Mississippi Today

Prison education programs are primed to take off in Mississippi. Here’s what one class looks like.

Published

2 years ago

June 9, 2023

CORINTH — In the back of the Alcorn County Correctional Facility, a regional prison in the top-right corner of Mississippi, is an ice-cold trailer.

It’s new. And it’s where Bill Stone — a retired Northeast Mississippi Community College instructor who, for the past three years, has taught a public speaking class at this prison — was headed early Wednesday afternoon.

To get there, he must go through a pat-down. A guard inspects his materials — folders, notebooks and seven copies of the textbook “Practically Speaking.” Then Stone must walk through the prison’s long, loud hallway, past his old classroom; past the canteen, the case managers’ offices and the guard; and past the living pods. Some of his students come to the glass or they shout hello, adding to the din. Finally, after a few steps on a sidewalk walled-off with a chain-link fence, Stone is inside the trailer.

Sometimes, Stone thinks it’s not unlike walking the halls of a high school.

On Wednesday, he had Michelle Baragona, NEMCC’s vice president of instruction, in tow. She’d driven 20 minutes from NEMCC’s main campus in Booneville. Since fall 2017, she has overseen NEMCC’s prison education programs, which are part of a growing movement in Mississippi and across the country. Boosted in part by research that has shown that prison education reduces recidivism, more colleges and universities are offering classes in prison.

Now, as the federal government is preparing to make federal financial aid once again available to incarcerated people starting July 1, these programs are primed to explode in partnership with the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Key stakeholders are on board: In interviews, Burl Cain, the MDOC commissioner, has correctly linked the availability of jobs for formerly incarcerated people, which prison education can help them get, to reduced recidivism.

In the quiet, air-conditioned trailer, Stone was hoping his students could, just for an hour, find some reprieve from prison. Or at least, from their often sweltering hot living pods, which on Wednesday were burning up in the 84-degree heat. All 295 students at this facility can take classes, as long as they have a GED.

“This is much better than the old room,” Stone said. “By a long, long shot.”

He started arranging the desks into three rows.

Around 12:20 p.m., guards brought the students from each living zone until all the desks were filled. They waited quietly for class to start. Some were antsy, tapping their feet or twirling their pencils. One student from the work zone was running behind.

Five minutes later, class started. Stone introduced the assignment. Each student was to talk about three things that interested them. If they talked for more than one minute, they’d get an A.

“At the end, we all clap for them,” he told the class. “Even if they pass out.”

Stone was confident they wouldn’t, but in his 28 years of teaching public speaking, it had happened to two students — it’s always a possibility. So he’d tapped one student to start them off.

“Terrence, I asked you to go first,” Stone said. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’m gonna be,” he replied.

Carlos White, left, watches as a fellow student gives his speech. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

There used to be hundreds of college classes just like Stone’s in prisons across the country. Up until the mid-1990s, these programs were considered a key part of doing time — an “opportunity for ‘reformation,’” according to Higher Education in Prison Research. But in 1994, the Crime Bill took away the primary source of funding, which was the Pell Grant, a federal financial aid program for low-income students, by barring incarcerated people from receiving it.

The classes all but disappeared. Now, they’re making a comeback. In Mississippi, colleges and universities across the state are working with MDOC, sheriffs and wardens to set up what are, for many prisons, the first accredited college classes that have been offered in decades. NEMCC had been supporting its programs with private funding, but the Pell Grant will be a game-changer.

This will benefit the whole community, Baragona said. Not only does prison education reduce crime, she said, but families of incarcerated people often move to Alcorn County. They want their loved ones to be able to support the family when they get out.

“We’re not teaching the people who are in there for life,” Baragona said. “These are people who are fixin’ to rejoin society.”

Since 2017, 77 students have taken NEMCC classes at Alcorn County Correctional. The participation rates reflect the institutions’ demographics, Baragona said. Black students made up 57% of participants, and 43% were white — a ratio that was mirrored in Stone’s class, where 7 students were Black and 4 were white.

