Jackson Free Press

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and the City of Jackson is hosting another Town Hall meeting tonight to discuss the 1-percent local sales tax option. The meeting is set for 6 p.m. at Christ United Methodist Church at 6000 Old Canton Road in Ward 1.

City leaders are putting the option for the tax to voters next Tuesday ( Jan. 14). If passed, it would levy an extra 1-percent on all sales in the city except groceries, prescription drugs, cable TV packages, hotel rooms and food and beverages at restaurants.

The city of Jackson has announced that a portion of South Medgar Evers Boulevard will be closed for the next three days. The closure starts at the intersection known as Freedom Corner, at Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and continues south to Pocahontas Street at Society Ridge Baptist Church.

Public Works crews are working to repair a broken water valve, and it's expected to take three days, weather permitting. Detour signs, they say, will be posted.

While this can be considered inconvenient, we've been lucky, so far, despite the constant below-freezing temperatures that have gripped the Jackson over the last 48 hours. A similar freeze in 2010 burst pipes all over the city and forced repairs all over the city.

Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and the City of Jackson will host three additional town hall meetings to discuss the merits of the proposed 1-percent sales tax option currently before Jackson voters, the city announced Monday morning.

Wards 1 and 2 will meet at 6 p.m. on Dec. 19 at Word and Worship Church at 6286 Hanging Moss, Wards 5, 6 and 7 will meet at 6 p.m. on Dec. 22 at the Battlefield Community Center at 953 W. Porter St. and Wards 3 and 4 will meet at 6 p.m. at St. John M.B. Church at 4895 Medgar Evers Blvd.

Jacksonians will vote on the referendum on Jan. 14, 2014. If approved, the city would gain a penny on every dollar spent for all retail sales except for groceries, prescription drugs, hotel rooms, food and drinks at restaurants and television cable packages.

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba has announced two more town hall meetings to discuss the need for the city to pass a 1-percent sales tax hike.

The first is set for 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 10, at the E-Center on the campus of Jackson State University at 1230 Raymond Road. The second is set for 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 19, at Word and Worship Church at 6286 Hanging Moss Rd.

The mayor has already hosted two such meetings in the past week, and called them "very well-attended and informative" at Tuesday's meeting of the City Council.

Jacksonians will vote on the referendum on Jan. 14, 2014.

With less than two months left before Jacksonians head to the polls to decide the fate of a proposed 1-percent sales tax increase, Mayor Chokwe Lumumba is taking his message to the people.

Lumumba will host a town hall-style meeting at 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1 at Pearl St. African Methodist Episcopal Church at 2519 Robinson St.

The Mayor will discuss the 1% sales tax proposal, and explain the use of the tax revenue to make infrastructure improvements. The meeting comes as Jackson's City Council debates whether to push the referendum vote to a later date in order to improve it's chances of passing with the 60 percent threshold it must have to become reality.

There's usually plenty to do on Fridays in Jackson, and if you are like me, you're going to have a tough time deciding exactly which of these awesome events to attend:

• The city of Jackson is celebrating National Night Out on Friday from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at City Hall to increase crime prevention awareness. Here's the kicker: Jackson State University's Sonic Boom of the South will lead the "Confidence March Against Crime" from Smith Park to City Hall, beginning at 11 a.m.

• The Jackson premiere of the documentary film "SubSIPPI" from the creative minds of Greg Gandy, Vincent Chaney, & Lauren Cioffi is set for 7:30 p.m. at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Make sure to check out the trailer here. It's free to attend and it's on the lawn outside, so make sure to bring a blanket on which to sit.

• Jackson Prep (4-1) is riding high coming off last week's 19-13 win over Madison-Ridgeland Academy, but they are in for a real test when the country boys from Bassfield, Mississippi's 2-A reigning champs, roll into town for a public-versus-private-school matchup. Prep is a much bigger school with more players on its football team, but they'll hardly be able to keep step with the speed of one of Mississippi's best prep teams. Should be one for the ages.

• Downtown Jackson Partners is proud to announce it is partnering with the Town Creek Arts Festival to host Downtown on Display, an open house event for downtown Jackson businesses. It'll be held on October 5, 2013. From 2 - 5 PM, visitors will have the opportunity to take architectural tours, get access to magnificent views, eat, shop, and listen to live music. Read more here.

• We really enjoyed putting together the "Good" issue of the Jackson Free Press last week. If you missed it, be sure to check out the latest PDF edition on the main page. There are always so many solid ideas in it, and some of them are even feasible.

• I'm gearing up today for a tour of the James Eastland Federal Building with architect Roy Decker, who is going to show JFP photographer Trip Burns and me his plans for transforming the downtown landmark into a new mixed-use building to house residents and some commercial businesses. For more information on the Eastland Building, go here.

• In other news, and in case you're a sports fan, the Jackson State football Tigers improved to 2-0 in Southwestern Athletic Conference play with a 35-7 whipping of Texas Southern last Thursday at Veterans Memorial Stadium. The Tigers (2-2) are tied atop the SWAC East standings with rival Alcorn State, which defeated Arkansas-Pine Bluff 21-16 on Saturday.

The city of Jackson will host a town hall meeting to discuss and answer questions the public may have regarding the proposed water and sewer upgrades. The next Town Hall Meeting will take place in Ward 3 on Wednesday, Sept. 11, at 6:30 p.m. at Progressive Missionary Baptist Church at 2323 Powers Avenue.

