\u201d Rhodes said.
\nMaati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall\u2019s Music & Bookstore in a once-thriving and now struggling Black business district in downtown Jackson, said she\u2019s not surprised by the majority-white Legislature\u2019s attempts to control Jackson.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a land grab. It\u2019s a resource grab. It\u2019s a way to disempower Jackson and its citizens, for its citizens not to have a say,\u201d said Primm, whose storefront window displays a handwritten sign: \u201cJim Crow Must Go\u201d \u2014 a phrase on T-shirts that Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers had in his car the night a white supremacist assassinated him in Jackson in 1963.
\nPrimm said legislators\u2019 proposals \u2014 especially for appointed judges \u2014 are problematic.
\n\u201cYou know, it should reek of unconstitutionality, but here in Mississippi, it\u2019s just the same old song,\u201d she said.
\nThe Capitol Police currently patrol state government buildings in and near downtown. The House bill would expand the territory to cover the city\u2019s more affluent shopping and residential areas, and several neighborhoods that are predominantly white.
\nCritics say it\u2019s an effort to create a city within the city, diluting Black voices and providing extra police coverage for areas that already have lower crime rates than other parts of Jackson.
\nThe House and Senate have exchanged the bills for more debate. On Thursday, a Senate committee suggested having Capitol Police patrol the entire city.
\nJackson is not the first case of a majority-Black city having local authority stripped away by state government. That happened in Flint, Michigan, when an emergency manager appointed by then-Republican Gov. Rick Snyder made the cost-cutting decision to switch the city\u2019s water supply to the Flint River in 2014. The water wasn\u2019t treated to reduce corrosion from old pipes, causing lead contamination. The disaster was greatly compounded by indifference by state environmental regulators, despite widespread complaints about water quality.
\nIn Jackson, some white residents also object to a wider territory for the Capitol Police and new courts with appointed judges.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous. I think judges should be elected officials,\u201d said Dan Piersol, a retired art museum curator who lives in a neighborhood that would be patrolled by Capitol Police and in the new court district.
\nKelly Crim said she was unaware of the new courts proposal but supports expanding Capitol Police patrols into northeast Jackson where she lives with her husband and 15-month-old son.
\nShe said she was pleased the Capitol Police had a more visible presence at the Mississippi State Fair last fall, after fights occurred there in the past.
\n\u201cI know people that … because they knew the Capitol Police were there, felt more comfortable going with kids or at night,\u201d she said.
\nMom\u2019s Kitchen, located in the once-safe neighborhood where Norris grew up, is a casual place serving baked chicken, turnip greens and candied sweet potatoes. The dining room has a broken window with cardboard taped over it, a vestige of earlier vandalism.
\nNorris said he often feels unsafe working in the area. A few months ago, he said, he and some employees were looking outside when \u201ca guy just rolled by … shooting in the air.\u201d
\n\u201cIt scared me,\u201d said Norris, who is also a licensed therapist specializing in helping young Black men, including those traumatized by violence.
\nHe said some of his patients have had violent encounters with law enforcement officers. Norris said he would like to see a more effective police presence in Jackson, but he is concerned the Capitol Police are not the answer.
\n\u201cPolicemen should be building a relationship with the community,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n
Apnews<\/p>\n
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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) \u2014 Random gunfire, repeated break-ins and a decaying city water system are constant challenges at Mom\u2019s Dream Kitchen, the soul food restaurant Timothy Norris\u2019 mother opened 35 years ago in Mississippi\u2019s capital. \u201cI have some cousins that live in Ohio,\u201d said Norris, who has spent most of his 54 years in Jackson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[2632,1961,1962],"class_list":["post-6520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-capital","tag-jackson","tag-mississippi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6522,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6520\/revisions\/6522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}