More than half have taken three or more classes. Two students have taken five classes.

“I don’t want anybody thinking that this is a patsy,” Stone said. “I want these students to write as well, to speak as well as any Northeast student who has come through my traditional classes.”

He poised his finger over the iPad timer as Terrence Glover stepped up to the podium.

“Hello Terrence,” the students said in unison.

Glover talked about how he hates foreign languages (difficult to learn) and loves fishing. Then, 138 seconds later, his speech was over. It was time for the next student. Stone asked for a volunteer. No one moved.

“Anybody that just wants to get it over with right now?” Stone asked.

Carlos White rocked out of his chair. Though he had seemed shy at his desk, he was at ease at the podium. The first thing he was interested in, White said, was TikTok, because it offered access to “a multitude of people from a single device” — that is, to the outside world. He also liked cooking, because it reminded him of his grandmother’s collard greens. His final interest was mentoring. That’s what he wants to do when he gets out.

“So much of the youth go down the wrong road like I did,” he said.

White spoke for 139 seconds, Stone noted. A new record.

The students seemed less anxious and more comfortable sharing. For many, the topic of prison was unavoidable. Another, Vincent Breazeale, talked about the value of education, working and family — three interests, he said, that would “probably be different outside these walls.”

What everyone was really talking about were their dreams, and what they hoped to do when they finally left. One said he’d like to get a dog. Another couldn’t wait to work on cars again. A third student said wanted to start a business manufacturing cologne.

One of the last students to go, Antonio Harris, said that after 19 years of incarceration, he was looking forward to being an entrepreneur when he’s finally released (he’ll become eligible next year).

“I want to be able to work and still kind of like, enjoy life at the same time,” Harris said. “It generates great revenue also.”

By the end, the temperature in the class felt warmer. Stone congratulated the students. This was the first class he’s ever had, he said, where every student talked for more than a minute. He wanted to know how it felt.

“Like riding a bike,” Glover said.

A student named Bruce Parker passed out root-beer-float-flavored candies. He’d used $1.16 of his $20-a-week allowance to pay for a bag.

After a lecture from Stone, it was time for the students to talk to the “navigator.” That is Tina Wilburn. It’s her third day. She’s NEMCC’s eyes and ears in the prison, and it’s her job to advocate for the students. Gripping a prison-issued walkie talkie and a notebook, she wanted to know how they were going to do their homework.

“Are you able to study in the pod where you’re at?” she asked. She’d heard the library was too small.

All the students shook their heads. Dozens of incarcerated people live in each pod and sleep bunk-to-bunk. There’s a lot of distractions.

NEMCC has offered college prison classes at ACCF since fall 2017. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

“It’s extremely difficult,” White said.

Despite everyone’s excitement that day, these students are up against tough odds. They’re unlikely to finish. Last semester, 10 students enrolled, and only two graduated. According to data from NEMCC, the completion rates were higher before COVID, when more career-readiness classes were offered.

Some of the reasons for this have to do with the very nature of prisons, said Ruth Delaney, a program director at the Vera Institute of Justice, a national organization that has been helping prisons set up college classes. For instance, it’s common for incarcerated people to be suddenly transferred for reasons that supersede the class, like a sentencing order that prohibits them from staying in the same prison as a co-defendant.

“A prison is a total institution,” Delaney said. “The minute you cross that threshold, all of your relationships start to feel different.”

If a fight broke out in a students’ living pod, they could be transferred, even if they weren’t participating, she added. That’s more likely to happen during the summer months, when violence in prison rises with the temperature outside. And while some research has shown prisons that have classes become safer over time, the students at Alcorn County Correctional said they had yet to see that happen.

