Mississippi

Mississippi Autoworkers Mobilize

July 18, 2017 Michelle Chen, www.dissentmagazine.org Resist! Cars, Manufacturing, Mississippi, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Michelle Chen for Dissent - The workers at the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, had high hopes when the state-of-the-art factory complex moved in fourteen years ago to a small, majority black town where more than a quarter of residents live in poverty and decent jobs are scarce. As the manufacturing economy stagnated in the early 2000s, Nissan brought a streak of Clinton-era economic optimism into this struggling corner of the South. The global auto giant erected a multinational enterprise that is now the largest local employer, with more than 5,000 blue-collar jobs for an area with a workforce of fewer than 8,000. The factory’s launch was intended to make Canton a keystone of Mississippi’s “advanced manufacturing” growth agenda, promising decades of job development. But paint technician Morris Mock sees his hopes evaporate every day on the line. After fourteen years at the plant, he says, “People are hurting inside of my factory.” His fellow coworkers have been concerned by what they see as increasingly unstable working conditions and general deterioration in benefits and safety protections. A few years ago they campaigned to organize with the United Auto Workers (UAW). Since then, he says, the workers have faced growing hostility from management for seeking to unionize...

Mississippi County Cops Engage In ‘Systematic Targeting Of Black Residents’

May 10, 2017 Nick Wing, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Black People, Cops, Mississippi, Racism, State Violence

By Nick Wing for The Huffington Post - The sheriff’s department of Madison County, Mississippi, methodically and often brutally targets black residents with a coordinated system of checkpoints and unconstitutional searches, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday. These alleged tactics have left the black community of Madison “under a permanent state of siege,” the suit says. In an 86-page complaint, the ACLU of Mississippi and the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP accuse the Madison County Sheriff’s Department of abusing its power to uphold racial segregation and oppression in Mississippi’s wealthiest county. “For Black residents, Madison County is a Constitution-free zone where their right to equal protection under the law and against unreasonable searches and seizures is nonexistent,” Jennifer Riley-Collins, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi, said in a statement. Madison County is approximately 57 percent white and 38 percent black, according to the 2010 Census. The population remains starkly divided along both racial and economic lines, however, with “predominantly Black towns, neighborhoods, and business districts and predominantly white towns, neighborhoods, and business districts,” according to the suit.

Workers, Civil Rights Leaders Join ‘March on Mississippi’

March 5, 2017 Sue Sturgis for Facing South. www.facingsouth.org Resist! Mississippi, Unions, Worker Rights

By Sue Sturgis for Facing South. n what's expected to be the largest protest in Mississippi in years, hundreds of workers, civil rights leaders, and social justice advocates plan to march to the Nissan factory in Canton this Saturday and call on the automaker to respect employees' right to a union election free from fear and intimidation. The March on Mississippi is being organized by the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan, a coalition of civil rights leaders, ministers and worker advocates. It will be led by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and actor Danny Glover, a longtime advocate for the Nissan workers, and will be joined by NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, Sierra Club President Aaron Mair and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi). The march will also be streamed live on the Good Jobs Nation Facebook page.

The Strange Case Of Tennie White

December 8, 2016 Sharon Lerner, www.theintercept.com Educate! Activism, EPA, Mississippi

By Sharon Lerner for The Intercept - ON A MUGGY Thursday morning in June, I drove through the gates of the Federal Correctional Institute in Tallahassee to meet a convicted criminal who, as far as I can tell, is the only person connected to two huge environmental contamination cases in Mississippi to ever serve prison time. Yet, strangely, the convicted felon I was on my way to meet wasn’t a polluter. On the contrary, Tennie White, who was prosecuted by a joint team made up of attorneys from the Environmental Protection Agency and the environmental crimes division of the Justice Department, had spent her professional life exposing contamination.

Mississippi Parents Demand An Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional?

August 25, 2016 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org Resist! Charter Schools, Mississippi, US Constitution

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Mississippi parents are challenging the public funding of charter schools on the grounds that it's not constitutional. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an advocacy group, filed a motion for a summary judgment this week on behalf of the parents, for a speedy answer to this question. The only debate in the case is that of constitutionality, which makes it prime for answering, SPLC told Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas.

