v19n13 - Jackson Water Crisis

JAC K S O N

VOL 19 NO. 13 // MARCH 3 - 30, 2021 // SUBSCRIBE FREE FOR BREAKING NEWS AT JFPDAILY.COM

FREE PRESS MAGAZINE

REPORTING TRUTH TO POWER IN MISSISSIPPI SINCE 2002

Jackson Women Make History Hathorn, p 22

March 2021’s Best Bets Calendar p 25

Water Crisis: How It Happened, What’s Needed Mills and Crown, pp 6-9

Seeking Solutions to Illegal Dumping: Education, Citation, Action Crown, pp 14-16

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JACKSONIAN

contents

of the month

March 3 - 30, 2021 Vol. 19 No. 13

Jessica Nelson

ON THE COVER Angelique Lee Photo by Kayode Crown

4 Publisher’s Note 6 Talks 12 Opinion 14 cover story 18 food

20 Music Marathon

courtesy Jessica Nelson

Phillip Till and Robert Ferren perform a 31-hour set of music at the Flowood Antique Flea Market to benefit Children’s of Mississippi, a children’s hospital.

22 Women of Jackson “But it’s grown into its own beast.” Nelson largely fronts the workload herself, though she notes that Marlon King, who serves as her supervisor at City Hall, has been helpful in getting the program off the ground.

Lead for America, a nation-wide initiative focused on community service and public engagement, took notice of Nelson’s commitment to her community, and her peers nominated her for a three-year term as a hometown/mobility innovation team fellow, a position she accepted in December 2020.

“I’m focused on alumni operations,” Nelson says. “I try to increase opportunities (for participants) and build partnerships with new schools.” While she has not yet traveled to Washington, D.C., to visit the outpost of this latest position, she hopes to be able to visit once the pandemic ends.

Despite travel restrictions, Nelson has stayed busy on Zoom, moderating a recent webinar for the Warrior-Scholar Project entitled “Celebrating Black Women Veterans in STEM,” which highlighted the lack of women of color in the field.

“There’s still not enough women (in STEM) in general,” Nelson says. “The more opportunities we create for women in general, the more opportunities we’ll have for minority communities.”

—Taylor McKay Hathorn

This Women’s History Month, we reflect on some of the women who helped shape Jackson into the city it is today.

23 education

24 The Shopkeep Co. Hallie Harris’ recently opened business sells a number of Americanmade wares by artisans from around the nation.

25 best bets 26 Puzzle 26 Sorensen 27 astro 27 Classifieds

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

A

fter a stint at Texas A&M, Jessica Nelson decided she wanted a challenge, so she enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

“The Marines have the reputation of being the ‘baddest’ branch,” Nelson says. “They had the hardest physical fitness test, and I wanted to be part of the best and the boldest.”

While she originally planned to work in intelligence or communications, the Marines instead assigned her to the post of geospatial analyst, which was a surprise to the former psychology major. “I barely knew what Google Maps was,” Nelson says, laughing.

“Once I started to learn, though, it turned out to be a cool job.”

Nelson did eventually get to live out her dream of working in communications, as she presently holds a full-time position with the City of Jackson, working with special projects and grants.

“I field questions from constituents who are calling in for the mayor’s office, and I coordinate between citizens and foundations,” Nelson says of her day job, which allows her to unite Mississippi’s capital city with corporations and nonprofit organizations.

The Marine also uses her interpersonal skills at her own nonprofit. Founded in 2020, Grid North aims to help veterans work on interview techniques, resumes and other career-related skills so that they can find civilian work after leaving the armed services.

“It stemmed from my work with the City,” Nelson reflects.

21 Arts

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publisher’s note

by Todd Stauffer, Publisher

W

hile Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann often presents himself, rightly, as the Mississippi GOP’s adult in the room, his reaction to Jackson’s water woes this week leaves a bad taste. Answering a question from Mississippi Free Press’ Nick Judin on March 1, Hosemann said, “You remember during Kane Ditto’s administration, he did repair work on water and sewer. So what happened since then?”

I’ve told this story before, but soon after we started the Jackson Free Press, I found myself attending a 2003 Jackson City Council retreat at the JSU e-Center—the first time I’d encountered either of those things. Around a long rectangle of tables in the middle were (socially distanced) members of the Jackson City Council with other journalists scattered between them. At the front of the room,

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

“I’ve received no contact from the City at all. No, I have not.” — Delbert Hosemann

4

members of Mayor Harvey Johnson’s administration showed PowerPoint slides and discussed their projects.

What struck me was the presentations’ scope. It’s been a while, but I remember it as presentations detailing a few hundred thousand dollars for streetlights, a few hundred thousand for sidewalks—and $200 MILLION for water.

I noted at the time that, huh, we must have a water problem.

In other words, the City of Jackson, the residents of Jackson, Jackson’s local media, Jackson’s state representatives and many others have been working on this water project for a while now.

Lt. Gov. Hosemann, here’s what’s happened “since then” and since Johnson defeated Kane Ditto to become Jackson’s first Black mayor: (1) hundreds of millions of dollars worth of water and sewer work; (2) another generation of white and economic flight; (3) supermajority control of the Mississippi Legislature by the Jackson-unfriendly GOP; (4) Siemens debacle; (5) seemingly endless encouragement and subsidy of suburban sprawl that has undone nearly every city and town in the state—espe-

cially those with high Black populations.

(Trust me—Donna and I have roadtripped to almost two-thirds of Jackson’s towns during the pandemic.)

It’s probably important to remember that, for decades now, the “Daddy State” of Mississippi has fought any payment in lieu of taxation or other direct subsidies of the capital city.

Finally, just in the past few years, the Legislature has allowed Jackson to add a 1-percent local option to our sales tax, most of which goes to roads. And in exchange for an oversight commission and expanded presence of the Capitol Police in the city, the State has returned a larger percentage of our sales taxes to a special fund for infrastructure improvements that benefit state institutions (and, tangentially, affluent citizens).

Most of that also goes to roads.

After a years-long ordeal with an extremely fraught $90-billion contract with Siemens, the City has recently stabilized water billing and still reels from massive deficits resulting from that extraordinary debacle. Multiple administrations bought a bill of goods by an international corporation, fronted by a connected, local Mississippi salesman— who turned around and went into the water-meter business with the son of a suburban mayor. (Moss Point sued their firm in the spring 2020 for allegedly implementing a faulty meter and billing system. You can’t make any of this up.)

The truth is, Jackson has been at this for quite some time, and we’ve had to fight the Mississippi GOP tooth-andnail for support for the capital city and state government infrastructure for the two decades I’ve called Jackson home.

courtesy Delbert HOsemann

Jackson’s Water Crisis: What Would Ditto Do?

Delbert Hosemann (pictured) could lead on helping Jackson, Todd Stauffer says.

And we’ve had to ride out the universal scorn and disdain that conservatives from around the state heap on the state’s only urban environment—not to mention its major center of government, culture, health care and higher education.

“I’ve received no contact from the City at all. No, I have not,” Hosemann told the Mississippi Free Press.

Phones dial both ways. I get that the lieutenant governor might think calling up the capital city’s mayor and saying, “I’m from the Mississippi GOP, and I’m here to help,” might be 10 English words that strike fear in the heart of a Jacksonian. But he is a tax-paying resident, so he’s got that right to make the call. And as the state’s top lawmaker, he should make that call to a beleaguered mayor.

Instead, Hosemann harkened back to a time—which happened to be when the last white mayor was in power in Jackson—and inaccurately suggested nothing has happened since then.

contributors

Kayode Crown

Taylor Hathorn

Julian Mills

City Reporter Kayode Crown recently came to Mississippi from Nigeria where he earned a post-graduate diploma in Journalism and was a journalist for 10 years. He wrote the cover story on solutions to illegal dumping and a talk about water outages.

Taylor McKay Hathorn is an alumna of Mississippi College’s English program. She enjoys watching the sun set over the Mississippi River and tweeting her opinions @_youaremore_.

She wrote the Jacksonian, music and history articles.

Reporting Fellow Julian Mills is a Jackson native who loves history and graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He wrote the talk on how the icy weather has affected Jackson residents.

That’s fake news.

Jackson has a billion-dollar water and sewer problem. This city is overbuilt, over-annexed and under-appreciated by the state around it. The Mississippi GOP’s “selfishness is a virtue” mentality has them scheming to take over the Jackson airport while implementing suburban BIDs to subsidize live-work shopping malls to replace downtowns.

Meanwhile, the Mississippi GOP turns away federal opportunities such as expanding Medicaid, which absolutely should have gotten done this year during a pandemic and economic crisis.

Instead, they’ve spent entirely too much time in CPAC-ALEC FantasyLand trying to overturn the state’s income tax—especially if their answer is to swap that for a highly regressive sales tax pushing 10 percent. There seems to be no poor person for whom the Mississippi GOP can’t figure out how to show some contempt.

I appreciate Hosemann’s leadership on technical education, job creation, combating brain drain and changing the Mississippi flag. And it even looks like he’s the “adult in the room” when it comes to the income-tax debate.

But tone-deaf discussion of Jackson’s water woes doesn’t help anything right now. We need problem solvers at the table, looking at where things are right now (including success in the Siemens suit by both the City and a handful of connected attorneys) and how all players can come to the table and help.

Lan’ sakes, Delbert. This ain’t the time to raise Kane.

Todd Stauffer is president, publisher and co-founder of the Jackson Free Press.

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news,

storytelling & re, ir tu

cu l

TALK JXN

“So you look at consecutive days of being around 20 degrees and 25 degrees, our systems were not designed for that, especially those elements that are exposed at the plant. And so, as a result of that, we were limited in the amount of water that we can bring into the plant and ultimately the amount of water that we could treat and put into the distribution system.”

@jxnfreepress

@jacksonfreepress

@jxnfreepress

—Mayor Lumumba, see page 8-9

ce eren rev

Jackson’s Water Crisis Lingers into March

by Julian Mills

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

Jackson slowed to a standstill as the February storm moved in, and then stayed. As March began, residents and businesses were still suffering.

they, like many Jackson residents, did not have working faucets or safe water.

Sulton counts himself lucky compared to some, because he is able to stay at a hotel when necessary. “It’s very frustrating, he said. Even with the ability to stay at hotels, their lives are disrupted.

“There’s a lot of riding, there’s a lot of driving back and forth,” he said.

Still, Sulton has hope for Jackson.

“Jackson has so much potential,” he said. “I mean the entire city. I think a lot of times the leadership of the city gets pigeonholed into focusing on certain parts

of the city, and I think the western and southern parts of the city get neglected.

Those are the areas where you have the most people, and I think that this is putting a gigantic spotlight on that.

“It’s kind of glaring that the area of the city with water is the area that

St. Paddy’s Lucky Charm Photo Scavenger Hunt Photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash

6

Kristin Brenemen

R

obert Sulton has lived in south Jackson since 2007, when he and his wife built their home just north of Byram. They had experienced power outages and boil-water notices before, but none as bad as the last two weeks of February 2021.

“I guess you take a lot for granted when you have water to just be able to turn on the faucet and see the water running or do whatever, but when you don’t have it, I mean, it’s a humbling experience,” Sulton told the Jackson Free Press. “It really is.”

Sulton was one of many south Jackson residents who would be without water for the better part of February, when a winter storm battered the state for days.

On the night of Feb. 11, temperatures in Jackson plummeted to freezing, and then they stayed that way. For the next nine days, Jackson stood still through bitter days and frozen nights.

