Oct. 12, 1932

Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory was born in St. Louis. 

He belonged to a new generation of Black comics that dared to take on race. In one of his routines, he talked about eating down South in a segregated restaurant: 

“Then these three white boys came up to me and said, ‘Boy, we’re giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we’re gonna do to you.’ So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, ‘Line up, boys!’” 

He was the first Black comic permitted to stay and talk with “Tonight Show” host Jack Paar. When he heard that surplus food had been cut off to the impoverished in the Mississippi Delta in 1963, he chartered a plane and sent 14,000 pounds of food. He marched in Greenwood with those demanding the right to vote, only to be confronted by police with dogs. When an officer dragged the comedian away, Gregory said, “Thanks a million. Up North, people don’t escort me across the street.” 

Gregory vowed the marches would continue: “We will march through your dogs, and if you get some elephants, we’ll march through them and bring on your tigers and we’ll march through them.” 

He spent four days in jail with other protesters, including children: “Had you been there, as I was, walking through, listening, it was really something to be proud of, really something to be proud of. And if something ever happens and you have to do it again, don’t hesitate.” 

Gregory also worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and others, using his comedy as a weapon against bigotry. At a mass meeting at a church in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a bomb came through the window, and people dashed to the door. “Where are you going?” Gregory asked. “The man who threw it is outside God’s house. The Man who’s supposed to save you lives here.” 

In 2015, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and his life story became the subject of a one-man play produced by artist John Legend. The title of the play? “Turn Me Loose” — after Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers’ last words when he was fatally hot in 1968. 

Gregory died in 2017 at the age of 84.

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

On Thursday evening and Friday morning, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency held listening sessions in the capital city to hear Jacksonians’ thoughts on the work being done with the city’s drinking water system.

While many recognized the progress in the system’s reliability, residents continued to lament JXN Water’s increased water bills, which went into effect earlier this year despite a key component of the billing change — a discount for SNAP recipients — being held up in court. Most of the complaints centered around the new $40 availability charge, as well as issues getting help through JXN Water’s call center in Pearl.

But before those meetings kicked off, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, whose 2022 order put JXN Water and its leader Ted Henifin in charge of the water rehabilitation, criticized federal attorneys over the EPA’s decision to hold the public meetings.

During a Thursday afternoon status conference, where Henifin detailed the faster-than-expected progress in fixing Jackson’s sewer system, Wingate questioned DOJ attorney Karl Fingerhood, who represents the EPA in the lawsuit over Jackson’s water system, for roughly an hour about the meetings.

The judge wondered why the EPA would invite feedback from the public in a venue outside the court, and even asked Fingerhood if the listening sessions would somehow undermine the court proceedings. Wingate repeatedly referred to a hearing he held in 2023 where he invited feedback from Jackson residents about Henifin and JXN Water’s work thus far.

While that meeting was held more than a year ago and Wingate hasn’t announced plans for one since, the judge wondered why the EPA didn’t consult him about their plans. Fingerhood explained that the meetings weren’t meant to be formal proceedings, but that the EPA had made a commitment to hear Jacksonians’ feedback and that it had been a while since the agency had last engaged with residents.

After last year’s hearing in Wingate’s courtroom, where residents and advocates made a range of requests including more communication from JXN Water, the judge filed a response brushing off most of the feedback he heard, even calling some criticisms of Henifin “racist.”

Both Wingate and Henifin also pointed to a letter that Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba sent the EPA in March criticizing JXN Water, wondering if the EPA was holding the meetings in response to the mayor’s concerns. Fingerhood denied any connection.

Wingate also used the moment as a chance to call out Lumumba, who the judge has scolded in prior status conferences, saying: “The mayor it seems to me is not a friend of this endeavor to straighten out this mess.”

Sewer and water system progress

At the start of Thursday’s status conference, Henifin informed the court that JXN Water has already repaired close to 300 sewer line failures around the city since it took over the wastewater system last year. Those include 215 that the court order listed in one of the priority projects. Henifin initially expected that project would take two to three years to finish. He added that JXN Water was able to make the repairs without any federal funds. Most of the lines needing repairs, Henifin said, were collapsed underground pipes, and were causing raw sewage to leak out onto city streets and even on residents’ property.

