Mississippi
National Park Service eyes new Mississippi civil rights sites
A historic marker close to the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church serves as a reminder of the 1964 Civil Rights-era murders of three males, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman in Philadelphia, Miss. Photograph: Marianne Todd/Getty Photos
The Nationwide Park Service says 9 websites in Mississippi related with the 1955 homicide of Emmett Until and the 1964 Mississippi Freedom undertaking match the necessities for the Nationwide Park System.
Why it issues: For many years, advocates have sought to protect websites linked to 2 essential moments of the Civil Rights Motion whereas looking for to take away monuments to Confederates who owned enslaved individuals.
Driving the information: The park system stated it recognized the 9 websites after evaluating greater than 220 throughout Mississippi and consulting with historians and activists.
- The Mississippi Civil Rights Websites Particular Useful resource Research, despatched to Congress late final month, concluded the websites met the standards for potential inclusion.
- Congress can cross laws authorizing the Nationwide Park Service to make the 9 Mississippi websites a part of the Nationwide Park System. President Biden can also designate the websites underneath the Antiquities Act.
Zoom in: Among the many websites are the stays of Bryant’s Grocery in Cash, Mississippi. That is the shop the place 14-year-old Emmett Until, a Black teen, was falsely accused of grabbing and threatening Carolyn Bryant, a white lady.
- The positioning of Mt. Zion Methodist Church was one other. It was one in all 20 black church buildings to be firebombed throughout Mississippi throughout that Freedom Summer season.
Flashback: In 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam lynched Until. An all-white jury cleared the 2 white males, although they later admitted to killing him.
- The 1964 Freedom Summer season undertaking introduced northern school college students right down to the American South to assist register Black Mississippians to vote. Three civil rights staff have been killed in the course of the summer season.
The intrigue: Some websites have sat deserted and forgotten for years whereas others have been privately preserved or stored up by native officers.
- Inclusion into the Nationwide Park System would make the websites simpler to seek out and extra accessible — and it may open the door for federal funding to protect them.
Between the traces: Civil rights advocates, historians and social justice vacationers have been mapping out websites lately as a option to bear in mind and confront episodes related with trauma.
- Some researchers say the preservation of the websites is a part of a motion referred to as “reminiscence work,” the place students have interaction with the previous to revise accounts of historical past.
- The Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery-based authorized advocacy group, has mapped 1000’s of websites linked to lynchings of Black individuals.
- The nonprofit Refusing to Overlook additionally has situated websites related to the lynchings and massacres of Mexican Individuals in Texas.
Sure, however: Advocates typically face resistance from conservative native historic county commissions that battle efforts to erect historic markers at civil rights websites.
Mississippi
Miss Mississippi and Miss Mississippi's Teen are heading to Orlando for Miss America
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Miss Mississippi Becky Williams and Miss Mississippi’s Teen Brooke Bumgarner will head to Orlando, Florida Friday for the Miss America competition.
The national competition begins December 31st and Bumgarner hopes to make history by becoming the first national winner for this state in the teen competition. Williams hopes she will be the candidate to win Miss America since the last state winner in 1986 when Susan Aikin won the Miss America Crown.
On New Year’s Eve, the Miss America contestants, including Miss Mississippi Becky Williams will arrive in Orlando. Miss America 2025 will be crowned January 5th. There have been four winners from this state including, Mary Ann Mobley, Lynda Lee Meade, Cheryl Prewitt, and Miss America 1986 Susan Aiken.
Williams said, “The Miss Mississippi Corporation has changed my life. My experience in competing just these three years has been life-changing. I’m not the same person I was when I started and to even have the opportunity to compete at Miss Mississippi is one thing. To win is another and on top of that, I get to represent my entire state. I get to represent the volunteers of Miss Mississippi. I get to represent the state of Mississippi.”
Williams has been preparing for the national competition since she was crowned in June. She has also kept busy promoting her Community Service Initiative Make a Move.
“Preparing for Miss America has been a little different than getting ready for Miss Mississippi because now I am Miss Mississippi and it’s a full-time job. I’m on the road, I’m all across the state throughout my entire year, so these past six months I’ve been every which way but still fitting in time in dance studios across the state. I’m so thankful to my dance families in Meridian, in Hattiesburg, and in Jackson for giving me the space to practice, so that’s been really helpful but you know when it comes to interview prep, when it comes to doing the job of Miss America, I’m getting ready every single day because that’s what I do right now as Miss Mississippi”, said Williams.
The first night of the preliminary competition for Miss America’s Teen is New Year’s Eve. Brooke Bumgarner of Madison has been preparing and is hoping to make history as the first winner for Mississippi.
Bumgarner said, “She will win a $50,000 dollar scholarship which is an incredible blessing and she also wins a year-long of experiences that not everybody gets to take on and that’s such a rare opportunity and it’s been such an honor to watch the new leadership at Miss America really take our program to the next level and allow Miss America’s Teen to go through so many incredible life-changing experiences.”
Preliminary competition for Miss America begins New Year’s Night. The teen winner will be crowned January 4th.