As the cold lingered, city infrastructure incurred increasingly alarming damage.

Left without water, Sulton explained his frustrations and hopes with the city. He has lived in and around Jackson since 1985, when he moved here to attend Jackson State University. He has moved around the area since then, but built his home in south Jackson in 2007, nearer to Byram but still within Jackson.

But Sulton’s frustrations are not just about water.

Neglected South, West Jackson

Before the storm, Sulton and his entire neighborhood had to deal with the smell of sewage coming from what amounted to a drainage ditch that reeked like a sewage tap near their homes.

They breathed the putrid air from the fall of 2020 until recently before the winter storm hit, though Sulton is not sure if the problem might creep back up when temperatures rise.

He and his wife first lost most of their water pressure on Feb. 16, and power the next day. Their power outage lasted until Feb. 20, but as of March 2,

The pandemic may have completed a full year’s lap, but we can still have some fun this St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, even while adhering to CDC guidelines pertaining to COVID-19.

You could drop green food coloring onto your food to serve your household some festive meals, pull up YouTube and learn a Celtic dance, or you could use the following list to go on a photo scavenger hunt. You can challenge yourself to see how many of these good-luck charms and symbols you can find throughout your day on March 17 itself, or you could establish a competition with your friends, family or coworkers to see who can find the most items on the list before the day’s end. However you choose to celebrate, be safe and have fun

Horseshoe The Number 7 Barnstar Shamrock or Clover

Dice Ladybug Rainbow White Elephant

Pig Acorns Fish Wishbone

jackson water crisis courtesy Robert Sulton

Robert Sulton counts himself lucky compared to some of his south Jackson neighbors, as his toilets still flush. He serves as the president of his neighborhood association and has helped distribute water to neighbors in need.

‘I Owe You Honesty’

Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba held numerous press events to relay the status of repairs in the city as they happened. “I owe you honesty,” Lumumba said on Feb. 18. “I owe you the truth so that we can prepare for how we manage through this winter emergency.”

Even as the mayor explained how workers were clearing away tree limbs and repairing power lines, he could not give an estimate of when water might return to the city. “We do not have a definitive timeline as to when the water will be restored within the tanks,” Lumumba said. “Only to tell you that we are continuing to pump into the tanks and we are continuing to try to recover within the water system.”

As the days wore on, Lumumba and Jackson officials announced various locations for water giveaways, which are still ongoing as of press time. Non-potable water was available at fire stations around the city, and drinking water is distributed at various times and locations daily.

Even the New Orleans Pelicans basketball organization was sending two truckloads of water to Jackson after a tweet from Jackson author and superfan Angie Thomas.

“We understand our residents’ frustration, I understand that most people don’t care how a watch works,” Lumumba said in a Feb. 22 press briefing. “They just want to be able to tell time.”

Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes, who had endorsed Lumumba for his first term, took aim at the mayor’s response, accusing his administration of being too slow to respond to the crisis and calling for faster action in distributing reserve water tankers. For his part, Lumumba defended his actions, calling the storm an “act of God.” ‘Hundred Year Old Pipes’

As the winter storm swept the country, it exposed infrastructure vulnerabilities in cities across the South.

Public Works Director Williams, who had worked with Jackson’s infrastructure for 19 years before accepting his current leadership post, described the history and issues surrounding Jackson’s and the country’s, aging infrastructure in an interview with the Jackson Free Press on Feb. 28.

“The U.S. is not getting younger,

Unless funding is increased for broader sampling, however, residents must make do with a do-it-yourself test kit. These kits are $15 to $20 and may be purchased from the Mississippi State Department of Health Public Health Laboratory by calling 601-576-7582 or from Micro-Methods Laboratories at 228-875-6420. The cost pays for the kit, shipping and lab results, which will take two to four weeks to return.

How to Pay for It?

Funding is the looming issue for Jackson’s infrastructure upgrades. Jackson’s water-treatment facilities, watercollection lines and sewer lines all require upgrades.

“I hope that after this winter storm, and we’ve seen the impact from Texas all the way to Mississippi and the number of residents that have suffered from a water outage, I think it shows how vulnerable our infrastructure system is and how important it is for us to have funding available to make these critical upgrades,” Williams said Feb. 28.

“The question is, how are they going to do it? Where are they going to do it?”

As of yet, no discussions are happening between the City of Jackson and the State Legislature to resolve the water crisis, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann confirmed on March 1, indicating that courtesy Robert Sulton

the City has continually focused on and that’s out north, and then the area that’s been neglected is the areas that are suffering right now. So hopefully, hopefully, these spotlights will help to change some things.”

it’s getting older,” Williams said. “A lot of the infrastructure that was put in in the late 1800s, early 1900s. They have seen their life expectancy, but yet they’re still utilizing those infrastructure assets now,” Williams said. “And so it’s time to dedicate some resources toward upgrades.”

A 2013 water assessment concluded that Jackson did indeed have 100-yearold piping in many areas. “Those pipes are now a lot older,” Williams said.

“There’s a lot of iron pipe in Jackson, and there’s concrete pipe in Jackson, and they need to be upgraded.”

In addition to unreliable and, for now, unsafe city water mains, older residential piping may still harbor a more insidious contaminant—lead. The question of lead contamination in Jackson water remains year after year, arising especially when treated city water contains a certain chemistry capable of wearing away old lead joints in residential piping, as happened in 2016.

In that year, the alkaline levels raised concerns that treated city water may chemically melt the mineral coating on lead parts in older homes. This is the same type of alkalinity issue that arose in Flint, Mich., when that city switched water sources.

In Jackson, the majority of tested homes did not have actionable levels of lead, or more than 15 parts per bil-

Robert Sulton lived around the greater Jackson area before building his home in south Jackson in 2007. The area’s higher elevation may be contributing to residents’ continuing lack of water pressure.

lion. City officials did, however, warn that children and mothers-to-be should avoid drinking tap water until the City resolved the alkalinity issue.

Williams is not aware of any areas that still contain lead piping, but that could be due to insufficient sampling.

“There may be some isolated areas that we don’t know about, but we do not know of any areas that do have lead piping or lead joints,” he said.

it was the City’s responsibility to ask for help. “Any additional resources that we can get to help address our infrastructure problems I think it’s a win-win for our citizens,” Williams said.

Mayor Lumumba has repeatedly named $2 billion as the cost of repairing and upgrading Jackson’s century-old infrastructure, but Williams says calculatmore water crisis, p 9

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

TALK JXN

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TALK JXN

JACKSON WATER CRISIS

How the Water Shutdown Unfolded; What, Who Is Needed to Fix It

8

son,” one of the hardest-hit parts of the city because of its distance from the treatment plants.

Williams compared the experience to the crash of a computer. He acknowledged that restoring the correct function has been slow and showed on a map that reservoirs are all over the city, and were depleted when the water treatment centers suffered the winter blast effects.

“As you see the storage tanks that are throughout the city of Jackson, we are trying to gain enough pressure to get these

evated areas, that’s why you need a certain pressure in order to get up to those areas, and also push that water down to south Jackson and into Byram.”

State, Federal Help Needed

Mayor Lumumba explained that age and lack of weatherization are taking a serious toll on Jackson’s water system, and the solution is substantial state and federal aid.

“We’re thankful for the tanks that help provide the non-potable water to people, but we need long-term support to deal with

at all. No, I have not,” Hosemann told the Mississippi Free Press. He confirmed that he had not spoken with Gov. Tate Reeves about his suggestion that the State take over Jackson’s water system.

“I haven’t talked to the governor about that, either,” the northeast Jackson resident added. “Neither the governor nor the city have contacted us at all about any of that.”

Hosemann also blamed city leaders since the last white mayor, Kane Ditto, for doing too little on infrastructure in the city.

“You remember during Kane Ditto’s adU.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Jovi Prevot

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

P

arts of Jackson were still without water two weeks after the February winter storm wreaked havoc on the capital city’s two water-treatment plants. As March dawned, city leaders were continuing efforts to provide portable and nonportable water to residents who needed it, with the Mississippi National Guard’s assistance.

Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Public Works Director Charles Williams appeared Feb. 28 at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant in Ridgeland, acknowledging that they could not predict when everyone will be able to get water in the city.

“What we have faced and what we have seen as a result of the winter storm (is that) water-treatment facilities are not meant to shut down to the level that we experienced,” the mayor explained.

“Because they weren’t meant to shut down in that way, the process of getting it moving back to where it was prior to the storm is a difficult recovery process, and so it’s not simply as easy of a proposition of turning on a switch.”

“So while we can’t give you a precise day and hour in which that water will come on, what we’re confident in is that they are working the system as it should be.”

Williams went into specific detail at the press briefing. From a low of 37 pound per square inch of pressure amid the winter storm—more than 50 points too low—the public-works department has struggled to increase the treatment plants’ pressure to the level needed to supply water for the entire city, especially those at higher elevations.

They decided to open fire hydrants that dot the city to relieve the air pressure built into the system blocking water flow, and on Feb. 21, the public works director said the psi is at 90psi, but the problem is maintaining that level.

“One of the biggest efforts that we were trying to accomplish yesterday (Feb. 27) was we were going along different corridors—Terry Road, Raymond Road and McDowell Road—and opened up fire hydrants,” Williams said. “And the reason for that is a lot of times when you lose system pressure, a lot of air gets in the line.”

“And so as we’re trying to push more water out into the system, we wanted to take some of that air off. And the benefit of it was today (Sunday) we started seeing more water circulating now in south Jack-

by Kayode Crown

As March arrived, Mississippi National Guard members were supplying nonpotable water to Jackson residents.

storage tanks filled,” Williams said.

“We are also trying to get water from (O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant and from) J. H. Fewell (Water Treatment Plant).

We are trying to get water from these two particular plants and get it all the way down into the system.”

The public-works director said the system needs 90psi consistently to get the water down to the people farthest from the plants in west and south Jackson. Due to the complexity of the system, he said they had yet to succeed in that.

“It is built (on) hydraulics, and if you’re at a higher elevated area (like) Fondren or if you were in south Jackson, those higher el-

this issue that has gone without being addressed sufficiently for decades.”

He said the city’s annual resources of “a little over $300 million” leave no room for adequately resolving the legacy-city infrastructure needs and protect water treatment plants against extreme weather, which he puts at $2 billion.

The next day, as national media coverage over Jackson’s crisis increased, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said that the City had not asked the State for significant help to address the water crisis and did not indicate that he or other state leaders had reached out to offer help to their capital city.

“I’ve received no contact from the city

ministration, he did repair work on water and sewer. So what happened since then?”

Hosemann said.

Former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., the city’s first Black mayor who defeated Ditto, responded with facts. “During my administration we spent over $200 million on water and sewer infrastructure improvements over 12 years,” he told the Mississippi Free Press. “In my administration we put up two new water storage tanks … we came from under an EPA-imposed consent decree on our oldest water treatment plant where it was discharging into the Pearl River. We were able to direct that. It cost $10 million to $12 million (just) to do that.”

JACKSON WATER CRISIS

Boil-water Notice Remains Until all areas get water, the publicworks director said his department will not focus on lifting the boil-water notice in effect for the whole city since Feb. 23 be-

oped in the wake of the winter storm and pressure builds in the system as the psi increases. The works director said the people should call in when they observe them.

On March 1, Williams announced OURTESY CITY OF JACKSON

Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba asked for patience from the people in late February as work continued to restore the city’s water system.

cause of high turbidity levels, which can interfere with disinfection and provide a medium for microbial growth.