But other reasons can be managed. A huge issue Stone has noticed is dental hygiene. When his incarcerated students’ have cavities, they’re sent to the Mississippi State Prison in Parchman to get teeth pulled. For weeks after, their mouths are too swollen for them to talk in class.

Then there are some students who get demoralized if they do poorly, even on a quiz that doesn’t matter for their final grade.

“It’ll just knock them for a loop, and I’m not used to that,” Stone said. “That’s a definite prison-type thing. A regular college student would go, ‘well, crap.’ They’d just keep on going. For a prison student to make a 40 or a 50, their whole self esteem is locked up in that.”

What makes the difference, Stone added, is support.

All of the students told Wilburn they would be able to finish their homework. Some of them offered tips: The best time to study is around 3 a.m. That’s when the prison is quietest.

The door to the trailer opened. It was a guard. He walked into the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. Everybody turned to look at him.

“I believe they said class is over now,” he said.

So it was.

A student goes back into the prison after class. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

NEMCC has big dreams for the program. Baragona wants to offer more career-technical programs — classes that are more likely to directly lead to jobs when students are no longer incarcerated. But she’s worried about the logistics of bringing equipment into the prison.

Another issue is giving students computers, which is crucial for learning how to do research. This isn’t possible because they’re not allowed free use of the internet. Stone makes up for that by bringing print-outs of research to class.

Baragona also wants there to be more instructors. Right now, Stone is one of two. Even though society is slowly leaving the tough-on-crime era behind, she still has to “sweet talk” instructors into participating in the program. She was able to convince Stone because, in the early 1980s, he used to minister to a congregant in prison.

And Baragona still hasn’t figured out an efficient way of providing accommodations for students who have disabilities like dyslexia. When the Pell Grant becomes available, she’ll need to set up a system for them to talk to NEMCC’s financial aid office. She’s hoping Wilburn can help with that.

Before class, Baragona asked Stone to tell her if he needed more equipment. A white board would be nice, he mused. Then he thought of something even better.

“A bigger TV would be glorious,” he said. “If someone had an extra 69-inch TV that would be just glorious.”

But right now, the new trailer is enough.

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

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Mississippi Today

Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open

Published

23 hours ago

June 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-06-30 17:29:00

by Maya Miller, Mississippi Today
June 30, 2025

After more than 10 months closed due to mold, asbestos and issues with the air conditioning system, Thalia Mara Hall has officially reopened.

Outgoing Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba announced the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall during his final press conference held Monday on the arts venue’s steps.

“Today marks what we view as a full circle moment, rejoicing in the iconic space where community has come together for decades in the city of Jackson,” Lumumba said. “Thalia Mara has always been more than a venue. It has been a gathering place for people in the city of Jackson. From its first class ballet performances to gospel concerts, Thalia Mara Hall has been the backdrop for our city’s rich cultural history.”

Thalia Mara Hall closed last August after mold was found in parts of the building. The issues compounded from there, with malfunctioning HVAC systems and asbestos remediation. On June 6, the Mississippi State Fire Marshal’s Office announced that Thalia Mara Hall had finally passed inspection.

“We’re not only excited to have overcome many of the challenges that led to it being shuttered for a period of time,” Lumumba said. “We are hopeful for the future of this auditorium, that it may be able to provide a more up-to-date experience for residents, inviting shows that people are able to see across the world, bringing them here to Jackson. So this is an investment in the future.”

In total, Emad Al-Turk, a city contracted engineer and owner of Al-Turk Planning, estimates that $5 million in city and state funds went into bringing Thalia Mara Hall up to code.

The venue still has work to be completed, including reinstalling the fire curtain. The beam in which the fire curtain will be anchored has asbestos in it, so it will have to be remediated. In addition, a second air-conditioning chiller needs to be installed to properly cool the building. Until it’s installed, which could take months, Thalia Mara Hall will be operating at a lower seating capacity of about 800.

