In Jackson, white representatives of the Mississippi House voted to create a separate court system and expanded police force which would be appointed completely by white state officials.
Representatives passed House Bill 1020 in a 76-38 vote. Seventy-four of the chamber’s white legislators voted in favor of the bill while just two voted against it; among Black lawmakers, 36 voted against it and just two —Rep. Cedric Burnett, a Democrat from Tunica, and Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia — voted for the measure.
State Representative Trey Lamar, the bill’s sponsor and representative of the Lafayette and Tate Counties, says the bill is an effort to tackle the city’s high crime rate.
“I like to come to Jackson because it’s the Capital City, and so do my constituents back home,” Lamar said via WLBT. “Whether they be black, white, yellow, brown, it doesn’t matter. When they come to the Capital City of Jackson, they want and expect to fill safe and avoid carjackings and other types of crime. All I’m interested in is helping the Capital City of the state of Mississippi safer, that’s it.”
If House Bill 1020 becomes law, the white chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court will appoint two judges to head a new district within the city. White officials currently hold all four positions despite Mississippi having one of the nation’s largest populations of Black residents at 80%, with approximately 25% of residents living in poverty. No Black official has held any of the above positions.
Several civil rights groups have condemned the contentious bill.
“This extreme government overreach is yet another attempt by self-interested leaders to dilute Black and Brown voices, proposing a profoundly serious threat to democracy and weakening the electoral power of all Mississippians,” Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mississippi State Office Director Waikinya Clanton said in a statement. “The passage of HB 1020 targets the city of Jackson, infringing on the civil liberties of Jacksonians and opening the door for the Legislature to expand its government overreach into other municipalities as they so choose.”
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, a Democrat, professed the legislation “reminds me of apartheid.”
“This is probably the most oppressive legislation that I have seen in my history here in the state of Mississippi,” Lumumba told WLBT. “I do want to commend those of the Hinds County delegation, those in the Black Caucus who have held the fight all day and stayed here for hours, making certain that they made clear what was going on here. For the other legislators, I was surprised they came half-dressed because they forgot to wear their hoods.”
Rep. Edward Blackmon vehemently rebuked the bill.
“Only in Mississippi would we have a bill like this, with our history, where you say solving the problem is taking the vote away from Black people because we don’t know how to choose our leaders. That’s the problem. And the Trojan Horse that has been brought forward in this bill is called crime,” Blackmon said. “I’m old enough to know and understand that the right to vote has not always been ours, and perhaps I’m a little more sensitive to the idea that that vote can be taken away.”
House Bill 1020 now heads to the Senate.