“A water sample taken today, February 23, 2021, showed turbidity levels greater than 1.0 turbidity units. This is above the standard of 0.30 turbidity units. Because of these high levels of turbidity, there is an increased chance that the water may contain disease-causing organisms,” the notice stated. Those who have water should not drink it without boiling it first for one minute and letting it cool before drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and food preparation.

“There’s a large 48-inch (water pipe) that comes around Interstate-220, and then there’s a 24(-inch water pipe) that comes down on the east side (of the city). And then there are large distribution lines that are 12 (inches) and 16 (inches) that migrate through the city. So as long as we continue to push water through the system, our residents are getting water,” WIlliams with an air of optimism.

However, water main breaks devel-

that the water system had 84 psi, down from 90 psi that he announced on Sunday. “We are pushing out over 50 (million gallons per day) out into the system,” the public-works director added.

Williams said that he is already seeing the benefits of opening the fire hydrants to release the air pressure in the system.

“But we’re still heavily concerned about our residents who are in south Jackson and those members who live off Forest Hill Road, who continue to suffer, residents who are in Brookleigh Drive, who continue to suffer,” he added. “And then other little pockets throughout the city, those residents who continue to suffer without water, and we’re working as hard as we can in order to get it restored.”

Forest Hill and Brookleigh Roads are higher-elevated areas, including a portion of Byram. “The plants were designed to push water from O.B.Curtis at the reservoir to those areas and down south. And in order for you to achieve that, you need to be consistent with that pressure around 90 psi in order to get that water to those elevated

WATER CRISIS, FROM PAGE 7 ing an actual cost may be more difficult.

“That depends on where you would disperse those funds,” he said. “You’ve got to remember that you’ve got different infrastructure systems. You’ve got drainage issues throughout the city.

You still need funding for roads. And then you’ve got your utilities on water and sewer.

“So It’s very hard to put an exact number on that be-

areas (and) that have been a struggle for us for the past week.”

Along with restoring the water system, water main breaks continue to happen, with three crews repairing them as fast as possible, Williams said. He said “vendors” are assisting at the water treatment plants and his team is handling the water main break repairs, and rejected the call to involve contractors. Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes suggested on Feb. 24 that the city needed to have brought in contractors in the height of the water crisis.

“We have roughly had 80 calls for breaks that have come through; (we) have repaired roughly around 50 of those,” WIlliams said. “There’s still the business community that is struggling when you look at some areas, you know, at Fondren, and even in those areas in south Jackson. Those areas that are higher elevated, they’re still having some struggles with having a consistent water pressure.”

Bill Adjustments Available The mayor said on March 1 that residents can submit documentation for bill adjustment if they made repairs to pipes because of problems associated with the winter weather. “Bring a copy of your plumber receipt, or receipt for parts purchased at an appliance counter to the (Water Sewer Business Administration. One of our customer service representatives will be happy to assist. You can also call 601-960-2000,” he said.

Lumumba said that because the 311 call line is overwhelmed, the people can leave voice messages on the call stating their full name, phone number, address, and situation. Other available numbers are 601960-1111 or 601-960-1778.

Williams said the crux of the matter was not that there was a winter storm but how long it lasted. “And when we started getting cold weather that Monday, which was President’s Day (Feb. 15). And we got into Tuesday, you know, we didn’t really expect another storm to come in after Wednesday, (but) that’s what happened,” the public-works director added.

cause when you look at a city of Jackson’s size and looking at all of those different infrastructure systems. You would have to look at them each independently and how you want to address them and then determine what kind of cost it would take in order to do all of them separately.”

Williams hopes federal funding will soon become a boon instead of a roadblock.

“We hope in this new administration that they will provide more infrastructure funding to the state and ultimately to municipalities like Jackson,” he said.

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by JFP Staff

“So you look at consecutive days of being around 20 degrees and 25 degrees, our systems were not designed for that, especially those elements that are exposed at the plant,” Williams continued.

“And so, as a result of that, we were limited in the amount of water that we can bring into the plant and ultimately the amount of water that we could treat and put into the distribution system.”

The mayor pushed back against suggestions that city workers cannot bring the problem under control by reiterating the event’s novelty.

“Our system was never meant to be shut down and the way that it shut down, and so when it is shut down like that, the storage tanks are depleted when consumption is high, and then we have to fill up the entire city again,” he said. “That is not what a public works department or a water treatment facility is faced with (regularly).”

“But when the production of water into our distribution system is depleted to this level, (what) it takes is time,” he added.

“They’re doing what it takes, (they) have a grip on what needs to be done; it’s just a matter of the time that it takes for all of that to fill back up.”

Email story tips to city/county reporter Kayode Crown at kayode@jacksonfreepress.com.

Follow him on Twitter at @kayodecrown.

“We need federal assistance in order to assist us, and then we hope that at some point a true infrastructure bill will be provided and the city will become an opportunity to benefit from some of that funding.”

For now, Jackson must wait for the all clear as repairs are completed, and the City awaits a negative test for water contamination.

Send story tips to Reporting Fellow Julian Mills at julian@jacksonfreepress.com.

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

TALK JXN

9

H E A LT H C A R E Nominations Ballot: March 3 - 21

Nominate your favorite: iÃÌÊ VÌ ÀÊUÊ iÃÌÊ Ã iÌ VÊ-ÕÀ}i ÊUÊ iÃÌÊ À «À>VÌ ÀÊ iÃÌÊ ÕÀÃiÊ*À>VÌ Ì iÀÉ* Þà V > ÃÊ Ãà ÃÌ> ÌÊUÊ iÃÌÊ1À}i ÌÊ >ÀiÊ V iÃÌÊ-«iV > ÌÞÊ VÊUÊ iÃÌÊ Ã« Ì> ÊUÊ iÃÌÊ* Þà V> Ê/ iÀ>« ÃÌÊUÊ iÃÌÊ i Ì ÃÌÊ iÃÌÊ*i` >ÌÀ VÊ i Ì ÃÌÊUÊ iÃÌÊ Ã iÌ VÊ i Ì ÃÌÊUÊ iÃÌÊ"ÀÌ ` Ì ÃÌÊUÊ iÃÌÊ*i` >ÌÀ V > iÃÌÊ7 i ½ÃÊ i> Ì Ê VÊUÊ iÃÌÊ"«Ì iÌÀ ÃÌÉ"« Ì > } ÃÌ

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We’d love your support for Best Doctor in the annual Best of Jackson reader poll.

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www.bestofjackson.com

10

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11

RichaRd L. conviLLe Like Hard-Packed Soil: The Danger of Being Right

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

The place where we are right is hard and trampled, like a yard

12

welcome that seed that may fall on it?

Doubts and loves! Two very different cultivators to be sure. Doubts launch a frontal assault on positions (“like a plow?”); loves come obliquely (“like a mole?”), evoking emotions.

Now, shift gears. A friend of “On Being” host Krista Tippett’s, Whitney Kimball Coe, of the Rural Assembly (a group trying to bridge the rural-urban divide) wrote her friend a note recounting a recent hospital experience that, you will see, will bring us back to the hardpacked soil and plows and moles.

Photo by RoRy McKeeveR on UnsPlash

M

uch is made of the great gulf that separates competing sides in the current cultural, political, and religious contests that mar our social and media landscapes.

But “gulf” may not be the best visual image to use. Two reasons. There are so many issues out there that there must be many gulfs, not just one; and “gulf” makes it seem like the problem is “out there” somewhere; something I can walk away from.

However, a better way to look at those contests, I suggest, is to look inward to ourselves, not to something outside us. Recently I discovered a poem by the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai that drove this point home for me.

From the place where we are right, flowers will not grow.

The place where we are right is hard and trampled, like a yard.

But doubts and loves dig up the world, like a mole, a plow.

Hard-packed soil does not grow flowers in the spring, nor any other kind of plant in any other season. If I am convinced that I am Right (with a capital R; on either side of any one of those many gulfs), my mind is like hard-packed soil.

It keeps out any seed that might happen to land there and sprout a new thought (about my rightness).

But then, the poet seems to ask, what softens hard-packed soil, makes it

Richard Conville suggests a way to get past the “hard-packed soil” of division.

Whitney’s daughter, Susannah, took a nasty fall, and that’s why it’s a hospital story. I’ll let Ms. Coe take up the story there: “You know, our hospital experience put us directly in the path of so many wonderful East Tennesseans.

Nurses and technicians and doctors, the other parents waiting in the ER, the parking attendant, the security guard.

“I’m sure many of them didn’t vote as I did in the last election and probably believe the events of Jan 6 were mere protests, but they responded to our trauma with their full humanity,” she continued.

“I’d forgotten what it feels like to really see people beyond their tribe/ideology. It broke something open in me.”

She went on to confess, “I’ve been living in a castle of isolation these many months, and it’s rotted and blotted my insides.”

A few sentences later, reflecting on the experience, she observed: “No meme nor Twitter post nor op-ed nor breaking news nor TED talk can soften and strengthen our hearts like actually tending to one another.”

“Tending to one another.” Being tended to in that ER brought to her, as the poet put it, doubts and loves: doubts about her “rightness” because of the love they showed her in her distress. Is that it—the thing we need to see, inside, instead of the “gulf ” outside?

Being tended to worked like a plow and a mole to loosen the hard-packed soil of Whitney’s “rightness” in her opinions of others, those “East Tennesseans.”

She was used to seeing them only in

their tribes and ideologies. Being tended to, however, “broke something open” in her and allowed her to exit that “castle of isolation” she had built for herself.

What social divide haunts you and me the most? Rural-urban, like Whitney Coe’s or insider-outsider or RepublicanDemocrat or Evangelical Christian-Progressive Christian? Whatever it is, it may be, it could be, that what happened to that distraught mother in that East Tennessee ER could happen to you and me.

Reaching out (or across or over) to tend to one another may be a start, a step toward finding our “better angels,” a step toward “creating a more perfect union.”

It may not work of course. We’re humans after all and tend to fall in love with the hard-packed soil of our own rightness.

But, in extending care to another, you and I might actually encounter a plow or a mole, doubt or love, that will break open something inside us, loosen that hard-packed soil and welcome a seed that may flower, softening and strengthening our hearts.

Dick Conville is a retired college professor and long-time resident of Hattiesburg. This essay was published previously in the Pine Belt News.

Publisher & President Todd Stauffer Founding Editor Donna Ladd Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin Creative Director Kristin Brenemen REPORTERS AND WRITERS City Reporter Kayode Crown Reporting Fellow Julian Mills Contributing Writers Dustin Cardon, Bryan Flynn, Taylor McKay Hathorn, Jenna Gibson, Tunga Otis, Richard Coupe,Torsheta Jackson, Michele D. Baker, Mike McDonald, Kyle Hamrick EDITORS AND OPERATIONS Managing Editor Nate Schumann JFPDaily.com Editor Dustin Cardon Executive Assistant Azia Wiggins Editorial Assistant Shaye Smith Consulting Editor JoAnne Prichard Morris ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY Senior Designer Zilpha Young Contributing Photographers Seyma Bayram, Acacia Clark, Nick Judin, Imani Khayyam, Ashton Pittman, Brandon Smith ONLINE & DIGITAL SERVICES Web Editor Dustin Cardon Web Designer Montroe Headd Let’s Talk Jackson Editor Kourtney Moncure SALES AND MARKETING (601-362-6121 x11) Marketing Writer Amber Cliett Smith Marketing Consultant Chris Rudd Advertising Designer Zilpha Young DISTRIBUTION Distribution Coordinator Ken Steere Distribution Team Yvonne Champion, Ruby Parks, Eddie Williams TALK TO US: Letters letters@jacksonfreepress.com Editorial editor@jacksonfreepress.com Queries submissions@jacksonfreepress.com Listings events@jacksonfreepress.com Advertising ads@jacksonfreepress.com Publisher todd@jacksonfreepress.com News tips news@jacksonfreepress.com

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This column does not necessarily reflect the views of the JFP.