Boycotts Won’t Change Mississippi—But History Shows How We Can

June 13, 2016 Jake McGraw, www.yesmagazine.org Resist! Civil Rights, LGBTQ Rights, Mississippi

By Jake McGraw for Yes Magazine - On May 13, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to school districts across the country clarifying that Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools, applies to transgender students—most notably, their right to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. The letter brought backlash from many quarters. But some of the harshest came from my home state of Mississippi, which has a long and brutal tradition of fighting the expansion of civil rights. Declaring his opposition on Facebook, Governor Phil Bryant chose language that evoked the ugliest ghosts of the state’s past...

Jackson: MSDH Report Lead Detection In City Water

January 30, 2016 Anna Wolfe and Sarah Fowler, www.clarionledger.com Educate! Lead Poisoning, Mississippi, Water

By Anna Wolfe and Sarah Fowler for The Clarion-Ledger - Jackson residents learned Friday that the water in some homes in the area has tested positive for lead above the recommended level. Those results came from samples gathered and tested six months ago. The Mississippi State Department of Health confirmed that water tests from 22 percent of its 58-residence sample detected lead levels between 0.017 and 0.02 — above the federal action level of 0.015. The affected areas included 13 residences in southwest Jackson and north Jackson. "What that means is the city is required to take additional compliance measures," said Jackson Director of Public Works Kishia Powell.

Union Election At Mississippi Nissan Plant

July 9, 2014 Joe Atkins, www.southernstudies.org Organize! Elections, Freedom Summer, Labor, Mississippi, Unions

The June 27 pro-union rally by an estimated 400 students, activists, ministers and workers in front of the mile-long Nissan plant here was the perfect culmination of the Mississippi Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Conference in nearby Jackson. College students from as far away as New York and Missouri joined with students from historically black schools in the area such as Jackson State University and Tougaloo College to demand that Nissan allow a fair election for the thousands of workers in Canton to decide if they want to join the United Auto Workers. At the event were legendary civil and labor rights activists like Bob Zellner, still working in the trenches today in Wilson, N.C., prominent actor Danny Glover, veteran labor organizers Bruce Raynor and Richard Bensinger, labor priest Fr. Jeremy Tobin, political strategist Marshall Ganz, and many more. Of course, the students were central to the event, chanting "Ain't No Power But The Power Of The People!" and joining Glover in delivering a petition to company security officers at the front gate that declared: "Labor rights are civil rights."

50th Anniversary Of Freedom Summer

May 26, 2014 Portside, www.portside.org Educate! Civil Rights, Conference, Mississippi

Freedom Summer 50th is a five-day convening to learn from the past, evaluate our present, and strategize for the future. The international conference and youth congress will be held June 25th - 29th, 2014 in Jackson, Mississippi on the campus of Tougaloo College. Work sessions will examine each issue area and explore its context in the present-day struggle for justice not only in Mississippi, but globally. In the summer of 1964, hundreds of summer volunteers from across America convened in Mississippi to put an end to the system of rigid segregation. The civil rights workers and the summer volunteers successfully challenged the denial by the state of Mississippi to keep Blacks from voting, getting a decent education, and holding elected offices. As a result of the Freedom Summer of 1964, some of the barriers to voting have been eliminated and Mississippi has close to 1000 Black state and local elected officials. In fact, Mississippi has more Black elected officials than any other state in the union. While the Freedom Summer of '64 made profound changes in the state of Mississippi and the country, much remains to be accomplished.

Voices Of Jackson Rising

May 13, 2014 VoiceRaiser, www.youtube.com Create! Cooperatives, Mississippi

The Jackson Rising: New Economies Conference explored the possibility of making Jackson, Mississippi a center and example of economic democracy by building strong cooperatives and other forms of worker owned enterprises and financial institutions that will create jobs with dignity, stability, living wages, and quality benefits. The primary objective of the Conference was to educate and mobilize the people of Jackson to meet the economic and sustainability needs of our community. Thanks to Shanina Carmichael, Kali Akuno, June Hardwick, Chokwe Antar Lumumba and Von Anderson for sharing your voices and stories.

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