“Only 51 girls a year are going to be able to go to the national pageant and that’s, it’s incredible to think that I am one of those 51 and I have the opportunity to make friends with people from all across the nation”, said Bumgarner.
The New Miss America will be crowned Sunday, January 5th.
Williams said, “You know it’s so humbling to be able to say that I’m the face of Mississippi when it comes to this competition so I get the chance to show everyone what we have to offer.”
The new Miss America will be awarded 60 thousand dollars in scholarships. This will be the 103rd Anniversary for Miss America which is the world’s largest scholarship program for women.
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Mississippi
Natchez man dies after jumping off overpass in Vicksburg – Mississippi's Best Community Newspaper
Natchez man dies after jumping off overpass in Vicksburg
Published 5:05 pm Thursday, December 26, 2024
NATCHEZ — A Natchez man Thursday morning jumped to his death from an overpass in Vicksburg, said Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten.
Patten said the Warren County Sheriff’s Office notified him of the incident this morning.
“I received a phone call this morning from Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace about the incident that occurred in Vicksburg,” Patten said. “After Sheriff Pace described the incident that took place, we immediately sent deputies out to do a welfare check that turned into a death notification.”
The man, identified by Patten as Gary Wills, 57, had been missing from his family since Wednesday.
“This is not the kind of news you want to deliver to any family, but it has to be done out of necessity, and our hearts go out to his daughter and family,” he said.
Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said his office received a call at about 10 a.m. Thursday.
“We responded to do a welfare check on a white male pacing back and forth on the overpass that crosses over U.S. Highway 61,” Pace said, referring to the Culkin Road overpass “As deputies approached the individual to ask if he was OK, he jumped off the bridge, landing on U.S. 61 below.
“Deputies were able to get to him immediately, and an ambulance arrived within minutes. He was transported to Merit Health River Region Hospital, where he died a short time later,” Pace said.
He said a vehicle was found parked nearby.
“The registration of that vehicle led us to Natchez. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office was able to locate the family and positively identify the victim for us. He had no identification on his person,” Pace said.
Wills was the owner of Creative Exteriors in Natchez.
Mississippi
Mississippi Lottery: Mega Millions prize is $1.1 billion for Dec. 27 drawing
Mega Millions lottery tickets going up to $5
A new and improved Mega Millions lottery is on the way and the cost of a ticket to the multi-state lotto going up from $2 to $5 starting in April 2025.
Cheddar
Want a really happy new year? The Mega Millions jackpot for Friday, Dec. 27, is an estimated $1.1 billion.
The winning numbers will be drawn just after 10 p.m. Central, and the cash option is $516.1 million.
A $1.1 billion-winning ticket was sold in New Jersey earlier this year, and that prize was just claimed this week, nine months after the drawing. In Mississippi, drawing winners must claim their prize within 180 days, and if you win, you can claim it anonymously.
Here’s what you need to know about top jackpots and how to play Mega Millions in Mississippi, including where you can buy tickets and how to claim the prize if you win.
Where can you buy lottery tickets?
Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets.
How to play the Mega Millions
In order to buy a ticket, you’ll have to visit your local convenience store, gas station or grocery store. In a handful of states, you can purchase tickets online, but Mississippi isn’t one of them.
To play, you will need to pick six numbers. Five numbers will be white balls ranging from 1 to 70. The gold Mega Ball is one number between 1 and 25.
If you believe the odds are against you, ask for a ”Quick Pick” or an ”Easy Pick,” the computer will randomly generate the numbers for you.
Players can add the ”Megaplier” for $1, which can increase non-grand prize winnings by two, three, four or five times. The Megaplier is drawn before the Mega Millions numbers on Tuesday and Friday.
There are 15 Megapiler balls in all:
- 2X, five balls.
- 3X, six balls.
- 4X, three balls.
- 5X, one ball.
What are the top Mega Millions jackpots?
According to the lottery, the following jackpots are the Top 10 jackpots that have been won as of Oct. 4:
- $1.602 billion, Aug. 8, 2023; a Florida player
- $1.537 billion, Oct. 23, 2018; a South Carolina player
- $1.348 billion, Jan.13, 2023; a Maine player
- $1.337 billion, July 29, 2022; an Illinois player
- $1.128 billion, March 26, 2024; a New Jersey payer
- $1.050 billion, Jan. 22, 2021; a Michigan player
- $810 million, Sept. 10, 2024; a Texas player
- $656 million, March 30, 2012; a player from Illinois, Kansas and Maryland
- $648 million, Dec. 17,2013; a player from California and Georgia
- $552 million, June 4, 2024; an Illinois player
I won the lottery in Mississippi! What next?
The Mississippi Lottery advises people to sign the back of their winning ticket immediately.
If your prize is less than $600, you can claim that at any place that sells Mississippi Lottery tickets.
If you win $600-$99,999, you can claim by mail or by going to the Mississippi Lottery Headquarters in Flowood.
All prizes more than $100,000 must be claimed at the Mississippi Lottery Headquarters.
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