CorreCtion: In the previous issue listing Best of Jackson winners and finalists, the Clinton location of The Pizza Shack, known as The Bank by Pizza Shack (200 W. Leake St., Clinton; 601-708-1708), was mistakenly left off. The information has since been included in the digital version of the story.

Email letters and opinion to letters@jacksonfreepress.com, fax to 601-510-9019 or mail to 125 South Congress St., Suite 1324, Jackson, Mississippi 39201. Include daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, as well as factchecked.

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Manager of Clinical Research to be responsible for the

13

Seeking Solutions to Illegal Dumping:

Education, Citation, Action

by Kayode Crown

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

The City of Jackson put a sign on West Highland Drive saying those who throw trash beside the street will a $1,000 fine. But it seems not to be working.

council meeting. “As soon as we organize cleanups to pick it up, it’s back out there (in) three or four days.”

Solid Waste Management Manager Lakesha Weathers told the city council that apart from battling with incessant dumping, only one city trash truck is operational, with only one driver. (Contractor Waste Management has its own trucks for home waste pickup.) She disclosed this after Ward 5 Councilman Charles Tillman, council vice president, wondered aloud why he never sees City of Jackson trash trucks in his area to deal with dumping though “we purchased, at one time, three trash trucks.”

“We have one operational; we have one operator, that’s all we have currently,” Weathers said. “We did at one time have four; we’re down to two.” She said one of the two went to the repair shop on Feb. 1 and that increasing the number of available trucks from two to three will cost thousands of dollars based on quotes she received to repair the third truck.

Tillman said the mayoral administration needs to purchase or lease more trucks to pick up the items illegally dumped. “It is debris everywhere, (and) we got to pick it up. Nobody’s going to pick it up,” he said.

“That’s one of the major issues—all this trash and dumping.”

“My trucks run all day, every day, so

we are picking it up. We’re picking it up (on) request, as we see it, as our inspectors see it, we collect it, but unfortunately the residents or outside residents, by our assumption, are coming back and dumping again,” Weathers said after she agreed with Tillman’s assessment that the problem is significantly affecting the city.

Weathers suggested the need for an informational drive to change peoples’ courtesy Chris Carr

14

More Trucks or More Information?

Council President and Ward 6 Councilman Aaron Banks shares the same view.

“(Illegal dumping) poses a big problem in the city of Jackson,” Councilman Banks acknowledged at the Feb. 2

Kayode Crown

J

ackson’s DJ Finesse took to Facebook on Feb. 8 to complain about the illegal dumping behind his office on West Capitol Street. The popular 99 Jams DJ—his birth name is Chris Carr—did not hold back his language in rebuking the perpetrators in the post that got more than 100 reactions. The items he complained about included pieces of furniture, clothes and cardboard.

“To you sorry MF who too lazy and cheap to go spend $40 at the city dump and decides to dump on Capitol Street, I hope your transmission goes out,” he wrote in apparent anger. “Now we have to clean up behind you...Just know to smile next time because I gotcha on all 16 cameras.

SMH...Tag # and all….”

This reporter paid visits to the office and personally saw and took photographs of the trash dumped behind his office. Carr was not in the office during those visits and did not return calls or texts the Jackson Free Press sent for further comments.

Angelique Lee is only a few weeks into her time as Ward 2 Jackson City Councilwoman, and she and other volunteers have already embarked on four waste-disposal exercises, she told the Jackson Free Press. However, days before the most recent cleanup event in her ward on Feb. 6, she was already worried that it would be in vain.

Lee asked Public Works Director Charles Williams at the council meeting on Feb. 2 to provide fencing around a portion of the place where the cleanup was set to happen. “We’re worried that after we clean up, they’ll still continue to come in and dump,” she said. “Is there any way that we can try to partition that area off?” She referred to the “100 Black Men area where a bridge is closed off, and people started using it as a dumping ground.”

The councilwoman is not the only one worried if her efforts will go to waste with the continued practice of illegal dumping..

Jackson-based DJ Finesse (Chris Carr) went on Facebook on Feb. 8 to complain of trash illegally dumped behind his office on West Capitol

behavior because, she said, “It’s not the problem with picking it up, it’s keeping it off the ground.”

Some people do not know the options available for debris disposal in the city, Weathers said, adding that she is working on an information campaign. She did not indicate when this will happen but believes that it will serve better than increasing the available trucks.

“I have been in talks with some council members about how we can develop a campaign moving forward to educate the public on how not to litter their city,” Weather said.

Banks, however, said that it is not enough to educate, because some people who know what to do, don’t. “Education is one thing, but I think we have a problem with contractors that are doing work, residential work, mechanics that are doing work, getting tires, getting roof shingles, getting all that stuff and going on some lonely road, like Lakeshore, Forest Hill roads, in the middle of the night and dumping it instead of being responsible,” he alleged.

Cameras and Crimes

Councilman Tillman suggested to Weathers that police could use cameras around the city to ascertain who is doing the dumping. She responded that she does not believe law enforcement is checking the cameras for offenders who are trashing the city.

“I think that (the Jackson Police Department is) more focused on the crime and not the illegal dumping,” she responded. “Now, illegal dumping is a crime, but I think that they’re more focused on the violent crimes outside of people disposing of things illegally.”

Banks said, and Tillman agreed, that there is a need to set a standard of toughness on the crime of illegal dumping. Ward 4 Councilman and Mississippi District 66 Rep. De’Keither Stamps asked how many have been cited for illegal dumping in the city. “We see all these illegal dumping, we don’t see a lot of the tickets being issued,” he said.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it has been requested (from Jackson Police Department), and (they) simply stated that they cannot write tickets. What do you want us to do? How do you want us

Politics and Corruption of Dumping

A 2019 NBC report about illegal dumping described the criminal activity

Pellow wrote. “The vast majority of the waste Christopher was dumping originated from highway construction projects and remodeling firms across the mostly white North Side of the city and suburbs.”

“John Christopher (dumped) his waste in working-class and low-income African American and Latino communities on Chicago’s West Side, particularly Lawndale and Austin.”

Weathers is convinced that a preponderance of illegal dumping is not by Jackson residents, telling this reporter that she informed the Jackson Police Department that her department’s officials caught culprits from outside the country illegally dumping. She doesn’t know what they did with the information.

The Jackson Free Press made re-

Volunteers started meeting at the rendezvous spot at Callaway High School on Beasley Road by 11:30 a.m. that day, and Lee welcomed participants and handed each a yellow vest and trash picker if they did not bring them.

The clean-up effort has been a recurring part of her agenda, which has covered various parts of Ward 2 since her election to the city council in December, Lee told the Jackson Free Press.

Merrimack chemical vendor Roland Powell came from south Jackson to join in the effort on Feb. 6. “Jackson is too beautiful of a place and too nice of a city to keep the streets looking like this,” he said. “I know the city doesn’t have the resources right now to really keep up with the trash clean-up, so we do this (about

of those who collect money to dispose of rubbish and look for where to dump them, causing environmental degradation.

“Legitimate waste carriers charge their customers a fee of several hundred (dollars) for the removal of each ton of waste. Almost half of that fee is paid to a licensed transfer station that then sorts and disposes of the waste. But criminals are offering to take waste at lower prices and then dump it at farms, industrial sites or on estates,” the report said. “They pocket the entire fee and leave landowners with hefty bills to remove the junk.”

Research by David Naguib Pellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, “The Politics of Illegal Dumping: An Environmental Justice Framework,” found that illegal dumps disproportionately burdened communities of color and low-income neighborhoods.

He reported the political corruption of illegal dumping where one Christopher Joseph bribed some aldermen in Chicago to look the other way, paying $5,000 per month to one of them.

“Since the late 1980s, he was in the business of ‘recycling’ construction and demolition (C&D) waste and finding places to dump it at the lowest possible cost,”

peated calls, left voice messages and sent emails to Jackson Police Department’s Information Officer Sam Brown beginning Feb. 5, asking for information about enforcement against illegal dumping in the city. He had not responded nearly a month later at press time.

Weathers told the council that the City cannot provide dumpsters designed to hold waste for transfer to garbage trucks for people who want to clean up their neighborhoods and require that service.

“We have dumpsters that we can bring out, but unfortunately we don’t have the operators right now to bring those dumpsters out,” she said. “We’re doing the best we can, (in) what we have, we are extremely limited.” The manager later told the Jackson Free Press that the only dumpster truck operator the city had retired in January.

Rolling Up the Sleeves

More than 10 people gathered with Ward 2 Councilwoman Lee on Feb. 6 at Presto Lane in Jackson to pick up trash along the road. They received an unwelcome guest at 12:35 p.m. as it started raining, but no one tried to seek shelter. Fortunately, it only lasted a few minutes before the sky cleared on that 42-degree day.

Kayode Crown

Ward 2 Councilwoman Angelique Lee picks up trash along Presto Lane in Jackson as part of a clean-up exercise on Feb 6.

once a quarter) in south Jackson.”

Green Elementary School Principal Terrance Hill sees his involvement in the cleanup as a statement of his commitment to the Ward where his school is located.

“When (Lee) posted (on social media) that she will be kind of spearheading this clean up, I just said I’ll be here,” he said. “I’ll do anything I can to kind of help and support this community.”

Some City of Jackson workers were there to assist with the clean-up. “Everybody knows that the city of Jackson has an illegal dumping problem,” City solid waste inspector Ellis Knight told the Jackson Free Press. “What we need to do is start getting (the) police to start enforcing more rules on illegal dumping, and I think that our city will be back to where it was.”

“We know that we have a shortage of police, so we really cannot just blame police officers,” he later added. “But if we are members of the community, start working together and stop your friends from illegal dumping, going down the street, dropping stuff out the window, I think (with) that we’ll see a change.”

The Cost of Waste Disposal

The City of Jackson pays Waste Man-

agement $9.27 per residential unit per month to pick up trash from people’s houses all over the city, based on the terms of the contract the Jackson Free Press obtained.

The same company has a waste-disposal contract at $25 per ton.

Waste Management promised to provide 30-cubic yard “roll-off” containers for each ward for free on one day per month, but the City has to station its staff there to monitor people bringing trash. Weathers told the Jackson Free Press that her office could not station staff there because they are short. So that full exercise stopped happening. Instead of seven locations per month, the City operates roll-off dumpster days at one location in the city per month.

Knight explained that the people and contractors have another option as well. “I think they should go to the city of Jackson landfill in Byram,” he said. “I don’t know if people know it; it’s on (6810 Interstate55 South) Frontage Road in Byram. You can (dispose) everything that you need to (dispose) there.” Weathers told the Jackson Free Press that single-axle-trailer-load costs $25 for disposal, with additional rates available through her office.

The inspector said that the solid waste division of the city does curbside pickups.

“If you’ve got bulky items or tires, you call 601-960-1193, the solid waste division, and they’ll put it on the list board to be picked up.” This service charges a fee based on the size of the trash.

The city offers curbside pickup of tires for free on Wednesdays, Knight added.

