Jackson Free Press

Sadly, it was only a matter of time before it happened here in Mississippi--a black man was killed by a white cop amid mysterious circumstances and officials are trying to keep tensions from simmering.

It happened on late Wednesday night in tiny Stonewall when, according to various media outlets, a 39-year-old black man named Jonathan Sanders had some sort of altercation with a white officer named Kevin Herrington.

Stewart Parrish, an attorney Sanders had once hired to represent him on a case, told Meridian television WTOK that Sanders was riding in a buggy exercising his horses when Herrington stopped Sanders, initiating an altercation that ended in Sanders' death, reportedly by choking.

The exact details are, of course, muddy. Early reports suggested that Herrington used a flashlight to subdue Sanders. Stonewall Police Chief Michael Street denied those reports, but hasn't gone into much detail about the incident that happened between 10:30 and 11 o'clock at night, citing his department's ongoing investigation. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is handling the case.

"We just ask that the citizens allow that to take place, not to try to take anything out in the streets. Our door is open," Street told WTOK.

Street's comments are an obvious reference to protests sparked by the deaths of African American men by--often white--police officers in the past year. Sanders' death is hauntingly similar to that of Eric Garner in New York City last summer. Like Garner, Sanders reportedly told Herrington that he couldn't breathe in the moments before he died, Parrish told the media.

The Guardian reported that Chief Street said "Sanders had no active warrants against him and that Harrington did not know who he was when the confrontation took place."

However, that didn't stop Jackson's local daily newspaper, the Clarion-Ledger, from using Sanders' mugshot (most other media outlets chose a picture of the victim warmly smiling with family members or with his horses; see below) and devoted the end of its story to talking about his rap sheet, writing:

"Sanders had crossed paths with authorities before. Circuit Clerk Beth Jordan said Sanders was out on bond from an April arrest for possession of cocaine, and that he had been convicted on charges of sale of cocaine in 2003."

The paper went on to point out: "MDOC Communications Director Grace Fisher said Sanders was given five years to serve with five years probation. He was released on May 23, 2007. Sanders' arrest record also shows arrests dating back to 2001 for disturbance of the family peace, sale of a counterfeit substance, domestic violence, and some traffic violations.

Several dozen commenters took the paper to task. Said one woman in the comments section: "Never fails; the weaponless dead victim is always prosecuted in the media to deflect how they ended up dead at the hands of police. Shame on the Clarion-Ledger."

As for the officer, the C-L made a point of noting that Herrington, according to Chief Street, "has never received any complaints of …

Here's an interesting factoid for those of you discussing the Civil War and slavery about Hinds County, which contains Jackson, the capital, of course. It's from this link, where you can also link to a number of other Mississippi counties and see the numbers of slaves that some of the larger slave holders of the time owned. This was the scenario when "firewater" Gov. John Pettus led the secession of Mississippi from here in Jackson over slavery:

According to U.S. Census data, the 1860 Hinds County population included 8,940 whites, 36 "free colored" and 22,363 slaves. By the 1870 census, the white population had increased 10% to 9,829, and the "colored" population had dropped about 8% to 20,659. (As a side note, by 1960, 100 years later, the County was listed as having 112,205 whites, more than a twelve fold increase, but the 1960 total of 94,750 "Negroes"was only about four times what the colored population had been 100 years before.)

It's tough history, but important.

Here's a list of resources to help research who owned slaves, how many, etc.

Marriage—it's what brings us together.

That is, unless you live in Yazoo County and were planning on having a justice court judge officiate your ceremony.

Earlier this week, Judges Pam May and Bennie Warrington sent a letter to the board of supervisors saying they wanted to opt out of having to perform marriage ceremonies.

In a WJTV news report, Yazoo Supervisor Caleb Rivers presumed the letter was spurred by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex marriages across the country. Rivers said the board voted unanimously to let the judges stop doing any marriages at all.

It was only a matter of time. Not long after the SCOTUS at the end of June, state Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, suggested that the state get out of the business of marriage licenses. Up in Grenada County, a circuit clerk who was retiring anyway bowed out a few months early because she didn't want to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

"I believe you can do whatever you want to do in the privacy of your own home but as for Yazoo County we're just not going to allow it," Rivers, the supervisor, told WJTV's reporter.

Love birds looking to tie the knot in Yazoo County needn't fret, though.

Robert Coleman, the circuit clerk there, confirmed to the JFP that his office will still be issuing marriage licenses.

It'll just be up to couples to find someone—other than justice court judges—willing to perform the marriages.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2015/jul/10/22081/

In an occasional blog series I'm inaugurating here, I'd like to pull forward some debate that's happening in the comments and examine a variety of the myths and legends that surround the South's participation in the civil war.

From the comments section came this one from Claude Shannon:

The war was fought over money and power. In 1860, 80% of all federal taxes were paid for by the south. 95% of that money was spent on improving the north.

Now I'm not a history scholar, but I do get curious when things just kinda sound wrong.

First... even if we assume that's true (which, as you'll see later, I can't) I think the construct is disingenuous, as it suggests that "the South" had very little say in the matter and no recourse but secession given the rapacious chokehold that the North apparently had on the South in terms of political power and usurious taxation.

It's a dramatic picture, but there are a few caveats:

1.) Democrats (the party that included most all Southern politicians) controlled Congress leading up to the Civil War (they lost the House in 1859) and had a Democratic president in the "doughface" Buchanan. (The term being one that suggests a Northern with Southern sympathies.)

2.) The Tariff of 1857 was authored and supported by Southern legislators (the primary author was Virginia Senator Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, who would later be pictured on the Confederate $10 bill) and it lowered tariffs to a level they hadn't hit in 50 years.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2015/jul/10/22076/

Remember that through most of 1800-1860 there was no income tax on individuals and businesses or other taxes (sales, property) as we define them today -- Federal taxes were almost exclusively tariffs on imports. (The Nullification Crisis had come when tariffs were considerably higher in order to pay down debts from the War of 1812.)

So, "taxes" were considerably lower leading up to the war.

But then... if there's evidence that "The South" paid "80 percent" of those tariffs they'd managed to lower, I can't find it.

As noted here, about 63% of Federal revenue was collected as tariffs on shipments that went through just the Port of New York alone. And those tariffs were collected from the merchants who imported them.

Aside from New York, there were certainly other ports in the North; so an argument that "The South" paid 80% of tariffs -- e.g. that 80% of imported and taxed goods went through Southern ports where the taxes were paid by Southern importers -- isn't correct.

(The tariffs were also protectionist in nature, and likely benefitted both the North and South as they made locally produced goods more attractive.)

If there's a more esoteric argument that says somehow the South ultimately bought 80% of those goods and therefore experienced the markup that came from them being taxes, I haven't seen it, but it would be interesting to read and parse.

One other point to make on tariffs -- the Southern states …

We don't get to say we're number one in many good things, but here's a nice one... according to The Tax Foundation, $100 in Mississippi is worth the most of any state in the country (an equivalent of $115.21).

If there's anything we've known about Jackson for a while, is it's a pretty decent place to be "broke" (by which we mean college-student-level broke, not impoverished).

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2015/jul/08/22059/