Random gunfire, repeated break-ins and a decaying city water system are constant challenges at Mom’s Dream Kitchen, the soul food restaurant Timothy Norris’ mother opened 35 years ago in Mississippi’s capital.
“I have some cousins that live in Ohio,” said Norris, 54, who now owns the restaurant. “They came last year. They hadn’t been here in 22 years. They were completely shocked at Jackson.”
Citing rising crime, Mississippi’s Republican-controlled House recently passed a bill expanding areas of Jackson patrolled by a state-run Capitol Police force and creating a new court system with appointed rather than elected judges. Both would give white state government officials more power over Jackson, which has the highest percentage of Black residents of any major U.S. city.
The state Senate also passed a bill to establish a regional governing board for Jackson’s long-troubled water system, with most members appointed by state officials. The system nearly collapsed last year and is now under control of a federally-appointed manager.
The proposals for state control have angered Jackson residents who don’t want their voices diminished, and are the latest example of the long-running tensions between the Republican-run state government and Democratic-run capital city.
“It’s really a stripping of power and it’s happening in a predominantly Black city that has predominantly Black leadership,” said Sonya Williams-Barnes, a Democratic former state lawmaker who is now Mississippi policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. “You don’t see this going on in other areas of the state where they’re run by majority white people.”
Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the proposal reeks of apartheid and “plantation politics.”
“If we allow this type of legislation to stand in Jackson, Mississippi, it’s a matter of time before it will hit New Orleans,…
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