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mississippi
Mississippi God Bless—and God Bless the Civil Rights Martyrs Who Died for Voting Rights
Blessings should go to those who fought and died struggling for a better future for people across the South.
Nov 12, 2026
I cried tears of joy when I first heard the news of Scott Colom's victory as Mississippi's US Senator. It's historic. But it's also somewhat personal to me. When I was young I l heard the great Nina Simone perform her song "Mississippi Goddam" at the Village Vanguard.
Maybe today, decades later, she could sing "Mississippi God Bless."
But blessings also should go to the civil rights activists who fighting and died struggling for voting rights, some of whom I had loose personal connections with.
James Cheny, Andy Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner were tortured, murdered, and buried in a swamp by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to register black people to vote during Mississippi Freedom Summer. My mother knew Andy Goodman's mother, a psychologist and social activist, so this was a personal as well as political loss for my family.
My wife was a distant relative of Mickey Schwerner and had dinner at his family's home when she was about 15. Mickey introduced her to soul music. After they left, her father, a Republican, said they would never go back since he considered the progressive Schwerner family to be "communists." But this alleged communist gave his life fighting to bring democracy to the Jim Crow south.
My father was also friendly with Dr. Martin Luther King. Born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, he chaired the New York chapter of the Southern Conference Educational Fund which raised money for the civil rights movement. I met Dr. King as a child when he had dinner at our home and was inspired by him for the rest of my life.
It may have taken decades for Mississippi to elect its first African American senator in nearly a century. But now, later in life, I experience it as an historic victory for democracy. But also it's a belated victory for Dr. King, James Cheney, Andy Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, and so many others who risked, and even sacrificed their lives fighting for civil rights and voting rights.
The fight isn't over. But today I say this: "Mississippi God Bless."
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'The South Is in Play': Scott Colom Wins US Senate Race in Deep-Red Mississippi
"If this is what Southern organizers and candidates can accomplish with limited investment, imagine what is possible when we meet their leadership and labor with the resources they deserve."
Nov 12, 2026
Local district attorney Scott Colom was declared the winner of a closely contested US Senate race in deep-red Mississippi on Wednesday after more than a week of ballot counting, a historic upset victory for grassroots organizing in a state that Republicans have dominated for decades.
"I had the courage to believe in Mississippi," said Colom, who will become the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction. Colom is also the first Democrat to win a US Senate election in Mississippi since 1982, succeeding despite ongoing attacks on voting rights across the state.
Incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), who in 2023 blocked Colom's nomination to serve as a federal district judge, conceded the race on Wednesday and congratulated the Democratic senator-elect.
Colom said in his victory speech at Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Jackson, that he sometimes "couldn't get donors to answer the phone" when fundraising for his campaign, a jab at Democratic higher-ups' lack of investment in Mississippi and the South more broadly.
Senate Democrats' campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), excluded Mississippi from a $40 million investment in battleground states across the country in July. The DSCC ultimately intervened in the final days of the race with a $500,000 ad buy for Colom, who campaigned on fighting the affordability crisis, raising wages and tying them to living costs, and reversing GOP cuts to federal healthcare programs.
Colom drew widespread attention with viral ad campaigns spotlighting Hyde-Smith's comments downplaying the rising cost of beef.
"You know, you have so many proteins to choose from," the Republican senator said in February.
"Pick another protein?" a Mississippi resident responds in one Colom campaign ad. "I'd rather pick another senator instead."
Britney Whaley, Southeast regional director of the Working Families Party, celebrated Colom's win as a challenge to "everything conventional wisdom tells us about Southern politics."
"This historic win in Mississippi should serve as a clarion call for the political establishment: It’s time to redraw the entire political map, reevaluate polling methods, and conduct a serious audit of investment portfolios. The South is in play, and it’s time to start acting like it," said Whaley. "This win belongs to the countless Black leaders and grassroots organizers who envisioned a future for Mississippi that much of the country could not imagine and spent years organizing, building, and fighting to bring that vision to life. And it belongs to the Mississippi voters who refused to have their voices silenced, showing up in the face of archaic and suppressive voting laws to make their voices heard."
"If this is what Southern organizers and candidates can accomplish with limited investment," Whaley added, "imagine what is possible when we meet their leadership and labor with the resources they deserve."
