Thread by @MSFreePress

🚨🧵 Journalist @TorshetaJ kicked off @BWCProject by going home to Noxubee County to dig up why COVID was harder on Black women. 1/

"A Saturday evening summer ride through downtown Shuqualak, this journalist’s hometown, reveals a proverbial ghost town."

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In her crumbling hometown, @TorshetaJ revisited boarded-up schools, employers and businesses, amid poverty: "A concrete slab is all that is left of the Shuqualak Glove Factory, which at one time was one of the town’s most prolific employers." 2/

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.@TorshetaJ's 85% Black hometown no longer has a grocery story; last one is boarded up. The poverty rate was 37.5% as of 2020, and the population has steadily declined with an individual median income of $13,656 in 2019. 3/

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A local white man owns Noxubee County's only full grocery store, Tem’s Food Market, 10 miles from Shuqualak along county roads, and Black families must drive 41 miles to Lowndes County for more affordable groceries. IF they have transportation. 4/

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Teacher @TorshetaJ focused on education disparities/challenges in Noxubee Cty. All public schools closed except for one K-12 system in Macon under state takeover: 98% of students are Black in area where 41.3% of families of 4 earn under $26,500 year 5/

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The 10,284 Noxubee County residents are 72% Black with average income less than $34,000, an outgrowth of county’s history as a wealthy outpost of plantations originally owned by wealthy planters and worked by enslaved people. 6/

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Mashulaville in Noxubee County was the site of the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek to cede Choctaw land to white settlers, forcing Choctaws onto deadly Trail of Tears west. Signers included Choctaw chiefs who owned, traded Black slaves. 7/

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In sidebar, @DonnerKay detailed white planters, others forming vigilante groups like KKK after Civil War to burn Reconstruction-era Noxubee free schools and whip or kill Black and white educators and allies who supported them to block Black advancement. 8/ mississippifreepress.org/17323/kkk-whit…

School clinical psychologist and Alderwoman Travonder Dixon-McCloud told @TorshetaJ and @Donnerkay about great-grandmother working at Black school attacked by white terrorists who killed Black woman principal. Story matches that of Macon Riot of 1919. /9

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Noxubee public schools across county were popular with white people until 1954 Brown v. Board decision. Then leaders started planning segregation academies with plan to use public "vouchers" for Central Academy by 1964 to drain $ from public schools. /11

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In #BWCProject sidebar, @DonnerKay detailed racist history of Central Academy, including the county school superintendent resigning in 1968 and days later opening the racist seg academy with wife. Elementary school named for him; CA closed in 2017. /12

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Like most white academies formed against integration (now called "Christian academies"), Central Academy used curriculum until 2017 that downplayed slavery and papers off U.S. racism. Many academies still do, @DonnerKay reports. /13

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.@TorshetaJ reported that Mennonite schools drew white kids out of public schools when they integrated. @donnerkay dug out history of Mennonite schools opening year of forced integration ('70) and how they used public resources for segregated schools. /14

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Meantime, Noxubee County's public schools suffered from local efforts to shrink resources and redirect them to private schools (until white school board members were finally defeated). But state efforts to underfund public schools/teachers continued. /15

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State with highest proportion of Black residents (38%) has all-white statewide leadership. They continually promise to raise teacher pay and seldom follow through with pledges, making it hard on teachers to support own families. /16

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Black mothers and educators are resilient and hard-working, @TorshetaJ reports in #BWCProject, but generational inequities make it hard to catch up. When COVID hit, it was especially hard for single working mothers and children like Shawanda Readus. /17

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Readus works in Noxubee school cafeteria; when COVID sent kids home, she made lunches at school for family pickup. “You are at work, and you have to call all day and check on them. They are calling you all day saying, ‘Mama, I don’t understand.’” /18

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Compounding problem is Mississippi hasn't ensured rural families have internet/broadband access. Readus owned one laptop; her mother brought over her tablet. One child used a phone to log in for assignments. They used cell phones as hotspots. /19

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Both Shawanda Readus and one of her twins got COVID. They soldiered through. Good medical access is a problem in Noxubee County and many majority-Black areas in Mississippi. State leaders refuse to expand Medicaid, leading to facilities closing. /20

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Alongside hunger and lack of technology/internet access for learning, mental health and need for services an issue for Black families, @TorshetaJ found. Dr. Dixon-McCloud says stress of COVID and distance learning has challenged students and teachers. /21

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Noxubee's historic disparity web yields few good jobs, @TorshetaJ's education prof, Dr. Andrew Mullins Jr. told her. “(Noxubee) has lost a lot of its citizens Black and white because there are fewer jobs, and for skilled laborers there are few." /22

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Dr. Mullins, who descends from Noxubee slave owners and graduated from public school before integration, blames racist inequities: "You cannot overcome the damage of 150 years of slavery and another 100 years of second-class citizenship in one or two generations." /23

Mullins co-founded Mississippi Teacher Corps and helped get public kindergartens funded, but knows it'll take more to reverse damage. "I tried to put as many of (the teachers) as I could in Noxubee County because they needed it so desperately." /24

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Many Noxubee students don't know voids in education until college. Some subjects "were like a foreign language to me,” Readus said. “We didn’t have it (in Noxubee ). Then when I got to Mississippi State, I was like ‘uh uh. I’m about to go get a job.’” /25

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.@TorshetaJ says she didn't know what she hadn't learned in Noxubee until she got to college. She writes that Black women aren't blaming each other and are working to overcome barriers; they know adequate resources and support just aren't there. /26

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Integrated schools still elusive for Noxubee, even since CA closed, per principal Aiesha Brooks. “Instead of those kids coming here, they went on to Kemper Academy. Believe it or not, we still have teachers here who send their kids to academies" /27
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Listen to journalist/educator @TorshetaJ talk to @DonnerKay and @kimberlydgriffi in #MFPPodcast about her exploration of systemic disparities in her home county of Noxubee. This wasn't something she thought of growing up there, she says. /28

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Watch @TorshetaJ, @DonnerKay and @kimberlydgriffi discuss and explain the Noxubee focus in "(In)Equity and Resilience: Black Women, Systemic Barriers and COVID-19" collaborative with @jacksonadvocate here. /29

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First, we're digging out causes of inequities in #BWCProject, then reporting potential solutions. Please share ideas you've seen across Mississippi or elsewhere that might fit in Noxubee + other Mississippi counties: [e-mail] /30

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While you wait for #BWCProject packages to drop about Hinds and Holmes counties, read more about what our core mission of systemic reporting county-by-county looks like; we call it "Mapping Mississippi." /31

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If you like the systemic reporting you see from nonprofit @msfreepress (and you'll see much more), please consider giving now to support our #NewsMatch fundraising campaign: gifts up to $1,000 are TRIPLED right now. Now including Venmo and PayPal options:

givebutter.com/mfpnewsmatch20…

If you're interested in support more #BWCProject work specifically, please reach out to Publisher @kimberlydgriffi at [e-mail]. And thank you for reading and sharing! /33

@TorshetaJ Here is the entire "(In)Equity and Resilience: Black Women, Systemic Barriers and COVID-19" microsite with more counties and a section on all the #BWCProject solution circles to date coming very soon. /34

Click here: mississippifreepress.org/bwc/

BTW, this is the most succinct and spot-on description we've seen of the #BWCProject by @cthompsonmorton of @CCMNewmarkJ. /35

https://twitter.com/cthompsonmorton/status/1460713042933600260