Jackson, Mississippi

A work trip immediately preceding my journey to Cuba provided the perfect segue into it.

(Photo courtesy of the Mississippi Coalition to End Corporal Punishment)

In On the Freedom of Black Children, I promised to delve into my professional relationship with the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) in a subsequent post. Founded in 2006, DSC serves as a national coalition of organizations, comprised of young people, parents, educators, lawyers, and community members, who are committed to dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline in the United States.

As I began my legal career at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in 2016, the organization held a seat on DSC’s coordinating committee. About half-way through my one-year fellowship, I started representing the Lawyers’ Committee on this body; that non-profit held a seat reserved for policy & advocacy organizations. In 2017, I traveled to Atlanta and Dayton to strategize with my fellow coordinating committee members and deepen my relationships with them. In Dayton, two of my childhood friends from Columbus came to have dinner with me - full circle paths in my life were being completed even six years ago. In the latter half of 2017, I accepted another job and had to formally leave my role with DSC. Although, something in my spirit told me I wasn’t done with this incredibly impactful coalition.

In 2022, three years into my role at Texas Appleseed, I applied for membership on the coordinating committee again and commenced my service in September of last year. For years, DSC would host a National Week of Action in the fall, choosing an American city that would be the epicenter of programming. The pandemic certainly disrupted this practice, and the coordinating committee focused its attention on bringing the Week of Action back as an in-person event. Jackson, Mississippi was eventually set as the host city, and we decided on mid-October 2023 as the time.

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I have been to Mississippi every year of my life. My maternal grandmother was born in raised in a rural community called Rodney, and she moved to Tallulah, Louisiana in her early twenties. Tallulah sits about 20 miles from the Louisiana-Mississippi state line on I-20. For as long as I can remember, my family and I would drive over to Vicksburg or Jackson to run errands, watch movies, and generally get out of the house. My great-grandmother graduated from Alcorn State University, which is close to Rodney, and I have a younger cousin who is presently enrolled there. Five generations of my family have been educated at an institution of higher learning in Mississippi.

As I prepared to travel to Jackson for the National Week of Action, my personal history with the state completely swept me up. The site of college graduations, weddings, funerals, and so many other moments of significance in the life of my family now beckoned me to it for work.

The Nollie Jenkins Family Center hosted us during the National Week of Action. Their efforts to end corporal punishment in Mississippi galvanized us and gave us great perspective during our few days there. On Thursday, October 19, 2023, we attended a public meeting of the Mississippi State Board of Education. When we entered the building, we were met with skepticism and questioning by the police officer stationed at the front.

“Who is your contact in the building?” he asked.

“We’re here to attend a public meeting,” Ellen Reddy, the executive director of Nollie Jenkins, responded.

He ultimately relented, and we were escorted up to the room where the meeting was being held. After a performance by a choir from Holmes County, as well as a few presentations from state employees, the chair announced that they were moving into executive session - and clearing the room. This tactic emerged from efforts of Nollie Jenkins and the Mississippi Coalition to End Corporal Punishment to present public testimony about the grave harms of this practice. Rather than face the ongoing existence of the school-to-prison pipeline and other harmful components of American K-12 education in the twenty-first century, the State Board of Education members summoned the police and had us removed. This anti-democratic blockade strengthened our resolve.

(Photo courtesy of the Mississippi Coalition to End Corporal Punishment; pictured immediately after being ejected from the Mississippi State Board of Education public meeting)

We gathered on the steps of the State Capitol building soon thereafter. We heard powerful remarks from Black women across the South - including Kameisha Smith, Khem Irby, Ruth Idakula, Dianna Freelon-Foster, and Ms. Ellen - who offered deeper context for our work within the Dignity in Schools Campaign and our local organizations. Black youth organizers expressed their demands for fully-funded public schools, an end to school policing, and the abolishment of corporal punishment.

We transitioned to the Smith Robertson School, the first Black public school in Jackson, after our press conference wrapped up. For the next day and a half, we strategized, built relationships, mourned folks who we have lost to interpersonal violence, and - as always - envisioned a future where Black liberation is a reality.

I ended the trip with dinner with my beloved Aunt Joy. Our small reunion fell on the seventh anniversary of my swearing-in to the Louisiana State Bar Association. We reminisced, and I prepared to head to Cuba with the Democratic Socialists of America within the next 48 hours. My work in Texas, Mississippi, and the American South is inextricably linked to my efforts to win socialism internationally.

What a calling and what a gift.