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement that "Mississippi voters made history because they refused to be intimidated, discouraged, or counted out."
"Even in the face of efforts to remove voters from the rolls, attempts to intimidate voters and election officials, and bids to create fear around the electoral process, Mississippi voters showed up," said Johnson. "They showed up for their communities, for their families, and for the future of their state. They reminded the nation that we the people have the power."
With Colom's victory, Democrats are set to hold at least 55 seats in the US Senate come January. Alaska's Senate race, where Democratic candidate Mary Peltola is narrowly leading Republican Dan Sullivan, has yet to be called.
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‘Where Is Cindy Hyde-Smith?’ Scott Colom Says GOP Incumbent Must Explain Her Path to Victory
“She doesn’t have one.”
Nov 06, 2026
As Democratic US Senate candidate Scott Colom's lead over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith surpassed 2,000 votes in the too-close-to-call race in Mississippi—a state that hasn't elected a Democrat to the upper chamber since 1982, the year Colom was born—the candidate expressed frustration that Hyde-Smith has been nowhere to be seen during the ballot-counting process.
Colom told CNN that he has faith in the tallying of votes, in which provisional and affidavit ballots are now being counted, but urged Hyde-Smith to speak publicly and suggested she should be ready to concede.
"Ultimately, at some point, the senator needs to speak out. Where is Cindy Hyde-Smith?... Why can't she speak for herself? Why's she got to have Chairman Hurst speaking for her?" said Colom, referring to state Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst.
Hurst said Thursday that "there is no election denying going on here" and affirmed that Republicans will accept a victory by Colom, who would be the state's first Black senator elected since 1870, during Reconstruction, "if the laws are followed."
"We want to hear from her," added Colom. "What is her path to victory? She doesn't have one. Chairman Hurst knows that, I know that, the people of Mississippi have spoken, we all know where this is going."
Colom: "I have faith that the process will be followed correctly. Everybody just needs to calm down, follow the law. It's very clear the direction of this. Ultimately, at some point the senator needs to speak out. Where is Cindy Hyde-Smith? Why can't she speak for herself? What is her path for victory? She doesn't have one."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 6, 2026
The Associated Press reported late Friday morning that Colom's lead had grown to 2,010 votes.
Hyde-Smith and her allies had believed that as affidavit and provisional ballots were counted, she would surpass the district attorney, but the Mississippi Free Press reported that Colom's lead has only gotten larger as each new batch of votes has been tallied.
More mail-in absentee ballots could still arrive before their deadline of November 10, which is also the last day of counting for affidavit ballots, which were cast by voters who did not bring their ID to the polls and had to identify themselves to their circuit clerk’s office before their vote would be counted.
Many of the absentee ballots that have yet to be counted are from Hinds County, which includes the heavily Democratic and majority-Black capital city of Jackson.
The Mississippi Free Press reported Friday that Colom's lead among the affidavit ballots cast in Chickasaw County was 55.2 points, and he has overperformed on affidavit ballots that were cast in counties that Hyde-Smith won overall.
In Itawamba County, the Republican senator leads by 65.8 points, but "her lead among affidavit ballots is substantially lower, at 46 points, meaning Colom is significantly overperforming in the county’s affidavit ballots."
More than 95% of all votes have been counted, according to The New York Times. Political observers saw Colom's victory in Forrest County, named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest and carried by President Donald Trump by 18 points in 2024, as one sign that the Democrat could win the election.
On Thursday, lawyers for Colom's campaign cautioned county election commissioners and circuit clerks in Mississippi against following a demand by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) that they segregate affidavit ballots in preparation for a potential legal challenge.
"Those demands have no basis in Mississippi law, and if you depart from ordinary election procedures as you have been asked to do, you will violate Mississippi voters’ rights and Mississippi election law," wrote Jacquelyn Lopez with the Elias Law Group.
The state Supreme Court has barred election officials from changing election procedures during vote-counting, and the separation of affidavit ballots could result in ballots being separated from their envelopes, putting voters' right to a secret ballot in jeopardy, said the Colom campaign.
Gerard Henderson, Colom's campaign manager, called the NRSC demand "a desperate stunt" and said it was "what you do when you know you’re about to lose a race."
"We’re confident that when every lawful ballot is counted, Scott Colom will be Mississippi’s next US senator,” Henderson said.