Henifin added that JXN Water inherited 2,200 service requests dealing with sewer issues around the city, and they’ve since reduced the backlog to under 200.

He said one of the city’s three wastewater treatment plants, the Savanna Street plant, still needs a lot of investment — about $36 million — for capitol improvements, but he added that JXN Water has been able to reduce the number of prohibited bypasses of wastewater into the Pearl River.

On the drinking water side, Henifin explained that by fixing leaks JXN Water has been able to reduce the amount of water it needs to put into the system by 25%, adding though that there is still a 50% loss of what water does get treated and sent out. The hope, he said, is to keep decreasing the amount of water needed to go out — to below 30 million gallons a day, versus the current output of 40 MGD — so that the city can finally close the age-old J.H. Fewell plant and save money on operations. To do that, JXN Water is working with four different contractors to find suspected underground leaks that never show up above the surface, thus making them harder to find.

In terms of billing, Henifin said JXN Water will in “the next few weeks” start shutting off connections to single-family homes that are falling behind, starting with the largest balances. Wingate added, “I don’t have very much mercy for those people” not paying their bills.

Public’s feedback

About 50 people showed up to each of the two meetings the EPA held at the Mississippi e-Center on Thursday and Friday. Some, like Jessica Carter, complained about a lack of communication from JXN Water when it shuts water off to make repairs.

“Just three weeks ago, I woke up and the water was off,” said Carter, who lives in northeast Jackson. “No notice, no letters, no nothing. I kept calling, kept calling, asking what’s going on … We went about 36 hours without running water this time. I have a 4-year-old, so I’m trying to figure out what do I have to do? Do we need to get a hotel room?

“I kept calling the hotline, they didn’t have the answers either… then once water came on, I was like, will be there be a reduction in the water charges for the 36 hours that the water was turned off?”

Part of the feedback the EPA asked for was over the long-term future of the system. While some said that the water system shouldn’t return to the city’s control, others noted that the city never had the resources that JXN Water is accessing.

“Before that Jackson didn’t have that money to do that work,” Natt Offiah, who grew up down the street from the meeting but now lives downtown, said about the $600 million Congress appropriated for Jackson after the federal takeover. “Now we got that money to do the work, everyone’s acting like Jackson didn’t care, but we didn’t have those resources to begin with.”

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

Oct. 11, 1901

Bert Williams and George Walker recorded their music for the Victor Talking Machine Co., becoming the first Black recording artists. 

One of the most successful comedy teams of all time, they performed the first Black musical comedy on Broadway.

After Walker’s death, Williams became a star in his own right, with Theatre Magazine calling him “a vastly funnier man than any white comedian now on the American stage.” He became the first Black actor to appear in a movie, writing, directing and starring in the 1916 films, “A Natural Born Gambler” and “Fish.” He was so popular he even performed for King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace. 

Although he managed to break down barriers, much prejudice remained. He couldn’t reconcile the praise he received onstage with the racist treatment he received offstage. 

Barred from joining the Actors Equity in New York, he became depressed and drank heavily. He performed the song, “Nobody,” later covered by artists from Nina Simone to Johnny Cash. W.C. Fields called Williams “the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew.” 

Williams put it this way: “A Black face, run-down shoes and elbow-out make-up give me a place to hide. The real Bert Williams is crouched deep down inside the (one) who sings the songs and tells the stories.” 

He never missed a performance, and on Feb. 25, 1922, collapsed halfway through an evening show in Chicago. He died a week later at his home in New York City. He was only 47. 

Booker T. Washington said of Williams: “He has done more for our race than I have. He has smiled his way into people’s hearts; I have been obliged to fight my way.” 

In 1940, Duke Ellington composed and recorded, “A Portrait of Bert Williams.” The Broadway musical, “Chicago,” adapted Williams’ personality for the character of Amos Hart.

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