College baseball's regular season is in its last week, which means baseball bracketology is a popular activity. State needs to finish strong to become a Regional host. Southern Miss probably has already punched its ticket as a 2- or 3-seed. Ole Miss, playing its best baseball presently, needs victories, period. Meanwhile, the State High School softball tournament is this week in Hattiesburg, and the state baseball tournament comes to Trustmark Park in Pearl next week.

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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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For the third consecutive year legislative efforts to direct state money to renovate LeFleur's Bluff in Jackson have been stymied, thanks in large part to Gov. Tate Reeves.

Earlier this week, the Republican governor vetoed a portion of a bill that directed $14 million to the office of Secretary of State Michael Watson for work on developing and improving a nature trail connecting parks and museums and making other tourism-related improvements in the LeFleur's Bluff area.

It is not clear whether the Legislature could take up the veto during the 2025 session, which begins in January, though, that's not likely. The Legislature had the option to return to Jackson Tuesday to take up any veto, but chose not to do so.

Of the project, Watson said, “Our office was approached late in the session about helping with a project to revitalize LeFleur's Bluff. As Mississippi's state land commissioner, I was more than happy to help lead this effort not just because it's a natural fit for our office, but also because I believe Mississippi needs a thriving capital city to retain our best and brightest. Investing state funds in state property on a project to enhance the quality of life in Jackson makes good sense.

“Unfortunately, some only support it when it equates to campaign contributions. Sadly, through the line-item veto of the appropriation, Mississippians will once again wait another year for the opportunity to benefit from state investments for the greater public good.”

READ MORE: Gov. Reeves warns Mississippi: Challenge my vetoes, and it could jeopardize hundreds of projects

Various groups, such as representatives of the Mississippi Children's Museum and many other community leaders have been working on the project for years. The area already is the home of the Children's Museum, Museum of Natural History, Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and a state park.

The issues with LeFleur's Bluff first arose in 2022 when Reeves vetoed a $14 million appropriation that in part was designed to redesign and create a new golf course in the area. Previously, there had been a nine-hole, state-owned golf course operated by the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks at LeFleur's Bluff State Park.

In 2022, the LeFleur's Bluff project was one of literally hundreds of projects funded by the Legislature – many of which was tourism projects like LeFleur's Bluff. The governor only vetoed a handful of those projects.

When issuing the LeFleur's  Bluff veto, Reeves said the state should not be involved in funding golf courses.

Then last year $13 million was directed to the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to spend on the LeFleur's Bluff project. But legislative leaders said state money would not go toward a golf course.

Lawmakers opted to transfer the project to the Secretary of State's office late in the 2024 session, apparently in part because they felt the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks had not made enough of an effort to begin the project.

Lynn Posey, executive director of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, said that before moving forward with the project, “We felt like we needed to do engineering work and see what the situation was. We never got a chance to move forward” because the Legislature redirected the money.

Posey said an engineer's report was needed because “it is a unique piece of land.” He said much of the land is prone to flooding.

He said before that work could begin the Legislature switched the authority to the Secretary of State's office. Posey was appointed to his current position by Reeves, whose office had no comment on the veto.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said after the governor's veto, “Projects like the LeFleur's Bluff development are critical to the Capital City, the wider metropolitan area, and our state. Public parks add to the quality of life for our citizens. I am hopeful the individuals involved in this project, including those at the Mississippi Children's Museum, will continue their work to improve this state asset.” 

While the Constitution instructs the governor to provide to the Legislature a reason for any veto, Reeves did not do so this year when vetoing the money going to the Secretary of State's office.

On Monday, the governor also vetoed a portion of another bill dealing with appropriations for specific projects. But in this case, the veto was more of a technicality. The bill was making corrections to language passed in previous sessions. In that language were five projects the governor vetoed in 2022.

The language, as it was written, would not have revived those previously vetoed projects, the governor said. But Reeves said he vetoed the five projects out of caution. He did the same in 2023 when those five projects, which included money appropriated in 2022 for the Russell C. Davis Planetarium in Jackson, were carried forward in a bill also making corrections to previously passed legislation.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A week ago, Arkansas officials unveiled a new statue at the National Statuary Hall to represent the state, civil rights leader Daisy Bates.

Her statue now stands next to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, one of two statues representing Mississippi.