Mississippi Free Press news editor Ashton Pittman noted Wednesday that Colom would "likely be a federal judge right now—not [Hyde-Smith's] opponent—if not for the fact that she blocked [President Joe] Biden's nomination of him over his support for trans rights."
Hyde-Smith blocked Biden's nomination of Colom to be US District Court Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi in 2023, citing his "opposition to legislation to protect female athletes."
Colom had not stated any views on which teams transgender student athletes should play on at the time. In 2021 he signed a letter opposing “ongoing efforts to criminalize transgender people and gender-affirming healthcare across the country."
"If she loses to Scott Colom," said Pittman, "Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith will have helped set her own defeat in motion."
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Scott Colom on Cusp of Historic Senate Upset in Deep-Red Mississippi, Fueled by Surge of Black Turnout
"Mississippi has never been a lost cause," said Colom, who could be the state's first Black senator since Reconstruction. "We've been a betrayed cause."
Nov 04, 2026
Scott Colom is on the verge of a historic upset in Mississippi, where he could become the state's first Democrat elected to the US Senate in more than four decades.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Decision Desk HQ showed Colom, a Black prosecutor and criminal justice reform advocate, holding a razor-thin margin of 1,864 votes over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith with more than 95% of ballots counted.
Even on a night when Democrats clobbered the GOP up and down the map and won decisively in states as red as Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa, very few analysts believed Mississippi—where President Donald Trump won by nearly 23 points in 2024—would be competitive, let alone a nail-biter that dragged into the next day.
But NBC election analyst Steve Kornacki explained Wednesday morning that with thousands of votes left to count in overwhelmingly Democratic Hinds County, “Colom could absolutely win this.”
In a 5-4 decision that now looms large, the US Supreme Court shot down Republican efforts to stop the counting of mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that arrive afterward. Those ballots, which can continue arriving until November 10, may ultimately decide the election.
Even if Colom falls short, his strong showing was evidence of what the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, described as "historic voter turnout" in Black communities, in response to Republicans' attack on the Voting Rights Act.
Following the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision earlier this year, several GOP-controlled states, including those in the Deep South, moved to redraw congressional and state legislative districts in ways that voting rights advocates warned would dilute Black voting power.
On the campaign trail, Colom described Callais as "a threat to our democracy" and said Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who proposed legislative maps that would have drawn Black lawmakers out of their districts, was seeking to stop Black voters from "being able to pick leaders they want."
When the court’s conservatives kneecapped the Voting Rights Act, they inspired a fierce backlash among Black voters across the South," explained reporter Jim Saksa in an analysis for Democracy Docket. "Massive Black turnout helped Democrats coast to victory in Georgia and made the Senate races in Mississippi and Louisiana the tightest seen in decades."
Voter turnout in Mississippi is on pace to be about 40% higher than in the last midterm election in 2022. In majority-Black Hinds County, which contains Jackson, unofficial results showed nearly 76,500 votes for the two leading US Senate candidates alone, about 44% more than the total number of ballots cast four years ago.
"The story of this election is not just about who won," said Dominik Whitehead, chief of field for the NAACP. "It's about the Black wave of voters who understood what was at stake and made their voices heard."
Democratic US Senate candidate Scott Colom of Mississippi stands outside the home of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, in a video posted on November 1, 2026. (Screenshot from a video by Scott Colom)
Colom didn’t have to water down his platform much to achieve tremendous gains, even in a deep-red state. As political strategist Paul Hilder explained, he “ran on a ‘commonsense’ economic populist platform aimed at daily life: gas, groceries, healthcare, and closing hospitals, plus Medicaid expansion.”
In the nation’s poorest state, where nearly 1 in 5 residents rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, this message was potent. It was especially effective against Hyde-Smith, who has comfortably won her previous elections and was relentlessly criticized for dismissing voters’ concerns about high prices.
For example, in DeSoto County, which Trump carried by 24 points in 2024, Colom led Hyde-Smith by more than six points in early returns.
"[Colom] won many switchers, and the Republican vote collapsed," Hilder said. "Swing voters are more volatile than ever, especially when they’re economically hard-pressed. They respond to common sense, and they’ve decided Trump and the Republicans are not on their side."
Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since Sen. John C. Stennis, a conservative segregationist, won his seventh term in 1982. And although it has the highest proportion of Black residents of any US state, Mississippi has not sent a Black senator to Washington since Reconstruction, when Republican Blanche K. Bruce, who was born into slavery, was elected by the state Legislature.
Colom told NPR last week he’s always believed change was possible and that it has failed to materialize only because of neglect by national Democrats, who have long written the state off as unwinnable.
"The reality is, Mississippi has never been a lost cause," he said. "We've been a betrayed cause."
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'Mississippi Goddam': State AG Calls Police Killing of Toddler Kohen Wiley 'Justified'
"Kohen should be alive," said one civil rights attorney. "He and his family deserve accountability. The fight for justice continues."
Oct 19, 2026
Republican Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch on Monday declared the fatal police shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley “justified,” provoking outrage over a decision that civil rights advocates said underscores the enduring systemic racism in US policing and prosecution.
Wiley, who is Black, was killed on June 14 in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Mississippi as he sat in his mother’s arms inside a car. Police had responded to an allegation that his mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and another woman, Latoya Ferrell—the baby's aunt—had stolen diapers.
Senatobia Police Sgt. Hunter Foster, who is white, opened fire on the car, striking Wiley and Ferrell, who was critically wounded. Neither woman has been charged, and authorities have not publicly released evidence establishing that a theft occurred.
“I watched my baby take his first breath, and I watched my baby take his last breath,” Wiley said after her son's killing.
A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE. Horror and racism from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch as she announces that the police shooting of Black baby Kohen Wiley was "justified."
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— Indivisible Chicago Alliance ❌👑 (@indivisiblechicago.bsky.social) October 19, 2026 at 12:01 PM
Cellphone video footage showed a vehicle driving away from officers, but does not appear to capture the moment of the shooting. A photo of the car shows bullet holes in the windshield.
In a brief statement, Fitch's office said it had "completed the review" of the shooting and "found the use of force was justified."
The finding means that Foster will face no criminal charges.
"How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen’s family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body camera footage?" national civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Wiley family, said following Fitch's announcement.
"This is a department whose chief was fired after reports of racial slurs in his text messages, and whose officer faced a complaint alleging a racially offensive remark two days before he shot Kohen," he added. "If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it. We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth."
Last month, the city of Senatobia fired former Police Chief Harold Vanderford after text messages emerged in which he regularly used racial slurs.
Marquell Bridges, a Mississippi activist who is president of the Building Bridges Coalition, told the Mississippi Free Press Monday that “there is blood" on the hands of "not just Hunter Foster, but everyone that is complicit in the cover-up, including Attorney General Lynn Fitch."
Rev. Cornell William Brooks—a lawyer, civil rights activist, and professor—posted on social media, "BABY EXECUTION BY JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE."
"With the video, the public won’t buy this," Brooks added. "A fleeing alleged shoplifter does not justify shooting into a vehicle with a known 'baby on board.' Every alleged perception of danger doesn’t justify every Black death."
Writer and racial justice advocate Tanisha Long voiced her indignation in the words of a famous Civil Rights-era protest song from Jazz icon Nina Simone:
"Mississippi Goddam."
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The Time Has Come for a 'Right' to Clean Water
Green Amendments rely upon the highest legal authorities we have in the US–our state and federal constitutions–and use their placement within the Bill of Rights to make environmental rights an unquestionable, enforceable legal entitlement for everyone.
Sep 10, 2026
Sometimes defeat can be clarifying.
Last week, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit against the City of Jackson, Mississippi, in which the plaintiffs alleged that city officials knowingly allowed residents to drink water that was unsafe, tainted with lead and dangerous microbes.
The facts are not in dispute. “The City’s public-water system is fraught with vexing shortcomings,” the court found. “In recent years, it produced water containing lead, E. Coli, and other bacteria, allegedly violated the Safe Drinking Water Act and EPA regulations, shut down and left residents without water for weeks, and necessitated the issuance of dozens of boil-water notices.”
Despite this, the court ruled that the lawsuit could not move forward. The problem for the plaintiffs, as the court found, was that these harms do not rise to the level of constitutional harm. “These deprivations, while grievous,” the court wrote, “do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” And so the court rejected their arguments.
