In Mississippi, ‘Looking for America’ examines Black voting rights
By Wong Maye-E, Noreen Nasir and Tim Sullivan
In the third piece of AP’s “Looking For America” road trip series, New York enterprise photographer Maye-E Wong, Chicago video journalist Noreen Nasir and Minneapolis-based enterprise reporter Tim Sullivan looked at the circumstances faced by Mississippi’s Black voters.
Rev. Charles Johnson, 82, speaks during an interview with the AP at a church where he’s been a pastor for more than 60 years, in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 5, 2020. The veteran activist for civil rights was sure the struggle would be over by now. He’d fought so hard back in the ’60s. He’d seen the wreckage of burned churches, and the injuries of people who had been beaten. He’d seen men in white hoods. At its worst, he’d mourned three young men who were fighting for Black Mississippians to gain the right to vote, and who were kidnapped and executed on a country road just north of here. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
During an interview in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 5, 2020, Rev. Charles Johnson, 82, points to a photo of a gathering after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The veteran civil rights activist worries that Mississippi is drifting into its past. “I would never have thought we’d be where we’re at now, with Blacks still fighting for the vote,” said Johnson. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Miss., is pictured at dusk, Oct. 4, 2020. In the summer of 1964 the church was burned down and its parishioners beaten by a group of Klansmen. Civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman visited the church to meet with witnesses of the KKK attack. After the trio left they were kidnapped and driven to a narrow country road where they were shot at close range. Their bodies were found in an earthen dam 44 days later. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
A vehicle travels down a road near Mt. Zion United Methodist Church at dusk in Philadelphia, Miss., Oct. 4, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
People sit in a bar decorated with an American flag and confederate flags before noon in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 7, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
A family sits on their front porch, seen through a vehicle in Meridian Miss., Oct. 5, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Gregory Blanchard, 53, a carpenter and painter, relaxes on the front porch of friend Tommy McCoy’s home in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 6, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
From left, Gregory Blanchard, 53, Clyde Lewis, 59, Tommy McCoy, 48, and Anthony Boggan, 49, pose for a group portrait on McCoy’s front porch in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 6, 2020. Distrust of the government runs deep in Mississippi’s Black community, where harsh voter suppression tactics – voting fees, tests on the state constitution, even guessing the number of beans in a jar – kept all but about 6% of Black residents from voting into the 1960s. Boggan sometimes votes, but is sitting it out this year, disgusted at the choices. “They’re all going to tell you the same thing,” he said. “Anything to get elected.” – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Kim Houston, president of the Meridian City Council, pauses between questions during an interview in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 3, 2020. Houston said that among voters in Mississippi, “There’s this mindset that voting doesn’t matter, that nothing is going to change, that the election system is rigged.” – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Davonta Oliver, 18, exercises by boxing outside his home in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 7, 2020. Oliver, who decided not to vote, says that he believes in voting but it “sounds too good to be true.” He worries that people in power have simply rigged the system to ensure his vote won’t count. He worries that the candidates are simply echoes of one another, and that power ensures a spot in office whether someone deserves it or not. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Davonta Oliver, 18, poses outside his home in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 7, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Mannequins are illuminated in a shop window in Philadelphia, Miss., Oct. 4, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
A liquor store is illuminated against the dusk sky in Cleveland, Miss., Oct. 9, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Road signs showing the exits to James Chaney Drive and Philadelphia, Mississippi, are illuminated by car headlights in Meridian, Miss., Oct. 3, 2020. In the summer of 1964, Chaney and two fellow civil rights activists were kidnapped by a deputy sheriff and local Klansmen, and driven to a narrow country road and shot at close range. Their bodies, buried in an earthen dam, were found 44 days later. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Demarkio Pritchett, 29, stands with his daughter, Mariah Pritchett, 8, outside his grandmother’s home, in Meridian, Miss. , Oct. 6, 2020. Pritchett, who said he was convicted as a teenager of drug possession “and some other stuff,” can’t vote in Mississippi for the rest of his life. Anyone convicted here of one of 22 crimes, from murder to felony shoplifting has their voting rights permanently revoked. Pritchett’s only chance: getting a pardon from the governor, or convincing two-thirds of the state’s lawmakers to pass a bill written just for him. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
People wait to cross a street in Cleveland, Miss., Oct. 9, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
A house is dwarfed by a cotton field in Yazoo City, Miss., Oct. 9, 2020. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
A banner urging citizens to vote is displayed on the side of a street in Jackson Miss., Oct. 4, 2020. The opposition to Black votes in Mississippi has changed since the 1960s, but it hasn’t ended. Today, voters in Mississippi face a series of government-created barriers that make it, according to a study in the Election Law Journal in 2018, far and away the most difficult state in which to vote. – AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
The highly evocative package was framed in the context of the “Mississippi Burning” murders of three civil rights activists in 1964 – and it found that too little has changed. The AP team saw the issue through the eyes of a now-elderly activist who was close to two of the murder victims more than 50 years ago. They reported that while poll taxes and tests on the state constitution may be gone, Black voters still face obstacles such as state-mandated ID laws and the disenfranchisement tens of thousands of former prisoners.
The text,photos and video,with digital presentation by multimedia journalist Samantha Shotzbarger,perfectly captured the frustration that so many decades later,Black voters are still challenged by the state.
The work was highlighted in a long entry in Politico’s Playbook, and attracted attention in the U.S. and internationally.
