Jackson Free Press

There's never a slow news week in Jackson, Miss., and last week was no exception. Here are the local stories JFP reporters brought you in case you missed them:

1. The "Better Together" commission to analyze the needs of Jackson's public schools held its second meeting in the Lincoln Gardens community center, off Medgar Evers Drive in northwest Jackson, which filled to standing-room only.
2. The U.S. Department of Justice wrote the City of Jackson asking if its anti-profiling ordinance complies with the U.S. Constitution. The City must respond within a month.
3. Gov. Phil Bryant released his budget priorities last week, which call for an increase in funding for the Mississippi Works program to provide free community college for graduating seniors and adults in the workforce.
4. While much of the country grappled with how to integrate schools in light of the 1954 Brown decision, Mississippi doubled down on keeping public schools separate and unequal.
5. Robert “Bob” Miller began as the director of Jackson’s Department of Public Works in October, touting decades of experience to help restore Jackson’s infrastructure. Now he faces myriad water and street challenges.
6. Mississippi's Supreme Court justices said a chancery judge ruled correctly that documents from the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources are public records. Officials had claimed the documents were investigative records and did not have to be disclosed under the state's Public Records Act.
7. Jackson State University unveiled a refurbished statue of James (Jim) Hill on Thursday, Nov. 9, in Mt. Olive Cemetery on J.R. Lynch Street.
8. More than 50 Jacksonians filled the Mississippi Museum of Art lobby on Nov. 8, eager to hear what the newly formed "Better Together" commission would do for Jackson Public Schools.
9. The City of Jackson along with Jackson Public Schools and the other school districts and cities in Hinds County will receive an influx of funds after Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann recovered $414,265 from sales of tax-forfeited properties in the city and county since July 1, 2017.
10. More than two years after activist Rexdale Henry of the Choctaw tribe of Native Americans turned up dead in a Neshoba County Jail cell, a jury found Justyn Schlegel, a fellow inmate, guilty of murder.

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