Ashton Pittman

2 weeks ago | mississippifreepress.org | Ashton Pittman

State offices in Mississippi are closed today to commemorate the men who died fighting the United States government to protect the institution of human slavery. Confederate Memorial Day is a state holiday observed in several southern states. As in years past, the majority-white, Republican-led Mississippi Legislature once again allowed a Black Democrat’s bill to get rid of Confederate Memorial Day to die without a vote. That lawmaker, Sen.

3 weeks ago | mississippifreepress.org | Shaunicy Muhammad |Ashton Pittman

JACKSON, Miss.—John Horhn, a longtime Mississippi senator, is the Democratic nominee to be the next mayor of Jackson. Horhn defeated the incumbent, Chokwe A. Lumumba, in a landslide victory on Tuesday night following a primary runoff. As of 9:20 p.m., with 79 of 80 precincts reporting, Horhn had 17,729 votes to Lumumba’s 5,940—a lead of about 75% to 25%.

3 weeks ago | mississippifreepress.org | Ashton Pittman

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has declared April 2025 as Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi, keeping alive a 32-year-old tradition that began in 1993. A member of the Rankin Greys, a Sons of Confederate Veterans camp based in Florence, Mississippi, announced the proclamation in a post in the organization’s Facebook group on April 18. The SCV annually asks governors to issue the Confederate Heritage Month proclamations.

3 weeks ago | mississippifreepress.org | Ashton Pittman

Philip Holsinger, a photojournalist from Nashville, Tenn., watched as a young man wept while a guard pushed him to the floor at CECOT, the El Salvadoran prison notorious for human-rights abuses. “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber,” said the man, who Holsinger would later write “didn’t look like what I had expected” because “he wasn’t a tattooed monster.” The man was Andry Hernandez Romero, a Venezuelan man who had come to the United States in 2024 in search of asylum.

1 month ago | mississippifreepress.org | Ashton Pittman

A judge has dismissed former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant’s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today, which he first filed in 2023 over the publication’s reporting on the welfare scandal that began during his time in office. The ruling comes after a federal court dismissed a separate defamation lawsuit the former governor filed against Sports Illustrated.