“You’ve got a call 601-960-1193 and get put on the list and then we will come pick them up for free, up to five tires.”

Illegal Dumping is Problematic

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality described illegal dumping as a problematic issue that local and state governments must address continually.

“Most commonly, people choose to illegally dump because they do not want to pay for disposal or because local disposal options do not appear to be available or convenient,” it said on its website.

“Often illegal dumping occurs on unsecured vacant lots, lots with abandoned buildings, remote spaces, dead-end roads, tree plantation lands, and forested areas, alleys and remote roads, outskirts of cities, poorly lit areas, open sand and gravel mines, down ravines and gulleys, and in other similar un-secure areas.”

MDEQ advocates early reporting and resolution for illegal dumping so that the problem does not continue to escalate.

Illegal dumping comes with economic and environmental costs, the head of MDEQ told the Jackson Free Press.” Hazardous and non-hazardous more DUMPING SOLUTIONS p 16

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

to address this?’” Weathers reported. “As far as I know, there are no tickets being written for littering or illegal dumping. I have no documents or any records showing where tickets or arrests have been made.”

Weathers told the Jackson Free Press that she has hard evidence that those contracted for trash disposal come from outside Jackson to dump trash in the city. “Most of the time, it’s contractors, people that have been hired to clean up properties, or maybe people that are in the remodeling business, and they load their trucks up, and they drive here, and they dump,” she said. She did not provide that evidence to date.

15

Dumping Solutions: Education, Citation, Action,

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

Volunteers help clean up along West Highland Drive. The question is how to stop the trash from repeatedly returning.

In the Amani neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wis., residents complained of the trash-can treatment they say they are experiencing because of incessant illegal dumping. “(The city) might come and get it today, but somebody else is going to come and dump in three days, so it doesn’t seem like the problem ever really goes away,” Amani United neighborhood group president Jeramie Rice Bey told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last year.

Amani is a struggling neighborhood with various problems, ranging from food deserts to foreclosed homes to entrenched poverty, and illegal dumping makes things worse, the newspaper reported. It also mentioned how other cities are dealing with Kayode Crown

16

Dumping, Crime and Development

Amory Anne Brandt’s master’s thesis at San Jose State University, “Illegal Dumping as an Indicator for Community Social Disorganization and Crime,” drew a link between illegal dumping and crime.

“Not only does illegal dumping contribute to physical disorganization, but it is associated with higher crime rates,” she wrote. “The positive relationship between dumping and crime suggests that communities with more illegal dumping also experience higher rates of crime.”

“This finding suggests that illegal dumping could not only serve as a predictor for social disorganization, but also for crime,” she added. “Cleaning up illegal dumping itself may not directly influence crime or social disorganization, but monitoring it could serve as an important predictor for community health.”

The worse a neighborhood looks, the more crime it tends to suffer, the Heritage Foundation argues. “When residents take the simple step of cleaning their neighborhood, it tells criminals that the residents care about their community and thus are more likely to report criminal behavior.

Where conscientiously applied, a clean-up strategy cuts crime,” the foundation said in a report titled, “An Empowerment Strategy For Eliminating Neighborhood Crime.”

Researchers John E. Eck and William Spelman found that Briarfield Apartments in Newport News, Va., suffered a high crime rate before city agencies carted trash away, removed abandoned cars, filled potholes and swept the streets. The result was a 35% decrease in the burglary rate.

Kayode Crown

waste, we manage and regulate very carefully because when those things are disposed of in ways that don’t comply with the regulations, it poses an environmental risk,” Executive Director Chris Wells said in an interview.

“So if you have an illegal dump (into) a ravine or onto property somewhere when that is exposed to the elements, not contained in any way when rain falls on it, it picks up contaminants, and when that stormwater runs off, it carries those pollutants, those contaminants with it.”

Wells said proper disposal of solid waste in designated landfills with adequate containment is essential. Also, illegal dumping constitutes an eyesore and attracts an additional cleaning cost, deterring property investment.

“Any kind of economic development can be deterred or stymied when there’s illegal dumping because anybody that buys that property becomes liable for cleaning that up,” Wells said.

from page 15

Roland Powell joined the Ward 2 cleanup exercise on Feb. 6 on Presto Lane in Jackson.

illegal dumping, including increasing fine for repeated offenders, putting up cameras, hiring full-time officers to enforce illegal dumping laws.

Solutions Across America

The Milwaukee Department of

Neighborhood Services set up an online form and phone app for reporting illegal dumping. Still, community leader Denisha Tate-McAlister objected to that initiative, saying that the people should not have to be responsible for catching perpetrators, and authorities can say that they are the culprits if they cannot prove otherwise.

California’s Almeda County developed a multifaceted plan in 2019 to tackle illegal dumping. After one year of implementation of the pilot plan in two illegal dumping hotspots in East Oakland area of the county, “[b]ased on the perceptions of community members, satisfaction with the City and County’s efforts to address illegal dumping increased by 11 points,” the report said.

The county believes that the success of its three-pronged effort—education, eradication and enforcement—was due to enforcement of existing laws, using camerabased enforcement strategies, reducing barriers to eradication, embracing cross-sector partnerships, and community organizing as key to sustainability and crime prevention through environmental design. The report suggested that streets with little foot traffic and poor lighting at night encourage illegal dumping activity.

“Past efforts to curb illegal dumping include planting trees, placing concrete barriers and planter boxes to block illegal dumping spots, but without a consistent enforcement effort by the City, these efforts have had a minimal impact on the overall quality of the street and the surrounding neighborhood,” it explained.

“Partnership with law enforcement was effective (in) reducing dumping and blight. Without law enforcement participation, our efforts amounted to a free garbage service to illegal dumpers.”

The report indicated that having bushes cleared and planting trees will discourage littering, “prevent future dumping and provide a healthier environment that

discourage(s) dumping” because “visual cues of deterioration attract other crimes.”

“Removing the weeds will help with the visual cues creating a clear and open space that will make illegal dumpers hesitate to dump,” it said. “(A) side of the street, lacking any private property owners to care for it for nearly a mile, sat neglected—attracting a constant flow of illegal dumping.”

It said that depending on citizens reporting to curb illegal dumping will lead to the neglect of areas not frequently visited.

‘It Was a Hot Mess’

Comments on the post by DJ Finesse included people expressing how incredible they found the problem. Shady Oaks Homeowners and Community Neighborhood Association President Simone Wilson shared a picture of illegal dumping similar to what DJ FInesse experienced as a comment on his post.

Wilson sent the Jackson Free Press other pictures of illegally dumped trash and furniture that she has to deal with as a neighborhood leader.

“It was cleaned up (at neighborhood cleanup exercises). We called the city to come out and pick it up; two weeks later, someone dumped it there again. It was a hot mess,” she said about the picture she posted on Facebook.

She said catching the people involved in illegal dumping is a way to address the problem. “Right now, we’re trying to identify those people that are illegally dumping, and we’re trying to get with the community to see if they can watch out, to see if they’re able to see (them),” she said.

“So we’re trying to make sure that if we can get the citizens to look out for these cars (or) trucks, especially late at night,” Wilson added. “If they see something, to say something.”

Email story tips to city/county reporter Kayode Crown at kayode@jacksonfreepress.com.

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March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

900 E County Line Rd Suite 107, Ridgeland (601) 790-0486

17

food&drink

‘Donate A Dish’ Program Feeds Homeless Jacksonians for Easter Wright’s Foundation for Better Communities,

Wright’s Foundation for Better Communities,

by Kyle Hamrick

Volunteers may prepare and donate precooked dishes that organizers will either distribute or deliver.

Wright’s Foundation for Better Communities and Stewpot Community Services’

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Wright’s Foundation for Better Communities,

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

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right’s Foundation for Better Communities, better known by its acronym WFBC, is gearing up for its third-annual Donate A Dish event to serve homecooked meals to homeless individuals at Stewpot Community Services’ Opportunity Center from March 24 to 31.

Derick Wright founded the nonprofit organization three years ago to “uplift and enhance” the Jackson community. This spring, WFBC plans to serve hot to-go meals to 245 members of Jackson’s homeless community the week before Easter, and asks that each pre-cooked dish be made to serve roughly 35 portions.

“We often see nonprofits or groups of people feed homeless people on Thanksgiving or Christmas,” the 28-year-old said, “Nobody really reflects on Easter.”

Considering the significance the Easter holiday holds for Christians, in 2018 Wright and his six-member board decided to collect potluck-style dishes from community members and provide for homeless people on a day that few think to do so.

Opportunity Center collaborate to feed the homeless community this Easter.

At that first event, Wright and his volunteers served 130 people at the Opportunity Center “restaurant style,” seating Christie Burnett, who has served as patrons to “do the things they need to them at a table, taking their order, and re- director of the Opportunity Center since do,” be that finding steady housing or turning with a plate of hot food. Though 2013, recalled the day Wright walked “out better jobs. “We do not want to see you the COVID-19 pandemic prevented of the blue” into her office three years ago. back on the street,” she says. them from continuing that kind of service, “He shared his vision and what he wanted Wright and Burnett are grateful for WFBC held Donate A Dish last year, pre- to do with his foundation, and we’ve been the partnership their two organizations paring uncooked donations and serving partnering ever since,” Burnett says. have sustained for the past three years. them hot in to-go plates.

The Opportunity Center aims to “They always seem to come through

This year, Wright says, Donate A Dish provide homeless individuals with as when we need them,” Burnett says of will be a hybrid event. Cooked dishes will many resources for security and success WFBC. Admiring the Opportunity Cenbe stored, reheated, and served in to-go as possible, from computer labs and mail ter’s dedication to improving homeless plates. Depending on the weather, WFBC services, to a vast clothing closet and peoples’ lives, Wright says, “We’re going will either set-up a tent and outdoor tables showers. Burnett encourages the center’s to help them as much as we can.” and distribute meals, or else deliver

Just as important as sharing a them directly to those that need it. meal, Wright and Burnett believe

Though donating dishes rethat building relationships between mains the focus of the event, Wright neighbors in the same city improves encourages people not to forget about it. “There’s so many opportunities to drinks, plasticware, napkins and tomake Jackson better,” Burnett says, go plates. As for homeless people who “You don’t have to have a degree, you are not at the Opportunity Center, don’t have to have training. You just Wright says, “give us a call and we’ll have to have the heart.” drop food to them, too.”

“We all have a dish we want to

Motivated by his own experiencpresent, and we all have a heart to help es with homelessness and bankruptcy people in need,” Wright says. at age 22, Wright founded WFBC

For information on donations and as a support system for Jacksonians how you can help, contact Derick Wright to turn to when they need help. He at 769-257-0073. Follow WFBC’s page wants WFBC to be “something for on Facebook for updates on this and othpeople to depend on, whatever they er events. For more information on the need, so they can continue to be posi- Donate A Dish gifts should be made to serve Opportunity Center, go to stewpot.org/ tive about life.” services/opportunity-center/. roughly 35 portions.

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March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

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19

MUSIC

A Night (And a Day) of Music: Flowood Flea Market Hosts ‘Singing for the Kids’

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by taylor McKay Hathorn

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

20

courtesy till & Ferren

self-proclaimed “nickel-and-dime shows together for nearly a year, bringing musician,” Robert Ferren joins forces audiences across central Mississippi as they with Phillip Till to host a round-thecover songs from John Prine, the Avett clock music show beginning at 9 a.m.

