The future of the nation is in the
South, the former Confederacy and ground
zero of America’s civil rights struggles. We
need only look to a place like Mississippi
to understand the mess that is this settler
colonial project called America, with its
unaddressed and seemingly intractable
internal contradictions. Mississippi has
shown us the promise of Black power snuffed
out by white supremacy, unjust laws and the
Klan.
Today, Mississippi is an example of
how Black people are once again so close to
cracking the code and freeing ourselves and
the nation in the process. The first time
was during Reconstruction following the
Civil War, when Black folks were a majority
of the population, and had over
200
elected officials, including statewide offices, two
U.S. senators, a lieutenant governor and
secretary of state. A new state constitution
provided for basic rights, including voting
rights, and reforms such as public
education. Then, the federal troops left and
took with them their protection of Black
people, leaving the white power structure to
their own devices and allowing them to take
back the Magnolia state.
The 1890 Mississippi convention -
which had only one Black delegate, Isaiah
Montgomery - was designed to enact a new
state constitution to legalize voter
suppression and strip Black people of their
rights. Specifically, the new constitution
included a poll tax and literacy test to
wipe out Black power in the majority Black
state, and was the death knell for Black
power in that state. Black folks in
Mississippi have not recovered to this day.
In a state of contradictions, the
blackest state in the Union - about 40% - is
among the reddest and most conservative
states. Despite the gains of the civil
rights movement and the legislation that it
brought, there is now an effort in
Mississippi to deprive Black voters of their
voting rights through redistricting and other means. And the state has
not had a statewide Black elected official
since 1890. Welcome to America.
America is a place where they force
you to fight for your basic rights, time and
time again, and Mississippi is a prime
example of this. Known for its Jim Crow-era
lynchings and brutal violence - from the
lynching of Emmett Till and those three
civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew
Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, to the
assassination of Medgar Evers and Vernon
Dahmer and others - Mississippi has been a
hot mess for quite some time. And yet,
today, with the sketchy and suspicious death
of Nolan Xavier Wells, and the Black people
found hanging from trees in 2026, it seems
that the state never separated itself from
its deadly past of racial violence and
racially violent laws. Not surprisingly,
Mississippi typically falls at or near the
bottom of the list of key socioeconomic
indicators such as health, children’s health
and economy, reflecting a state with a
legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, and placing
a low priority on the well-being of people.
Nina Simone said it best - or sang
it best - in her iconic song, “Mississippi
Goddam”:
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about
Mississippi Goddam
Can’t you see it
Can’t you feel it
It’s all in the air
I can’t stand the pressure much
longer
Somebody say a prayer
Later in the song, Simone
elaborates:
…Yes, you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my
ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you’d stop calling me Sister
Sadie
Oh, but this whole country is full
of lies
You’re all gonna die and die like
flies
I don’t trust you any more
You keep on saying “Go slow”
“Go slow”
But that’s just the trouble
“Do it slow”
Desegregation
“Do it slow”
Mass participation
“Do it slow”
Reunification
“Do it slow”
Do things gradually
“Do it slow”
But bring more tragedy
“Do it slow”
Why don’t you see it?
Why don’t you feel it?
don’t know
I don’t know
Mississippi, the blackest state
masquerading as a deep red state, has an
opportunity to change course. In the race
for U.S. Senate, Scott Colom, a Black
Democrat, has a chance to unseat Cindy
Hyde-Smith. And what a wondrous thing it
would be. For many of these states in the
South, white supremacy is living on borrowed
time. Nakedly brutal violence and obscene
Jim Crow laws will only get you so far, and
when demographics catch up with you, that’s
that. In states such as Mississippi,
Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and others,
Black people can vote as a bloc and peel off
a segment of white voters for a winning
coalition, along with Latinx and Asian
voters. Sooner or later, perhaps as early as
November, Black Mississippians will put such
a strategy to the test and win.