“This is absolutely embarrassing to the Mississippi that I love,” said Al Price, who has called for changing the state's statues ever since he saw them in 2012 in Washington, D.C. He sought unsuccessfully in 2017 to get state Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona, to sponsor a bill to do so.

He recommends that author William Faulkner and civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer represent the state. “This would be a profound statement by the state of Mississippi,” he said. “It would challenge a lot of the negative stereotypes about the state and would go a long way to healing a lot of wounds.”

Since 2000, 17 states have installed new statues or moved to replace existing statues at the hall in the U.S. Capitol.

Alabama now has Helen Keller. Arizona has Barry Goldwater. California has Ronald Reagan. Kansas has Amelia Earhart and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Michigan has Gerald Ford. Missouri has Harry Truman. Ohio has Thomas Edison. And North Carolina will add Billy Graham on Thursday.

Mississippi, however, has the same statues that were erected almost a century ago, both of them Confederate leaders.

Some Southern states are replacing Confederate icons with more modern heroes. Arkansas now has Bates; Virginia, Barbara Johns; and Florida, Mary McLeod Bethune, one of the most important Black educators of the 20th century. Congress has added Rosa Parks as well.

The contributions of Native Americans have also been recognized in a number of states, including Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming.

A state can change its statues through a resolution that is adopted by the Legislature and approved by the governor. 

“We just need to have someone courageous enough in the Legislature to do so,” Price said.

In 2019, Arkansas voted to replace both of its statues, Uriah Rose, who supported Arkansas seceding from the Union, and former U.S. Sen. James Paul Clarke, who vowed to uphold “white supremacy.”

Their replacements are Bates, a mentor to the Little Rock Nine, and music legend Johnny Cash, whose statue is slated to arrive in September.

At the same time Arkansas is switching out the statues that represent the state in Washington, Mississippi has not seriously considered such a change.

During his time as Mississippi's governor, Phil Bryant talked of Elvis Presley and B.B. King as “good possibilities” for possible replacements for a statue.

Mississippi's most controversial statue is that of Davis, who believed, like many of his Southern peers, that those of African descent were meant to serve the white race.

“We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race by the Creator, and from cradle to grave, our government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority,” he declared in an 1860 speech.

The state's other statue is a political figure that many Mississippians may not recognize — J.Z. George, who fought in the Civil War and later became the charging force in disenfranchising Black Mississippians through the 1890 state constitution and restoring “white supremacy” to government.

James K. Vardaman, the racist governor and U.S. senator who aided George in that fight, said the constitution was adopted “for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics.” White supremacy had to be maintained, even if it meant every Black Mississippian had to be lynched, he said.

Within a decade, the number of Black registered voters fell from more than 130,000 to less than 1,300. 

George's great-great-great grandson, Charles Sims, recently recommended that his ancestor's statue be moved from Statuary Hall back to Mississippi, where he said it belongs.

“We cannot erase the past, but neither should we be a prisoner of it, either,” Sims said. “I think the statue should be removed from the Capitol because we cannot honor racial hatred.”

Statuary Hall still holds the statues of six Confederate leaders, a third of them representing the Magnolia State.

In a recent online poll, 592 Mississippi Today readers gave their top votes for possible statues to Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963 and who was honored recently with the Presidential Medal of Honor, as the top choice with 40% of the votes. Hamer received 26%; Faulkner, 21%; crusading journalist Ida B. Wells, 16%; music icon Elvis Presley, 15%; author Eudora Welty, 12%; former Gov. William Winter, 11%; and blues legend B.B. King, 9%.

Kevin Greene, history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, said his nomination would be Evers, who fought for his country, first on the battlefield against the Nazis and later on the battlefield against Jim Crow, he said. “All of the good things embedded in America are embedded in Medgar Evers.”

He suggested discussions across communities regarding what statues should represent the state. “Mississippi needs to lead the way in these conversations,” he said. “These are opportunities to teach and to reconcile our past as some nations ought to and haven't.”

Pam Junior, former director of the History of Mississippi Museum and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, said the state is supposed to have experienced this paradigm shift, starting with the state flag, “but we keep going backwards and allow statues like these to continue to represent Mississippi.”

As a replacement, she suggests “Medgar Wiley Evers, who was for all people, not just one group of people,” she said. “Until we make that paradigm shift, we're never going to move up. We have to start with us.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.