Brothers and Bob Dylan, among others. on Saturday, March 20, at the Flowood Flea “We’re shooting for 24 hours,” Ferren Market and Antique Mall. They hope and remarks. “But we would love to play until plan to continue performing until the venue’s (the flea market’s) close on Sunday night at closing at 5 p.m. on Sunday.

5 (p.m.).”

This 31-hour musical extravaganza will Till and Ferren are relying on the pubbenefit Children’s of Mississippi, the state’s lic’s hourly pledges to make these long hours only children’s hospital. “It’s always been about worthwhile. “I’ll be excited if someone the kids for me,” Ferren reflects. “Nothing is pledges even 50 cents an hour,” Ferren says. more devastating than seeing a sick child.”

“Our biggest pledge right now is from an Locals will have the opportunity to individual, and it’s for $10 an hour.” Ferren contribute to the cause, too, as Ferren and hopes, though, that local corporations will get Till will be accepting hourly pledges, with more involved as the March 20 start date ap100% of the proceeds going to the hospiproaches, offering larger pledges or one-time tal formerly known as the Blair E. Batson donations toward the children’s hospital.

Hospital for Children on the campus of the The musician hopes that these pledges will University of Mississippi Medical Center offset the lack of donations that the hospital near Fondren. has endured over the last year. “Donations Ferren acknowledges that the “Singare down for good causes,” he laments. “The ing for the Kids” will take much preparaone way I know to (combat that) is by dotion on his part, as he is already putting in ing something for the kids.” Ferren has been practice sessions that last from 10 a.m. to 4 planning this event for over a year, initially a.m. “I’m just trying to get accustomed to conceiving the idea during the course of his the long hours,” Ferren says of his rehearsal monthly shows at the flea market. schedule. “I’ve done five-hour sets before, “During this time with so many hurtand holy mackerel, at the end of five hours, ing we knew that we needed to wait, but you’re just spent.” we have to continue,” Ferren concludes.

These extended performances strain Ferren, Till and the management of the the singer’s voice and guitar-playing hands, Flowood Flea Market and Antique Mall as he remarks that such prolonged stretchhope that local media and citizens will Local musicians Phillip Till and Robert Ferren aim to put on a nonstop, 31es leave his fingers “raw.” Because of this hour performance to benefit Children’s of Mississippi this March. spread the word about the coming event physical toll, Till and Ferren have reached and will make pledges—no matter how out to the community to enable them to large or small—to ensure its success. play the long hours that the benefit will require.

The two artists’ continued presence onstage—even Those interested in making a pledge may email Flowood “We’ve asked for help from local musicians,” Ferren during their hourly, five-minute breaks—is of utmost Flea Market’s office manager, Karen Johnson, at flowoodmaracknowledges. “The singathon quits if we quit playing. importance, as the singathon ends if both of the men ketplacellc@gmail.com, and those who are interested in attendSo, we will play along with them, but they’ll carry it for stop playing. Ferren feels good about their ability to per- ing the event in person can find the Flowood Flea Market and that hour, as far as vocals and things like that.” sist, though, as he notes that the two have been playing Antique Mall at 1325 Flowood Drive, Flowood.

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courtesy Nicole Wyatt Jenkins

arts

lettering and calligraphy. She often creates videos for Instagram lettering her favorite sayings and quotes. Nearly four years ago, the couple decided to make their passions their career.

In 2017, the “couplerenuer” opened The Beacon.

They secured the State Street space after noticing the Fondren Art Gallery vacating the building. The duo then spent time reinventing the space to fit their unique vision.

Customers entering the Fondren building walk on the surface of the moon while surrounded by stars in the galaxy.

Vintage bicycles hang from the ceiling.

“Jason covered the entire inside of the store with murals so you can come in and see all of his artwork and it

The Beacon Spotlights Local Art and Vendor Creations, Supports Community

by Torsheta Jackson

be an immersive experience,” Nicole says. “You can come in and share that kind of out-of-this-world experience that he created.”

They call the business a “consciously curated general store for the modern creative.” Visitors can browse ethically produced sustainable goods that are either fair trade, locally created or American-made. The couple is meticulous

about ensuring that all the products offered in their store are either made sustainably or are offset. They even use post-consumer recycled shopping bags, ship using reused materials and plant-based home-compostable mailers, and recycle religiously.

The Beacon features basic art supplies in addition to an eclectic mix of unique merchandise, like handmade watercolors created by an indigenous maker in Canada who hand-harvests and grinds the stones before mixing them with local honey and water to create a vibrant paint.

Nicole creates custom incense scents, while Jason’s love of servicing and repairing typewriters and fountain pens helped birth the store’s vintage section. His prints and illustrations are also available for purchase, as are signature enamel pins and stickers. Candles, jewelry, crystals, spices, skincare products and myriad other gifts fill the store.

Social responsibility and community service are important to the Jenkins duo, as they partner with One Tree Planted to ensure that a tree is planted in southern forests for each paper or pencil product sold. The business also donates full class packs of Crayola supplies to the Murrah and Forest Hill high schools, as well as Power APAC. Additionally, The Beacon donates 5% of all CBD sales to the Last Prisoner Project and The Equity Organization. Recently, the pair donated funds to Shower Power to help provide hygiene services for unhoused citizens, and they make regular donations to The Good Samaritan Center.

“When Jason and I established The Beacon, we wanted it to be a place that also gave back, not just to take and to sell. We make it a point to donate funds and products to organizations in need,” Nicole says.

Like many local small businesses, the onset of the pandemic has strongly affected The Beacon. In January 2020, the couple finalized plans to convert a portion of their store into an art gallery. They planned to use the space to showcase Jason’s artwork and to expand into more art ventures.

The two had plans to curate gallery art shows and create more collaborative art projects as a couple. However, the plans had to be put on hold.

Because Nicole and Jason are immunocompromised, The Beacon’s storefront remains shuttered, but the business is still meeting the needs of local creatives. Nicole has created a shoppable Instagram page and website, and they offer no-contact pickup, free same-day delivery in the local area, and shipping across the United States and Canada.

Feeling that it is more important now than ever to support local businesses, the couple features a “Mississippi Made” section on the shop’s website, showcasing products from local vendors. The store’s “Consciously Curated” Beacon Boxes contain a number of locally made goods, to offer another means of supporting local creators.

“All local businesses are really struggling, and we all need the support,” Jason says. “If you wait until that business has to say we really need your support, it may be too late.” Nicole adds: “It is very important to seek out local (businesses) first. Local businesses are members of your community. These people are your neighbors.”

The Beacon’s physical address (3030 N. State St.) is temporarily closed due to the pandemic. Patrons can shop online at thebeaconsupply.com or on Instagram at @beaconsupply.

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

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icole Wy a t t Jenkins distinctly remembers the night that she met her husband. She was on a date with the manager of a local Mexican restaurant. Jason Jenkins was completing a live painting beside a band on the patio. During an intermission, he noticed her at the bar and struck up the nerve to introduce himself.

“I ended up talking to him all night,” Nicole says. “He called me the next day, we went on a date, and we have literally spent every day together since.”

The pair found that they had quite a bit in common.

With no siblings, each of them had grown up in homes where they used their creativity to entertain themselves, as both of their mothers had molded their respective natural artistic abilities at an early age.

Jason, a Jackson native, holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the University of Southern Mississippi.

His mother, Martha Ann Knight, was also a local artist who did traditional hand drawings and paintings. She passed all of her knowledge down to Jason.

As Nicole speaks, she fondly fingers a charm bracelet Jason gave to her. It was a prize that his mother won after placing second in a local art contest.

“It was one of the first gifts he gave me after we were together,” Nicole says. “It was so meaningful.”

Nicole grew up on a sheep farm in Bunker Hill, W. Va., where she learned the art of weaving from her mother, a fiber artist. Nicole helped her mother shear the sheep, clean it, spin it into yarn and use it for knitting. At age 9, Nicole and her family moved to the Jackson area. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in public relations from Mississippi State University.

Jason is well known for his live paintings, but he is also a muralist. He produced all of the murals at Martin’s Downtown and the traffic box on the corner of Gallatin Street and Highway 80. In addition to his love of starscapes, he creates comic books and adult graphic novels. His art was recently featured at Designer Con in Los Angeles.

Nicole works in macramé and weaving, as well as hand

Longtime artists Nicole Wyatt Jenkins and her husband, Jason Jenkins, own and operate The Beacon, an art-supply store that also sells a variety of local vendor-produced goods.

21

HISTORY

A Better Jackson, Thanks to These Women

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by Taylor McKay Hathorn t the turn of the 20th century, women in Mississippi fought for the right to vote, assembling pamphlets and leaflets on the importance of women’s enfranchisement, leading local suffragette Lily Wilkinson Thompson to remark that “an ounce of Mississippi was worth a pound of Massachusetts.”

This Women’s History Month, we remember these eight women who walked in the footsteps of their foremothers, working to elevate Jackson through their writing, their art and their study—and their belief that the state’s capital city could be better than it was the day before.

Eudora Welty: One hot summer night in June

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Fannye Cook: Francis “Fannye” Cook joined the

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Game and Fish Commission as a lowly research assistant in 1932, despite the fact that she had been instrumental in its formation. Although her male colleagues were reluctant to accept female leadership, Cook worked her way up to project manager for the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, supervising scientists who amassed samples of the state’s flora and fauna.

The thousands of specimens the project collected eventually became the bedrock of the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science where Fannye was finally permitted to take the helm. She served as the museum’s director until 1958. cou rt e

Helen Barnes: Helen Barnes lived outside of

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University, where Margaret Walker Alexander taught as a professor of English for more than 30 years, has a unique claim to fame: the school houses one of the world’s largest collections of a modern Black female writer, made possible

by Walker Alexander’s donation of her personal papers to the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People. While serving as a faculty member at the university, Walker Alexander organized a number of conferences to celebrate the life and work of Black authors, which still continue.

to be the first-time executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, she hung up the phone and went to look up the meaning of the word “humanities.” Norman would then spend the next three decades shaping that definition, as she organized a series of forums across the state, inviting both Black and white professors from universities across the state to share their academic work with interested citizens. Norman’s work in the area continues with the MHC’s Prison to College Pipeline, where women at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl have the opportunity to earn college credits.

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March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

Margaret Walker Alexander: Jackson State

Cora Norman: When Cora Norman was asked

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s Evelyn Gandy: Evelyn Gandy had many “firsts:” on ti ec the first woman to edit the Mississippi Law Journal, the first female state treasurer and the first female insurance commissioner—all before becoming the first woman to ascend to the lieutenant governor’s office. While serving as the leader of the Mississippi Senate, Gandy helped pass the 16th Section Reform Act of 1978, which allowed schools to lease public lands and profit from the revenue. The Jackson Public School District, the second largest in the state, gained the rights to the 600-acre Lake Hico, which is currently open to a number of redevelopment opportunities that will generate additional revenue for the nearly 26,000 students served by Jackson’s 62 city schools.

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ve tail exploded beneath the carport of Myrlie and Medgar Evers. Nearly 60 years later, in December 2020, the home was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places, and the former chairwoman of the NAACP continues her work in the city where she and her husband were targeted for their work in civil rights by leading the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute. Evers also partners with local entities to continue to elevate the life and work of her late husband, hosting a lecture series in conjunction with the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and co-sponsoring a summer programs for young people with the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation.

