Irin Carmon: And when the time comes, what would you like to be remembered for? RBG: Someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a...
Early one foggy fall morning in 2005 an attorney at the Mississippi Center for Justice walked up to the entrance of the brick office in Biloxi and saw to his surprise a group of young people apparently waiting for him at the door. “Hello, and...
Hurricane Katrina’s powerful surge swept casino barges onto highways, upended bridges, and inundated areas untouched by any prior storm, making the point with sheer brute force that status quo precautions no longer were adequate. As Mississippians emerged from shelter to face a new reality, the...
As the devastation of Hurricane Katrina became clear to the public, a popular saying took hold: the storm was “an equal-opportunity destroyer.” What this phrase neglects is the fact that this storm struck a profoundly inequitable society shaped for generations by Jim Crow law. For...
On Friday, August 28, MCJ brought its case regarding absentee voting during the COVID-19 pandemic to a socially distanced courtroom in the Hinds County Chancery Courthouse, where we contended that Mississippi’s absentee ballot law should be interpreted to give voters the choice of voting absentee...
Fifty years ago, almost to the day, I began working at the Wilkes Elementary School in Money, Mississippi – literally a hundred feet (across the Money Road) from the Bryant Grocery Store. I, of course, knew all about the Bryant Store. And I knew about...
There were an estimated 900,000 young Americans without authorized immigration status in 2012. Today there are over 1.3 million. These individuals were brought here as children, sometimes just days old, and America is their only home. Undocumented persons do not have Social Security numbers. They...
At the Mississippi Center for Justice, we know from experience that disasters accelerate social trends already in place, for good or for ill. We saw it in housing after Hurricane Katrina and in our coastal ecosystems after the BP oil disaster. And it is just...
February 7, 2018 was National Black HIV Awareness Day. This year’s theme was “Stay the Course, the Fight is Not Over.” Our greatest fight yet is stressing the importance of individuals getting tested to know their HIV status. The Centers for Disease Control recommends individuals...
Not very long ago, the shortage of affordable rental housing was only a concern of those living in the dense population centers of the East and West Coasts. Unfortunately, rising rents and declining household incomes are now crippling low and moderate- income renters here in Mississippi. Meanwhile,...