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Music
Jason Isbell: Choosing the Right Details
Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell has had a busy couple of years since he last played in Jackson in 2013.
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Person of the Day
Dr. John Hall
The American Heart Association presented Dr. John Hall of UMMC with the Award of Meritorious Achievement Wednesday, June 24.
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UN Rights Body Backs Call for Accountability in Gaza War
The U.N.'s top human rights body backed calls Friday for accountability in last year's conflict in Gaza, in which hundreds of Palestinian civilians and six Israeli civilians were killed.
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Hispanic Leaders Want GOP Field to Condemn Trump's 'Idiocy'
Hispanic leaders are bristling at the largely tepid response by Republican presidential candidates to Donald Trump's characterization of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers.
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Germany Wants Quick Clarification of New NSA Spy Allegations
Germany's foreign minister said Friday that new allegations of U.S. eavesdropping on senior German government officials' telephones need to be clarified "as quickly as possible" and that he hoped Washington …
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WikiLeaks' Assange Seeks Asylum in France; President Says No
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has failed in a bid to win asylum in France.
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Russian Parliament Votes to Adopt Controversial Privacy Law
Lawmakers in the Russian parliament on Friday voted for a bill forcing online search engines to remove search results about a specific person at that person's request.
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In 1860, 49% of White Families in Mississippi Owned Slaves, Who Outnumbered White Folks Here
By Donna LaddDuring the last couple weeks of talking about the Confederacy (and the state flag that celebrates it), we've encountered any number of historic inaccuracies in the arguments of those who don't want to change our state flag.
One of them is that (a) not many white Mississippians even owned slaves and (b) that only 6 to 10 percent of Confederate soldiers owned slaves.
Here are the problems with that argument as the chart and link before bring into full relief. As you can see in this excellent MPB documentary, many Confederates soldiers were just 17 or 18 years old. But many of the soldiers' families owned at least one or two slaves.
Based on 1860 Census results, 49 percent of Mississippi households owned slaves at the start of the Civil War, and more than half the population of our state—55 percent—were slaves. Slavery was massive here and directed affected nearly half the white families in Mississippi, including some who weren't as wealthy as the planters who owned many slaves (and who were at first exempt from fighting in the Civil War when the Confederacy instituted a draft, but that's another subject).
The chart below shows the number of slaves in all of the states that existed at the start of the Civil War.
Also, read my column this week, "Driving Old Dixie Down," for many links to historic sources about Mississippi and other Confederate states at the start of the war, including extensive evidence of why the Confederacy formed: in order to have a strong central federal government to force slaves on any new states, and to ensure that it got its runaway slaves back.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html
http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2015/jul/02/21958/
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Storify: #MSFlagDIY Re-Design from Readers
The JFP is encouraging readers to submit their own Mississippi State flag (re)designs under the has tag #MSFlagDIY -- here's what's come in so far!
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LGBT
Mississippi's Marriage Equality Fight is Over—Or is it?
"It's over." That was the message from Roberta Kaplan, the attorney who represented lesbian couples in a case to strike down Mississippi's same-sex marriage ban, to an Associated Press reporter …
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Roberta Kaplan, the lead counsel attorney for the plaintiffs in the Campaign for Southern Equality …
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State
Official: State Prisons 'Hell on Earth' for 40 Years
Since the five-member Task Force on Contracting and Procurement started meeting, the body has aired concerns about the way the agency awards contracts and general complaints about the state's prisons.
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Person of the Day
Abby Wambach
Now, at the age of 35, Abby Wambach will have one final chance to capture a World Cup title in the final of the 2015 Women's World Cup.
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Gulf States Reach $18.7B Settlement with BP Over Oil Spill
BP and five Gulf states announced a record $18.7 billion record settlement Thursday that resolves years of legal fighting over the environmental and economic damage done by the energy giant's …
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Episcopalians OK Allowing Gay Marriage in Churches
The Episcopal Church has completed its embrace of gay rights, changing church law to allow same-sex religious marriages throughout the denomination, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay …
Document
U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith's Opinion in Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant
U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith's Opinion in Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant
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AG: Fifth Circuit Clears Path for Same-Sex Marriage
Gov. Phil Bryant remains opposed to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, but he's stopping his court fight against it.