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Constance Slaughter-Harvey: Just eight years after rioters protested the admission of the University of Mississippi’s first Black student, Constance Slaughter-Harvey graduated from the institution with her law degree in 1970. Shortly after Slaughter-Harvey’s graduation, violence on a college campus again made the news, with police officers firing on a group of college student protesters at Jackson State University, killing two and wounding 12. Slaughter-Harvey represented the families of the murdered students in court, filing a petition to desegregate the Mississippi Highway Patrol. Slaughter-Harvey’s motion was successful, and the MHP began hiring Black officers as a direct result of her lawsuit. te

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1963, white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith shot Medgar Evers in his own driveway. Fueled by her anger at the murder—which took place just 4.3 miles from her lush back garden—Eudora Welty sat down in Belhaven and wrote an imagined vignette from the point-of-view of the assassin, completing her first draft in a day. When The New Yorker published the story 13 days after Beckwith’s arrest, it was considered such a hotbutton topic that the publication declined to print the name of the story’s setting: Jackson, Miss.

Myrlie Evers: In May 1963, a Molotov cock-

Mississippi just once—forced to leave her home state to pursue a college education—as no medical program in the state would accept a Black female student. Once earning those coveted and once-denied letters behind her name—“M.D.”— Barnes returned to the Magnolia State to practice medicine, becoming the first Black woman to be an OBGYN in Mississippi. Originally working in Mound Bayou, Barnes eventually joined the staff at UMMC to care for underprivileged mothers and infants at the capital city’s public hospital.

Education

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March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

three weeks, and in another month, I had a printed copy,” Wilson says.

As incredible as this turnaround may seem, Wilson takes it in stride, insisting that once he is interested in a topic, he works at an amazing pace. Those interests vary, as Wilson finds himself interested in everything, it seems, from real estate, to the stock market, to engineering and art.

“When I was writing my children’s book, I thought, ‘What would I want my future children to know?’ I have younger siblings and cousins, and that helped me think about it,” he explains.

“My idea is that you should learn about everything you’re interested in,” he adds. “Try it all. Even if you fail, you can still get valuable information.”

“Brown Money” seems to be doing

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Warn WilsOn / BrOWn MOney

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arn Wilson Jr. has a deep desire to pass along the knowledge he did not learn when he was younger. “Brown Money,” his first children’s book, is his first attempt to share information with young people about careers in STEM areas—science, technology, engineering and math.

“This is everything I wish I’d known when I was young,” he says. Now an electrical engineer living in Memphis, Wilson grew up in Jackson, attending Power APAC and Murrah High School before graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University.

The 52-page work was published in 2019 after a friend suggested Wilson stop just talking about it and take the plunge. “I wrote the book in two days, illustrated it in

Thank you!

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CirCle Of life PhOtOgraPhy

Warn Wilson’s book, “Brown Money,” introduces children to a number of STEM careers by presenting the concepts alongside Wilson’s own illustrations.

well: Wilson has done several readings to elementary students in the Memphis area over Zoom, with more scheduled. “I’ve tried to introduce these concepts in an easyto-chew format,” he says. “I’ve got relatives in real estate, landowners and managers, but not every child gets to see that as a job.

If you don’t even know it exists, there’s no way to find out.”

But the science-and-hard-facts side remains only one facet of Wilson, as the focused, young entrepreneur who hasn’t even reached 30 yet is also an artist. He also created an illustration for every text page of the book, “I’ve always loved drawing and painting,” Wilson says. “For each page, I thought about what concept I was trying to get across. I sketched that out, and then created a painting for that page.” The cover features a painting from a past series that fit the idea he was trying to convey.

To reinforce the concepts presented in his book, Wilson also created Brown Money: The Card Game. “It’s a fun way for kids to remember the ideas in the book,” Wilson claims. “There are occupation cards and penalty cards, and you earn or lose money depending on what you draw.”

Wilson keeps himself busy, working a full-time job as an engineer and spending his nights and weekends writing and drawing. “I still love being an engineer and creating things,” the artist says. “But I keep creating content for books, and drawing, and I want to keep turning that into motivational material.”

In addition to his engineering job and budding career as a writer and artist, Wilson recently opened a consumer electronics business called Vondu Electronics (online at VonduElectronics.com/store)—keeping in line with his goal of having multiple, diverse income streams and continuing to learn more about the world around him so that he may pass that information to future leaders from his community and beyond.

“As an engineer and artist, I have always had a desire for creating new things. I love to see an idea manifest into a tangible object in the physical world,” Wilson concludes. “I hope to use my academic insight and artwork to influence the next generation of Black thinkers and creators.”

Find “Brown Money,” its sequel “Brown Money 2”—set to release this spring—and the card game, as well as his second book, “Royal Counsel,” and more at WarnWilson.com.

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by Michele D. Baker

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‘Brown Money’ Introduces Black Children to Economics and Potential Careers

23

Business

The Shopkeep Co.’s Orange Raven Welcomes New Patrons

by Dustin Cardon

courtesy The Shopkeep Co.’

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allie Harris, an artist who long dreamed of opening her own store, made that dream a reality when she opened The Shopkeep Co. in downtown Jackson in October 2020. Located at 418 E. Capitol St., Harris’ store specializes in American-made goods, including bath-and-body products, artwork, kitchenware, party goods, toys and more.

“When my husband and I moved to Jackson two years ago and saw the downtown area, we thought it was the perfect place for a business,” Harris says. “I believe that supporting American-made goods is important because of the number of craftsmen and artisans here who offer a quality that can’t be matched. We’re representing 32 states in the shop so far, and I enjoy being able to share our vendors’ stories with Jackson.”

Many of the vendors The Shopkeep Co. represents call Mississippi home, including those who supply coffee courtesy Hallie Harris

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

24

made in Laurel, bath-and-body products from Canton, and ornaments and other art pieces of Harris’ own making.

The store also has handmade items such as brooms from Alabama, thumb pianos from Georgia, jigsaw puzzles from Tennessee, and other items including leather bags, mixing bowls and pie plates crafted to last for many years.

“What’s even more important to me than where an item came from is the memories you’ll make with a particular item,” Harris says. “I want to provide the kinds of things that you can use in the kitchen with your kids while they’re growing up and then pass it down through the family for years to come.”

Harris was born in Canonsburg, Pa., and graduated from Chartiers-Houston High School. She taught herself to draw from looking at drawing notebooks her parents kept around the house and took to the craft “from the time she could pick up a pencil,” she says.

After a family friend asked her to paint a mural for a baby’s room and began recommending her to other people

courtesy The Shopkeep Co.’

Hallie Harris, who moved to the metro in 2019 with her family, opened The Shopkeep Co. in October.

in her neighborhood, Harris set up her own local art business while still in high school, painting murals in people’s homes or painting designs on the windows of businesses.

“My artistic focus has changed a lot over the years, but I’ve always had a focus on vibrant colors, whether it be in portraits, landscapes or anything else,” Harris says. “I’m always looking to evolve my art and try new things.”

Harris met her husband, Bruce Harris, through her former first-grade teacher, who was also a family friend. In 2007, she invited Harris on a trip to meet her nephew, who lived in Lake Bay, Wash. That nephew turned out to be Bruce, and the two immediately hit it off, Harris says. She Perched above the storefront, an orange raven welcomes customers to returned home to Pennsyl- The Shopkeep Co., a store that sells wares produced by American creators. vania to take part in an art festival there but returned to Washington later that year. The two married and spent 11 years living in Seattle before moving to Terry, Miss., with their daughter Luca in 2019.

In 2008, Harris and her husband opened Freight Forwarding Logistics Company together, which moves domestic shipments for various companies in the United States.

“My husband had been in logistics since he had been in high school, and this was something we had really wanted to do for ourselves,” Harris says. “We opened and kept up our own business even during the 2008 recession, so when we decided to open The Shopkeep Co. last year even with the pandemic going on, we knew the challenges were nothing to be afraid of for us.”

After picking out a location for her store in downtown Jackson, Harris had to wait a year to actually prepare the building for opening, and spent that time going on the hunt online for unique American-made wholesale goods that represented what she envisioned for her store.

“We included an orange raven in our store’s logo, which references our love of shopping and of unique, shiny items,” Harris says. “We wanted to have a store full of our favorite things. Capitol Street has seen a lot of remodeling, and the first thing I want to see after the pandemic ends is The Shopkeep Co. stocks goods from 32 states so people filling these storefronts to make Jackson a vibrant far, with plans to further expand its inventory. city again. I want to see local small businesses when I go to a city, because those quirky small shops are what make a town For more information, call 601-559-1643 or visit come alive.” theshopkeepco.com.

Author Twyla T. organizes a meetand-greet event for readers and writers of the urban and romance genres.

events@

jacksonfreepress.com Daily updates at jfpevents.com

courtesy Twyla T

Events Calendar March 2021

by Shaye Smith

BEST BETS Jackson Mayoral Candidates Debate: Power of the Women’s Vote 2021 begins at 7 p.m. and will be held virtually from Mississippi College School of Law. Dr. D’Andra Orey and JFP’s Donna Ladd moderate a virtual political debate with the audience hearing from candidates vying to be elected mayor. The election itself will take place on June 8. Women for Progress is set to broadcast the event through Facebook Live, YouTube and all local radio networks. The debate is locally televised. JFP-sponsored event. Free admission; call 601-259-6770; womenforprogressradio.com.

FRIDAY 3/5 courtesy Mississippi Agriculture & Forestry Museum

Spring Farm Days 2021 is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Mississippi Agriculture & Forestry Museum (1150 Lakeland Drive).

SUNDAY 3/7

Saints and Sinners–Mississippi’s Best Drag Brunch begins at 2 p.m. at Metro 2.0 (4670 Highway 80 W.). The local performance artist and the Jackson night club host the event featuring a buffet-style brunch, endless mimosas, and entertainment from local drag performers. Those interested should mention “Drag Brunch” when emailing or telephoning for reservations. Masks are required. $15 admission; call 601-566-2133; email cruisewithcourtney@gmail.com.

FRIDAY 3/12

Mardi Gras “MASK-QUERADE’’ begins at 6 p.m. at Hal and Mal’s (200 Commerce St.). The LGBTQ+ community building and advocacy organization hosts the Mardi Gras-themed event benefiting Grace House and Shower Power. The price of ticket includes dinner, king cake, an open bar and entertainment. $50 per person; email jason@mscapitalcitypride.org; find it on Facebook.

SUNDAY 3/14

The Mississippi Agriculture & Forestry Museum’s event teaches visitors about farmstead life.

The museum hosts the three-day event featuring opportunities to learn about farmstead life and see the Ag Museum come to life. Cooking demonstrations, farm and forestry equipment displays, and live farm animals are among the attractions offered.

Reservations are recommended but not required. Additional dates: March 4, March 6. $7 adults, $5 children ages 3-17; call 601-432-4500; find it on Facebook.

D. L. Hughley’s show begins at 8 p.m. at Chuckles Comedy House (6479 Ridgewood Court Drive). The comedian, actor, author and radio host performs at the Jackson comedy club. Additional dates: March 12-13, 7:30 p.m. & 10 p.m. $42.50 general admission, $60 VIP; call 769-257-5467; jackson.chucklescomedyhouse.com.

THURSDAY 3/18

“Piercing the Inner Wall: The Art of Dusti Bongé” is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Mississippi Museum of Art (380 S. Lamar St.). The exhibit features work by the artist considered to be the first Mississippi artist to work consistently in a Modernist style. Masks are required and social distancing protocols are observed and monitored.

Students get in free on Thursdays. Free admission for first responders and front-

WEDNESDAY 3/3

“Let It Shine: A Visit With Fannie Lou Hamer” is a virtual performance by New Stage Theatre.