“Primarily because of the heat,” Al-Turk said. “The air conditioning would not be sufficient to actually accommodate the 2,000 people at full capacity, but starting in the fall, that should not be a problem.”

Al-Turk said the calendar is open for the city to begin booking events, though none have been scheduled for July.

“We’re very proud,” he said. “This took a little bit longer than what we anticipated, but we had probably seven or eight different contractors we had to coordinate with and all of them did a superb job to get us where we are today.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a straightforward report on the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson, focusing on facts and statements from city officials without promoting any ideological viewpoint. The tone is neutral and positive, emphasizing the community and cultural significance of the venue while detailing the challenges overcome during renovations. The coverage centers on public investment and future prospects, without partisan framing or editorializing. While quotes from Mayor Lumumba and a city engineer highlight optimism and civic pride, the article maintains balanced, factual reporting rather than advancing a political agenda.

Mississippi Today

‘Hurdles waiting in the shadows’: Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor

Published

1 day ago

June 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @ayewolfe – 2025-06-30 17:08:00

by Anna Wolfe and Molly Minta, Mississippi Today
June 30, 2025

On his last day as mayor of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba recounted accomplishments, praised his executive team and said he has no plans to seek office again.

He spoke during a press conference outside of the city’s Thalia Mara Hall, which was recently cleared for reopening after nearly a year of remediation. The briefing, meant to give media members a peek inside the downtown theater, marked one of Lumumba’s final forays as mayor.

Longtime state Sen. John Horhn — who defeated Lumumba in the Democratic primary runoff — will be inaugurated as mayor Tuesday, but Lumumba won’t be present. Not for any contentious reason, the 42-year-old mayor noted, but because he returns to his private law practice Tuesday.

“I’ve got to work now, y’all,” Lumumba said. “I’ve got a job.”

Thalia Mara Hall’s presumptive comeback was a fitting end for Lumumba, who pledged to make Jackson the most radical city in America but instead spent much of his eight years in office parrying one emergency after another. The auditorium was built in 1968 and closed nearly 11 months ago after workers found mold caused by a faulty HVAC system – on top of broken elevators, fire safety concerns and vandalism.

“This job is a fast-pitched sport,” Lumumba said. “There’s an abundance of challenges that have to be addressed, and it seems like the moment that you’ve gotten over one hurdle, there’s another one that is waiting in the shadows.”

Outside the theater Monday, Lumumba reflected on the high points of his leadership instead of the many crises — some seemingly self-inflicted — he faced as mayor.

He presided over the city during the coronavirus pandemic and the rise in crime it brought, but also the one-two punch of the 2021 and 2022 water crises, exacerbated by the city’s mismanagement of its water plants, and the 18-day pause in trash pickup spurred by Lumumba’s contentious negotiations with the city council in 2023.

Then in 2024, Lumumba was indicted alongside other city and county officials in a sweeping federal corruption probe targeting the proposed development of a hotel across from the city’s convention center, a project that has remained stalled in a 20-year saga of failed bids and political consternation.

Slated for trial next year, Lumumba has repeatedly maintained his innocence.

The city’s youngest mayor also brought some victories to Jackson, particularly in his first year in office. In 2017, he ended a furlough of city employees and worked with then-Gov. Phil Bryant to avoid a state takeover of Jackson Public Schools. In 2019, the city successfully sued German engineering firm Siemens and its local contractors for $89 million over botched work installing the city’s water-sewer billing infrastructure.

“I think that that was a pivotal moment to say that this city is going to hold people responsible for the work that they do,” Lumumba said.

Lumumba had more time than any other mayor to usher in the 1% sales tax, which residents approved in 2014 to fund infrastructure improvements.

“We paved 144 streets,” he said. “There are residents that still are waiting on their roads to be repaved. And you don’t really feel it until it’s your street that gets repaved, but that is a significant undertaking.”

And under his administration, crime has fallen dramatically recently, with homicides cut by a third and shootings cut in half in the last year.