Green Amendments legally elevate our rights to a clean, safe, healthy, and quality environment to the same level as our rights to speech, religion, and a free press.
What are we to make of a situation where a city can neglect its responsibilities, knowingly expose its residents to dangerous and life-altering contamination, and get away with it because, in the eyes of our legal system, “mismanagement of the public-water system resulting in Plaintiffs’ lead exposure is wholly different” from “sexual assault by a police officer,” “forced surgical examination,” “forced stomach pumping for evidence,” “and medicating prisoners against their will”?
Is it truly all that different? Just because the law excuses it, should we truly accept injustices that contaminate our bodies, make us sick, and cause lifelong learning disabilities in children?
We don’t have to–there is another option. We regroup. We reorganize. And we fight back. And in this case, we have a solution.
“It is undisputed that the [US] Constitution does not guarantee clean water,” the court wrote. That’s true. But it's not the whole story.
In Mississippi and in most states across our nation there is no constitutional right to clean water. But in three states, with dozens more on the same path, there is.
In Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth’s Constitution guarantees the “right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment.” It adds: “Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come,” and requires all government officials–both state and local–to conserve and maintain the state's natural resources for the benefit of the people.
The State Constitution of Montana recognizes the inalienable right “to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life’s basic necessities.”
And New York’s constitution declares, “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”
It’s called a Green Amendment, and it is explicitly designed to protect people from harm like that suffered by the residents of Jackson, Mississippi.
Green Amendments are self-executing provisions added to a state constitution’s Bill of Rights or Declaration of Rights that recognize, protect, and guarantee the inalienable rights of all people to an environment of quality, including pure water, clean air, a safe climate, and healthy environments.
Green Amendments legally elevate our rights to a clean, safe, healthy, and quality environment to the same level as our rights to speech, religion, and a free press. Green Amendments are clear in their protections, deriving their strength from plain and clear language, proven legal theories, and robust constitutional court precedent.
In short, Green Amendments rely upon the highest legal authorities we have in the US–our state and federal constitutions–and use their placement within the Bill of Rights to make environmental rights an unquestionable, enforceable legal entitlement for everyone.
When our rights to free speech or religion, to a free press or freedom of assembly are infringed upon by government action, we do not sit idly by and accept it. We rise up and demand our rights be protected, secure in the knowledge that we are backed by the clear and powerful language of our constitutions. Why should our right to pure water, clean air, or a healthy environment be any different? With Green Amendments they do not have to be.
Today pollution and environmental desecration are seen as entitlements of powerful industrial and political interests. Recall that in Sterling v. City of Jackson the court agreed that the city was poisoning its residents–but wouldn’t let the plaintiffs sue to rectify it with a remedy that protected all city residents from harm. Instead the court suggested that pursuit of tort claims, likely resulting in money damages for those who could document harm from the contaminated water, was good enough. That’s just the way it is, the court shrugged.
With Green Amendments, we transform this expectation. Our entitlement to a clean, safe, and healthy environment becomes the baseline government must responsibly protect.
Environmental issues are all around us these days: rising carbon emissions driving ever-hotter summers; PFAS, lead, mercury, and other toxic chemicals leaching into our drinking water; the hyperscaling of data centers slurping up ever growing amounts of land, water, and power.
With Green Amendments we may not always win when we experience environmental injustice, but they give us the constitutional ability to say, “No,” to push back, and to fight for our rights.
A Mississippi Green Amendment could have meant a very different outcome for communities living in the City of Jackson.
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Family Seeks Answers, Justice After Mississippi Cop Kills Toddler Kohen Wiley in Walmart Lot
"A 1-year-old child is dead because police officers in Mississippi opened fire on a car in a crowded Walmart parking lot," said attorney Ben Crump.
Jun 16, 2026
Relatives of a toddler shot dead on Sunday by police in rural Mississippi are demanding answers and accountability.
"I don’t know anything right now," Carlos Haynes told Memphis channel WMC. "My grandson gone. I just want justice."
Carolyn Sokes, the slain toddler's great-grandmother, said: "The police department not telling us anything. They removed the baby's body without anybody seeing it. All we know is that a car was shot up and a 1-year-old baby was killed, and then nobody tells us anything, like we're not anybody."