SUNDAY 3/13

Black Water Boogie, a Madison County-based band, performs at Martin’s Downtown.

TUESDAY 3/23

Lemuria Books hosts a discussion on “Maverick Gardeners’’ with author Felder Rushing via Facebook Live. line workers. Additional dates: March 4-6, March 11-13, March 18-19, March 2527, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; March 14, March 21, March 28, noon-5 p.m. $15 adults, $13 seniors, $10 students, free to members; call 601-960-1515; msmuseumart.org.

FRIDAY 3/19

Fauna Foodworks Presents: UltraSilk, A Mixtape of Slow Jams and Love Notes is from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Foot Print Farms (4945 South Drive). Chef Enrika Williams of Fauna Foodworks offers the dinner and culinary installation paying homage to the rituals and weaponry of courtship and falling in love. The event is set to the soundtrack of the “Quiet Storm” jams of the late ’80s. $70 admission; call 601-287-1276; email eywilliams@faunafoodworks.com; find it on Facebook.

SATURDAY 3/20

Mississippi Urban Book Fest is from noon to 5 p.m. at the MS e-Center at Jackson State University Events (1230 Raymond Road). The event offers the opportunity for readers to meet authors of urban fiction

and romance and browse their paperbacks.

Door prizes awarded every hour. Reader admission is free. Participating authors may purchase an individual display table for $125 or share a table with another author for $200. Other vendors may participate for a $100 fee. Free reader admission, vendors’ prices vary; email authortwylat@ gmail.com; eventbrite.com.

SUNDAY 3/21

Easter Bunny Experience is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Highland Village (4500 Interstate 55 N. Frontage Road, Suite 281).

Highland Village offers the opportunity for area children to attend a tea party with the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny experience is available by reservation only.

Visits are limited to one family at a time and will include tea party snacks and beverages provided by Highland Village eateries. Each experience also comes with special gifts, a link to digital photos taken during the experience, and a chance to win a gift basket containing Jingle Coins and gift cards to Highland Village retailers and restaurants. Additional dates: March 20, March 27-28. $100; call 601-982-5861; email highlandvillage@wsdevelopment. com; find it on Facebook.

SATURDAY 3/27

Chamber II - Mozart by Candlelight is from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Thalia Mara Hall (255 E. Pascagoula St.). The symphony presents the concert featuring the music of Mozart in a candlelit setting.

This year’s concert is anchored by Mozart’s most famous and instantly recognizable, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” Advance registration is required. No at-door sales or Will Call. Ticket, mask and temperature check required for entry. No intermission or concessions. $20 general admission; call 601-960-1565; email info@msorchestra. com; find it on Facebook.

Send info to events@jacksonfreepress.com.

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

THURSDAY 3/4

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Last Week’s Answers 53 Oscar winner Matlin 54 Figure skater Henie 56 Singer Rita 57 “Hamilton” home, casually 60 One usually grouped by sixteens 63 It may be passive 65 Winning once again 68 Arm of a sea 69 ___ con pollo 70 Paint swatch option 71 Double curves 72 By ___ (barely) 73 Galoot

BY MATT JONES

41 Bee on TV 42 “South Park” little brother 43 Fifth scale note 45 Easy crockpot dish 46 Match ender 48 “MST3K” fodder 49 Carter and Copland, e.g.

50 Mythical chalices 51 Button used mostly in the morning 55 May follower 58 Four-line rhyme scheme 59 Craft store bundle 61 Revolution outcome

62 Olympic event with swords 64 Icy core?

66 ___-Magnon 67 Daily ___ (political blog) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-2262800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800 655-6548.

Reference puzzle #952

Down

1 Banned pollutants, briefly 2 CFO, e.g.

3 In opposition 4 Tree of Life, in “The Lion King” 5 “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” airer, once 6 Go bad 7 1970s rock genre 8 Wish earnestly 9 Enter via ship 10 “If You Leave” band, for short 11 Galicia gala 12 Arched foot part 13 Make harmonious 18 The same old thing 22 Baseball’s Matty or Felipe 25 Calendar pgs.

26 Surname said a lot by Snape 28 Engine power source 29 Place for wallowing 30 “Ni ___” (“Hello” in Chinese) 32 Leonard of the NBA 33 Imperturbable ones 35 Computer language used in business 38 They’re not too risky

“Automated Response” --sign your initials to prove you’re not real.

Across

1 Wasabi ___ 4 Scottish town 9 “Lost in Translation” director Coppola 14 115, in Roman numerals 15 Skater ___ Anton Ohno 16 Make ___ (profit) 17 Brewhouse offering 19 “That is,” to Caesar 20 Really clean 21 It may come in a kit 23 Disco ___ (“The Simpsons” character)

24 “Forever” purchase 27 Lend an ear 29 ___-Hulk (Marvel superheroine) 31 Aural entertainment now mostly obsolete 34 Post-bath powder 36 Established law 37 Stringed instruments?

39 Blue ball?

40 “Champagne Supernova” group 44 Single, double, or triple 47 Shark sort 48 Repertoire, so to speak 52 Nickname for two Spice Girls

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MISSISSIPPI BLACK LEADERSHIP SUMMIT BEST PUBLIC FORUM / SPEAKER SERIES!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

For you Pisceans, March is Love Yourself Bigger and Better and Bolder Month. To prepare you for this festival, I’m providing two inspirational quotes. 1. “If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.” —Barbara De Angelis 2. “Loving yourself does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion.” —Margo Anand

In late April of 1969, Cambridhgeshire, UK hosted the firstever Thriplow Daffodil Weekend: a flower show highlighting 80 varieties of narcissus. In the intervening years, climate change has raised the average temperature 3.24 degrees Fahrenheit. So the flowers have been blooming progressively earlier each year, which has necessitated moving the festival back. The last pre-Covid show in 2019 was on March 23-24, a month earlier than the original. Let’s use this as a metaphor for shifting conditions in your world. I invite you to take an inventory of how your environment has been changing, and what you could do to ensure you’re adapting to new conditions.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

Author Leo Buscaglia told us that among ancient Egyptians, two specific questions were key in evaluating whether a human life was well-lived. They were “Did you bring joy?” and “Did you find joy?” In accordance with your current astrological potentials, I’m inviting you to meditate on those queries. And if you discover there’s anything lacking in the joy you bring and the joy you find, now is a very favorable time to make corrections.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

At age 11, the future first President of the United States George Washington became the “owner” of ten slaves.

A few years later he “bought” 15 more. By the time he was president, 123 men, women, and children were struggling in miserable bondage under his control.

Finally, in his will, he authorized them to be freed after he and his wife died. Magnanimous? Hell, no. He should have freed those people decades earlier—or better yet, never “owned” them in the first place. Another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin not only freed his slaves but became an abolitionist. By my count, at least 11 of the other Founding Fathers never owned slaves. Now here’s the lesson I’d like us to apply to your life right now: Don’t procrastinate in doing the right thing. Do it now.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

During World War II, the Japanese island of Ōkunoshima housed a factory that manufactured poison gas for use in chemical warfare against China. These days it is a tourist attraction famous for its thousands of feral but friendly bunnies. I’d love to see you initiate a comparable transmutation in the coming months, dear Cancerian: changing bad news into good news, twisted darkness into interesting light, soullessness into soulfulness. Now is a good time to ramp up your efforts.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

“Scars speak for you,” writes author Gena Showalter. “They say you’re strong, and you’ve survived something that might have killed others.” In that spirit, dear Leo, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to authorize your scars to express interesting truths about you in the coming weeks. Allow them to demonstrate how resilient you’ve been, and how well you’ve mastered the lessons that your past suffering has made available. Give your scars permission to be wildly eloquent about the transformations you’ve been so courageous in achieving.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

According to novelist Doris Lessing, “Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me.” She implied that hardly anyone ever gets such an experience—or that it’s so rare as to be always tugging on our minds, forever a source of unquenched longing. But I’m more optimistic than Lessing. In my view, the treasured exchange she describes is not so impossible. And I think it will especially possible for you in the coming weeks. I

suspect you’re entering a grace period of being listened to, understood, and treated kindly. Here’s the catch: For best results, you should be forthright in seeking it out.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

“How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling,” wrote composer Claude Debussy. In the coming weeks, I hope you’ll regard his words as an incitement to do everything you can to reach the naked flesh of your feelings. Your ideas are fine. Your rational mind is a blessing. But for the foreseeable future, what you need most is to deepen your relationship with your emotions. Study them, please. Encourage them to express themselves. Respect their messages as gifts, even if you don’t necessarily act upon them.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

You may never wander out alone into a dark forest or camp all night on a remote beach or encounter a mountain lion as you climb to a glacier near the peak of a rugged mountain. But there will always be a primeval wilderness within you—uncivilized lands and untamed creatures and elemental forces that are beyond your rational understanding. That’s mostly a good thing! To be healthy and wise, you need to be in regular contact with raw nature, even if it’s just the kind that’s inside you. The only time it may be a hindrance is if you try to deny its existence, whereupon it may turn unruly and inimical. So don’t deny it! Especially now. (PS: To help carry out this assignment, try to remember the dreams you have at night. Keep a recorder or notebook and pen near your bed.)

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Deadline: Mondays at Noon.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

“What damages a person most,” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “is to work, think, and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty.” Once a year, I think every one of us, including me, should meditate on that quote. Once a year, we should evaluate whether we are living according to our soul’s code; whether we’re following the path with heart; whether we’re doing what we came to earth to accomplish. In my astrological opinion, the next two weeks will be your special time to engage in this exploration.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

What are your edges, Capricorn? What aspects of your identity straddle two different categories? Which of your beliefs embrace seemingly opposed positions? In your relations with other people, what are the taboo subjects? Where are the boundaries that you can sometimes cross and other times can’t cross? I hope you’ll meditate on these questions in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, you’re primed to explore edges, deepen your relationship with your edges, and use your edges for healing and education and cultivating intimacy with your allies. As author Ali Smith says, “Edges are magic; there’s a kind of forbidden magic on the borders of things, always a ceremony of crossing over, even if we ignore it or are unaware of it.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

According to intermedia artist Sidney Pink, “The idea of divine inspiration and an aha moment is largely a fantasy.”

What the hell is he talking about?! That’s fake news, in my view. In the course of my creative career, I’ve been blessed with thousands of divine inspirations and aha moments. But I do acknowledge that my breakthroughs have been made possible by “hard work and unwavering dedication,” which Sidney Pink extols. Now here’s the climax of your oracle: You Aquarians are in a phase when you should be doing the hard work and unwavering dedication that will pave the way for divine inspirations and aha moments later this year.

Homework. What’s your theme song for 2021 so far? FreeWillAstrology.com

Join us for MFP Live as we Celebrate Women’s History Month Ever y Thursday May 4 at 7 p.m.

Jackson Mayoral Debate: Power of the Women’s Vote 2021 Donna Ladd and D’Andra Orey, moderators View Live Stream on the Women for Progress Facebook Page May 11 at 6 p.m.

COVID and the Black Community Nina Washington, MD, Pediatric Rheumatologist Kimberly Griffin and Donna Ladd, interviewers View Live Stream on the Mississippi Free Press Facebook Page May 18 at 6 p.m.

Michelle Duster, great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells and author of “Ida B the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells” Kimberly Griffin and Donna Ladd, interviewers View Live Stream on the Mississippi Free Press Facebook Page Links to programs at mfp.ms/mfplive

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Visit www.mississippifreepress.org to donate.

March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms

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