Lumumba was first elected in 2017 after defeating Tony Yarber, a business-friendly mayor who faced his own scandals as mayor. A criminal justice attorney, Lumumba said he never planned to seek office until the stunning death of his father, Chokwe Lumumba Sr., eight months into his first term as mayor in 2014.

“I can say without reservation, and unequivocally, we remember where we started. We are in a much better position than we started,” Lumumba said.

Lumumba said he has sat down with Horhn in recent months, answered questions “as extensively as I could,” and promised to remain reachable to the new mayor.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post 'Hurdles waiting in the shadows': Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article reports on outgoing Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s reflections without overt editorializing but subtly frames his tenure within progressive contexts, emphasizing his self-described goal to make Jackson “the most radical city in America.” The piece highlights his accomplishments alongside challenges, including public crises and a federal indictment, maintaining a factual tone yet noting contentious moments like labor disputes and governance issues. While it avoids partisan rhetoric, the focus on social justice efforts, infrastructure investment, and crime reduction, as well as positive framing of Lumumba’s achievements, aligns with a center-left perspective that values progressive governance and accountability.

Mississippi Today

Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money

Published

1 day ago

June 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @devnabose – 2025-06-30 15:37:00

by Devna Bose, Mississippi Today
June 30, 2025

The federal government is restoring $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools.

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week that it would reinstate pandemic relief funds. The decision comes less than three months after the federal government revoked billions nationwide as part of Trump administration efforts to cut government spending.

State education agencies and school districts originally had until March 2026 to spend the money, but the federal government claimed that because the pandemic was over, they had no use for the money.

That March 2026 deadline has been reinstated following a series of injunctive orders.

A coalition of Democratic-led states sued the federal government in April over the decision to withhold the money. Then, a federal judge granted plaintiff states injunctive orders in the case, which meant those states could continue spending their COVID-relief dollars while other states remained restricted.

But the education department decided that wasn’t fair, wrote Secretary Linda McMahon in a letter dated June 26, so the agency was restoring the money to all states, not just the ones involved in the lawsuit.

“The original intent of the policy announced on March 28 was to treat all states consistently with regards to safeguarding and refocusing their remaining COVID-era grant funding on students,” she wrote. “The ongoing litigation has created basic fairness and uniformity problems.”

The Mississippi Department of Education notified school districts about the decision on Friday.

In the meantime, schools and states have been requesting exemptions for individual projects, though many from across the country have been denied.

Eleven Mississippi school districts had submitted requests to use the money to fund services such as tutoring and counseling, according to records requested by Mississippi Today, though those are now void because of the federal government’s decision.

Starting immediately, school districts can submit new requests to the state education department to draw down their federal allocation.

Mississippi Today previously reported that about 70 school districts were relying on the federal funds to pay for a range of initiatives, including construction projects, mental health services and literacy programs.

In 2023, almost half of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, pandemic relief money allocated to schools across the country, went to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs. A third went to operational and staff costs, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education.

Though Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said that legislative leaders might consider helping agencies that were impacted by federal funding cuts, House Speaker Jason White said Monday that he did not have an appetite for directing state funds to pandemic-era programs.

Small school districts were already feeling the impact of the federal government’s decision to rescind the money. In May, Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board voted to terminate a contract on a school construction project funded with federal dollars.

The litigation is ongoing, so the funding could again be rescinded.

Clarification: A previous version of this article misstated the status of school districts’ pandemic relief money.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article primarily reports on the federal government’s decision to restore $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools after a temporary freeze. It presents factual information about the timeline, legal actions, and responses from various state officials without adopting a partisan tone. The piece mentions the involvement of Democratic-led states suing the federal government and notes Republican-aligned efforts to cut spending, but does so in a balanced way focused on reporting events and statements rather than promoting a political viewpoint. The language remains neutral and factual, avoiding loaded or biased framing, making it a straightforward news report with centrist bias.