Concerned or interested citizens are encouraged to attend.

The City of Jackson will host a town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 28. at Anderson United Methodist Church South at 1315 West McDowell Road to give residents a chance to discuss and ask questions about the mayor's proposed rate hikes on water and sewer services.

A press release from the city yesterday said the meeting was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday night, but it was incorrect, according to the mayor's interim-media liason Latrice Westbrooks.

Westbrooks said Mayor Chokwe Lumumba will be on hand, as well as the city's Director of Public Works Dan Gaillet.

You want to know why people are scared of Chokwe Lumumba? Here's a good place to start.

The headline that appears on a story that the WAPT web site (www.wapt.com) reads, "Lumumba wants to remove Christopher Columbus from history books."

The headline is misleading at best.

I was at the debate last Friday night when Lumumba made the comment that we need to stop teaching our children that Christopher Columbus discovered American in 1492. "Columbus didn't discover America. America wasn't lost, Columbus was," Lumumba is correctly quoted in the story as saying.

What the story doesn't do is put the quote in context. The way it reads, you'd think Lumumba was asked about education and launched into a Christopher Columbus hate-a-thon. He was asked how we can keep students from dropping out of Jackson Public Schools, and he answered that maybe if our black youth was learning a little bit more about black culture and roots, they might be a little more interested in school and have a little bit more self-worth.

Besides, Lumumba is right about Columbus and the wording "Columbus discovered America." You can't be the first person to discover something that someone else has already found. Native Americans lived here before Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean; therefore, he cannot be the first man to "discover" America. Even if you don't believe that African people from the northern part of the continent crossed the Atlantic before Columbus—and some do—you can't deny that Christopher Columbus was not the first man to set foot in the Americas.

But the story on WAPT gets worse. It clumsily tries to explain Lumumba's beliefs, saying that he believes "people from northern Africa had been traveling to the North American continent years before Columbus did in 1492," and my personal favorite line of the story: "In fact, a Google search by 16 WAPT News shows the discovery of America is a widely disputed one."

Well, at least you did your homework.

Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Lumumba said the headline and the idea that he wants to remove Columbus from the history books is "disappointing."

"I never said that. ... What I was really saying is that we need to add the people who came before ... . I just want the history books to accurately reflect that Columbus opened the Western Hemisphere to Europe," he said. "He did not discover it." Lumumba said he has used that line hundreds of times over the years, and said it was curious that it was just getting publicity now.

The bigger issue is that here we are, two days after Lumumba won the primary runoff, and this is the headline on local news stations. The divisiveness hit Twitter and Facebook as soon as the race was called. It hit comment sections on web sites of the JFP and Clarion-Ledger shortly thereafter. Now it is in a headline on WAPT. Where will it be in a month? A year?

For his part, Lumumba said he's …

The campaign to elect City Councilman Chokwe Lumumba as mayor announced several endorsements from key city leaders Friday morning in front of City Hall.

Among the endorsements Lumumba received were State Representatives Earl Banks and Jim Evans and District 5 Hinds County Supervisor Kenneth Stokes and his wife, Ward 3 City Councilwoman LaRita Cooper Stokes. Former mayoral candidate Regina Quinn, who endorsed Lumumba through a press release earlier this week, was there to back up her reasons for endorsing the one-term Ward 2 Councilman for mayor.

"I'm here to strongly endorse Chokwe Lumumba to be our next mayor," Quinn said, adding that she came to her decision after "serious thought." Quinn cited a past Clarion-Ledger story that revealed that women in Jackson were being paid, on average, 73 percent of their male counterparts were for the same job.

As she said in her press release, Quinn stated she thinks Lumumba is the only candidate who will take swift action to correct what she called a "sad situation" in terms of women's pay.

After Banks and Evans pledged their support for Lumumba, Kenneth Stokes, speaking on his behalf and for his wife, who was in Chicago on Friday, took an opportunity to defend his candidate against some of the attack ads launched by his opponent in the May 21 runoff, Jonathan Lee.

The ad shows Chokwe Lumumba making a speech on Feb. 13, 2009, at what looks like a book store, where the candidate talked openly about the police, religion and the Democratic Party. The ad uses Lumumba's own words to lead viewers to believe that Lumumba doesn't like police, isn't a "Barack Obama Democrat" and doesn't believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

"(The accusations against Lumumba are) just nonsense coming out of evil people's mouths," Stokes said. "Chokwe has done more work with young people in this community, coaching basketball and mentoring them, showing them there's a better way to live. As Charles Tisdale would have said, Chokwe is a man among men. He's the type of leader who won't back down. This is Jack-town, and we need a man. I'll repeat it in case somebody didn't hear me - We need a man."

Lumumba has already said publicly that the clips from the video featured in the ad were taken out of context, that he has always supported the Jackson Police Department and that if voters watched the full video, they would see he wasn't implying what the ad infers.

Stokes finished his statement by saying he didn't intend to cuss, but that the Jackson Free Press "can kiss my ass!" He made this point with emphasis to a round of laughter from the assembled city leaders behind him. When asked after the press conference why he made the statement, Stokes said he said it because the JFP should have endorsed Lumumba, but did not elaborate more on the record. The Jackson Free Press has not endorsed a mayoral candidate for the runoff.

Lumumba concluded the …