One-year-old Kohen Wiley, who was being held by his mother in the front passenger seat while his aunt was behind the wheel, was shot and killed by police in Senatobia, 40 miles south of Memphis, during an incident in a Walmart parking lot. The baby's aunt was also shot and critically injured.
Cellphone video footage obtained by Fox 13 Memphis shows a vehicle driving away from officers, but does not appear to capture the moment of the shooting. A photo of the car shows bullet holes in the windshield.
An eyewitness told WREG that “I seen the officers take off running, not in the car, I’m talking about on feet."
“They’re running through the parking lot and I see the car take off, you know, so in my head, I’m like, I know they’re not chasing the car, they don’t think they’re going to catch the car. Then I hear gunshots, and I’m like, I know they’re not shooting at a car that’s leaving in public; this is Walmart."
Another witness said that he heard two gunshots fired by officers who were already waiting in the Walmart parking lot as the two women left the store holding a box of diapers and the baby.
According to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS):
Law enforcement officers responded to a shoplifting call at Walmart on US 51. Upon arrival, officers encountered two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle. Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene. The subjects arrived at a local hospital where one juvenile child in the vehicle was pronounced deceased, and another subject had critical injuries. No law enforcement officers received any serious physical injury.
The responding law enforcement agencies—the Senatobia Police Department (SPD) and Tate County Sheriff's Office (TCSO)—have yet to release the names of the involved officers or any video footage of the incident.
TCSO said deputies were in the area investigating an unrelated matter when their assistance was requested. On Monday, Tate County Sheriff Luke Shepherd declined to comment about the shooting, including whether anyone had been charged, citing pending investigations, according to Mississippi Today.
SPD issued a statement saying it is "committed to full transparency" and "will share as much information as possible" with the public.
Walmart said in a written statement, “We’re saddened by what took place at our Senatobia, MS store."
Relatives of the slain toddler said his mother and aunt were not shoplifting and expressed wariness about local police, who have been embroiled in multiple brutality scandals involving Black victims in recent years.
“Senatobia Police Department get away with too much stuff,” Stokes, the great-grandmother, told WREG. “I hear about it all the time, it’s in the news all the time."
Licole Wiley, the child’s grandmother and the sister of the critically injured woman, lamented that the toddler died "allegedly over some Pampers."
"Whatever the incident may have come to, it still didn’t need for you to shoot two adults and a baby that was not even a threat to you," she added.
Another one of the child's grandmothers, Lasandra Williams, said that “everybody that was involved needs to be held accountable."
"I’m not giving up until I get justice,” she added. “Justice will be served. If it has anything to do with me, it will be served.”
Mississippi Today reported Tuesday that Wiley's relatives have hired national civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
"A 1-year-old child is dead because police officers in Mississippi opened fire on a car in a crowded Walmart parking lot," Crump said in a statement. "Kohen Wiley was a baby. His mother, who has not been charged with any crime, says she was trying to communicate to officers that there was a baby in the car. They fired anyway, leading to the death of an innocent 1-year-old. We intend to seek justice for baby Kohen and the life that was stolen from him.”
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'I Am Speechless': Historians Sickened as Trump Set to Remove Mention of Racism from Medgar Evers Monument
"The murder of Medgar Evers was an act of racial terror," said human rights activist Martin Luther King III.
Feb 05, 2026
Historians and other critics expressed disgust on Thursday after news broke that the Trump administration was removing references to racism from the monument dedicated to civil rights icon Medgar Evers.
According to a report from Mississippi Today, the National Park Service has removed visitor brochures from the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument in Jackson, Mississippi.
Two Park Service employees tell Mississippi Today that the brochures are expected to undergo significant revisions, including removing references labeling Evers' killer, Byron De La Beckwith, as a racist.
In fact, Beckwith was a member of both the White Citizens Council and the Ku Klux Klan, and remained a committed white supremacist up to his death in prison in 2001.
Mississippi Today noted that the removal of the brochures at the Evers monument aren't a one-off event, and the publication cited an earlier report from the Washington Post detailing how the Trump administration "has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, including an 1863 photo that Christian abolitionists used to prove the horrors of slavery."
US Civil War historian Kevin Levin reacted with shock to the Trump administration's latest effort to whitewash American history.
"I am speechless," he wrote in a social media post referencing the changes to the Evers monument.
Historian Todd Arrington, site manager of the James A. Garfield National Historic Site, noted the suspicious timing of the change in the monument brochures.
"Today is the 32nd anniversary of Byron De La Beckwith’s February 5, 1994 conviction for murdering Medgar Evers in 1963," he wrote. "I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that this news broke today. That racist POS—who bragged about killing Evers at Klan meetings and rallies—died in prison in 2001."
Human rights activist Martin Luther King III, son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., slammed the Trump administration for trying to distort history.
"The murder of Medgar Evers was an act of racial terror," wrote King. "That fact is not partisan. It is historical. Calling it anything else is not 'restoring truth.' It is erasing it."
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After 'Bonkers' 5th Circuit Ruling, Supreme Court to Hear Mail-In Ballot Case
While experts hope the justices will reverse an "objectively insane" appellate decision, a ruling in favor of the Republican National Committee could reduce the rights of Americans who vote by mail.
Nov 10, 2025
As President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned leaders who tried to overturn his 2020 loss, the US Supreme Court took up the national Republican Party's argument that counting mailed ballots shortly after Election Day violates federal law.
Voting by mail has long been a target of the GOP president, who has falsely claimed that the practice fuels voter fraud. This case concerns a Mississippi law that allows mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted as long as they arrive within five business days, which three Trump appointees on the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit struck down last year.
That lawsuit was brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Mississippi Libertarian Party. Another Republican, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch‚ is asking the nation's top court to reject the 5th Circuit's decision, arguing that it "defies statutory text, conflicts with this court's precedent, and—if left to stand—will have destabilizing nationwide ramifications."
The Supreme Court—which has a conservative supermajority that includes three Trump appointees—agreed to hear Watson v. RNC and decide "whether the federal Election Day statutes preempt a state law that allows ballots that are cast by federal Election Day to be received by election officials after that day."
The Supreme Court will review an objectively insane 5th Circuit decision that prohibited states from counting ballots that were mailed before Election Day but arrive shortly after. (More than half the states have such laws.) www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) November 10, 2025 at 9:44 AM
The Associated Press pointed out Monday that "Mississippi is among 18 states and the District of Columbia that accept mailed ballots received after Election Day as long as the ballots are postmarked on or before that date," and "an additional 14 states allow the counting of late-arriving ballots from some eligible voters, including overseas US service members and their families."
Legal experts have condemned the appellate decision as "awful" and "bonkers." The justices are expected to hear arguments early next year and issue a ruling by the end of June, months before the crucial midterm elections.
National Vote At Home Institute executive director Barbara Smith Warner welcomed their decision to take the case and potentially reverse the 5th Circuit's "upside-down" opinion, telling Democracy Docket: "The idea that a ballot that is postmarked on or by Election Day and received afterwards... is like voting after Election Day? That is ridiculous."
Unfortunately I am here to tell you: it's time to worry about what the Supreme Court is going to do to mail ballots postmarked by election day that arrive after election day, in states across the country. This could be enormous.www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
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— jen rice (@jenrice.bsky.social) November 10, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Alexia Kemerling, director of accessible democracy at the American Association of People with Disabilities, was also hopeful.
"We really hope that the Supreme Court takes the responsibility seriously to make sure that every voter can use their power," she said. "'The millions of voters with disabilities who cannot vote in person or voters who are overseas who cannot vote in person—this is their only way to participate in the system. They should not be disenfranchised for the ways that our system moves slowly."
The New York Times noted that Watson v. RNC "is a potential blockbuster and adds to the court's other elections and voting cases for the term, which include a case about who can sue to challenge Illinois' mail-in ballot rules and a challenge to the Louisiana congressional district map that could gut a remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act."
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Election Day Sweep for Dems Just Predictable Blue State Wins? Local, State Races Tell Different Story
In addition to high-profile victories in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, Democrats came away with upset wins in Georgia and Mississippi.
Nov 05, 2025
Leading Republicans such as US House Speaker Mike Johnson and right-wing media outlets like Fox News are trying to downplay Democrats' sweeping victories in key elections held on Tuesday, even though many of the party's victories came in areas that are not traditional Democratic strongholds.
Speaking in Washington, DC on Wednesday morning, Johnson dismissed the Democratic wins as entirely predictable given the recent voting histories of New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.
"There's no surprises," Johnson said. "What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming. And no one should read too much into last night's election results. Off-year elections are not indicative of what's to come, that's what history teaches us."
Mike Johnson: "What happened last night is blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming. And no one should read too much into last night's election results." pic.twitter.com/AO72p71Zsj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2025
But despite Johnson's claims, Democrats on Tuesday also won major victories in two southern states that supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 general election.
As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson ousted incumbent Republicans serving on Georgia's Public Service Commission, which is responsible for regulating utility prices in the state.
According to The New York Times, this will mark the first time that any Democrat has served on the commission since 2007, and it came after the commission signed off on six rate increases for the state's largest electricity provider over the past two years.
The Times also reported that Georgia Republicans are worried that the twin losses in Public Service Commission are an ill omen for next year's elections, when the GOP will seek to oust Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and maintain its hold on the governor's mansion.
In an interview with Politico, one Republican strategist said that the Democrats' wins in Georgia showed the challenges facing the GOP in getting low-propensity Trump voters to the polls in elections where he is not on the ballot.
"The one thing that would worry me, besides making sure you hold the House, is looking at how Democrats were able to fire up their base in some of these local elections in Georgia," they said.
In Mississippi, meanwhile, Democrats broke the GOP's supermajority in the state Senate for the first time in over a decade by flipping three seats. According to Mississippi Free Press, losing the Senate supermajority will make it significantly harder for the Mississippi Republicans to "override a governor’s veto, propose constitutional amendments, and execute certain procedural actions."
While Democrats in the state celebrated the wins, Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Cheikh Taylor warned that it could be undone if the US Supreme Court strikes down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that has historically been used to create of majority-minority districts to ensure Black voters in southern states have proper representation.
"Last night's victory proves that Mississippi is no longer a foregone conclusion—we are a battleground state," Taylor said. "But this win was only possible because the Voting Rights Act ensures fair representation. If the Supreme Court dismantles these protections, we risk silencing the very voices that made last night’s historic outcome possible. As voters continue to reject Trump's agenda in 2026 and 2027, we must protect the fundamental right that makes change possible: The right to vote."
While the wins in Georgia and Mississippi were impressive on their own, data analyst G. Elliott Morris found that shifts toward Democrats weren't confined to any individual state or city, but were incredibly broad.
Writing on his Substack page, Morris revealed that "almost every single county" in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia in this week's elections moved toward Democrats compared to how they voted in 2024.
"What we saw last night was a directional shift toward Democrats in 99.8% of counties that held partisan elections," Morris explained. "With few exceptions, voters everywhere moved to the left from 2024 to 2025."
What's more, Morris found that the shift toward Democrats wasn't simply the result of having lower turnout elections, which typically are beneficial to the party out of power.
"Average turnout in [New Jersey and Virginia] was close to 80% of 2024 levels, which is impressive for an off-off-year election—and the swing to Democrats there was still 7-8 points," he explained. "So I wouldn’t dismiss the results of last night just because low-turnout-propensity voters stayed home. There's evidence of both persuasion and turnout effects in last night’s contests."
David Smith, the Guardian Washington, DC bureau chief, writes in his analysis of election day that "the results were in part a referendum on Trump, whose approval rating has never been lower," and he added that the president was displaying stark political vulnerabilities just one year into his second term.
"His authoritarian grandstanding is a show of weakness rather than strength," he wrote. "From ICE raids and tariffs to his $300 million White House ballroom, his presidency is deeply unpopular. Are you better off than you were a year ago? Voters said no."
Even still, warned Smith, it's important that Democratic leaders don't mistake anger at Trump for glowing enthusiasm for their work atop the party, which remains at historic lows.The results on Tuesday were "never going to solve the riddle" of which direction the Democrats should head, he wrote, with both "progressives and moderates" provided "fodder to make a case" for their respective approach to politics.
For progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who spoke to MSNBC from New York at Mamdani's victory party, the Democrats need to understand that the party "does not have one face," but that everyone who wants to defeat Trump and the fascist Republicans "all understand the assignment" before them.
“Our assignment everywhere is to send the strongest fighters for the working class wherever possible," she said. "In some places, like Virginia, for the gubernatorial seat, that’s going to look like Abigail Spanberger. In New York City, unequivocally it is Zohran Mamdani.”
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