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Timothy Norris, a licensed mental health counselor and owner of Mom's Dream Kitchen in Jackson, Miss., speaks during an interview Feb. 14, 2023. Random gunfire, repeated break-ins and an unreliable city water system are constant challenges for the soul food restaurant his mother opened 35 years ago in Mississippi's capital city. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Maati Jone Primm, owner of Marshall's Music & Bookstore in downtown Jackson, Miss., speaks about how proposals by the majority-white Mississippi Legislature would affect governance of the state's majority-Black capital city, Feb. 13, 2023. “It’s a land grab. It’s a resource grab," Primm said. "It’s a way to disempower Jackson and its citizens, for its citizens not to have a say.” (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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FILE - More than 200 people gather on the steps of the Mississippi Capitol on Jan. 31, 2023, to protest against a bill that would expand the patrol territory for the state-run Capitol Police within the majority-Black city of Jackson and create a new court system with appointed rather than elected judges. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

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FILE - Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, center, speaks during his State of the State address on the steps of the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Monday, Jan. 30, 2023. The capital city has had Black mayors since 1997. Reeves has campaigned in the past on withholding state financial support the city requested. During the 2022 water crisis, Reeves said in another city that it was “as always, a great day to not be in Jackson.” (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

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Officers from the state-run Capitol Police and the city-run Jackson Police Department stand watch outside a Jackson, Miss., church where a community meeting was held to addresses youth crime issues Feb. 14, 2023. At the meeting, the audience also heard about the role of both police departments in Mississippi's majority-Black capital city. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Mississippi state Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, left, hands out information about a Capital Complex Improvement District expansion bill during a Feb. 14, 2023, meeting at a church in Jackson, Miss. Blount and other Jackson and Hinds County officials oppose the bill that could create a court system with appointed rather than elected judges in Mississippi's capital city. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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A large crowd attends a meeting to listen to Jackson, Hinds County and Mississippi law enforcement officials, a local judge and the superintendent of the city schools speak about efforts to reduce youth crime and violence, Feb. 14, 2023, in Jackson, Miss. The audience also heard about the involvement of the state-run Capitol Police in the majority-Black city. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, left, confers with Jackson Police Chief James Davis during a town hall meeting to address youth crime issues in Jackson, Miss., Feb. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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FILE - Mikara Stewart, 5, looks around a voting privacy kiosk while her grandmother, Doris Thomas, obscured, votes in Precinct 36 after standing in line for almost two hours in Jackson, Miss., on Nov. 3, 2020. In the wake of the proposed House Bill 1020, Black lawmakers say creating courts with appointed judges would strip away voting rights in a state where older generations of Black people still remember the struggle for equal access to the ballot. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

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Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba watches on Feb. 7, 2023, at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., as lawmakers debate a bill that would expand the patrol territory for the state-run Capitol Police and create a court system with appointed rather than elected judges. People in Mississippi's majority-Black capital city say the mostly white state Legislature is trying to encroach on their rights of self-government. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Timothy Norris, a licensed mental health counselor and owner of Mom's Dream Kitchen in Jackson, Miss., right, speaks with restaurant customer Keith Bradford on Feb. 14, 2023. Norris is concerned that proposals by the Mississippi Legislature, which is majority-white, would infringe on self-governance in the state's majority-Black capital city of Jackson. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Kelly Crim, playing with her 15-month old son Liam in northeast Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 13, 2023, said she supports expanding the territory for Capitol Police into the part of Mississippi's capital city where she and her family live, but was unaware of a proposal to create a new court with appointed rather than elected judges. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Dan Piersol, a retired art museum curator who lives in a neighborhood that would be patrolled by the state-run Capitol Police in Jackson, Miss., said Feb. 13, 2023, that he objects to a wider jurisdiction for the Capitol Police and to the creation of a court with appointed rather than elected judges. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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A motorist drives through a neighborhood that could someday be patrolled by the state-run Capitol Police in Jackson, Miss., Feb. 21, 2023. A proposal being considered by the majority-white Mississippi Legislature would expand the patrol territory for Capitol Police within the majority-Black capital city of Jackson, but many residents and officials say this would infringe on the rights of local people to run their own government. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Traffic from Jackson, Miss., crosses over the Pearl River, one of the proposed boundaries for the enlarged Capital Complex Improvement District, Feb. 14, 2023. A bill being considered by the majority-white Mississippi Legislature would expand the patrol territory for the state-run Capitol Police within the majority-Black city and would create a court system with appointed rather than elected judges. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Recent vandalization of Mom's Dream Kitchen in Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 14, 2023, causes concern to the restaurant's owner, Timothy Norris, who is also a licensed professional counselor. Norris said the neighborhood around the restaurant has become less safe, but he is also concerned that proposed legislation by a majority-white Mississippi Legislature would limit self-governance in the majority-Black city. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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FILE - Charles McCaskill, 68, calls out his thanks to members of the Mississippi Students Water Crisis Advocacy team who delivered two cases of water to his south Jackson, Miss., home, on Sept . 7, 2022. Jackson residents have a longstanding distrust of the water system because of frequent notices that the water must be boiled to kill contaminants before it’s safe to drink. During crises in August and September and again in December, many people waited in long lines for bottled water. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

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FILE - Mississippi House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, speaks in the Mississippi House chamber in Jackson, Miss., Nov. 2, 2022. Lamar is the sponsor of a 2023 bill that would expand the patrol territory for the state-run Capitol Police within the majority-Black city of Jackson and would create courts with appointed rather than elected judges. Lamar is an attorney from a rural town more than 170 miles (275 kilometers) north of Jackson. He says the proposals are aimed at making Mississippi's capital safer and reducing a backlog in the judicial system, and have “zero racial intent whatsoever.” (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

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The Rev. CJ Rhodes of Mt. Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss., says Feb. 14, 2023, that many people in the predominantly Black congregation strongly object to expanding territory of the state-run Capitol Police inside the city of Jackson and creating courts with appointed rather than elected judges. "They feel — viscerally feel — like this is taking us back to the 1950s and 1960s,” said Rhodes, who is the son of a civil rights attorney. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Members of the Capitol Police confer at the Mississippi State Fairgrounds in Jackson, Feb. 13, 2023. The majority-white Mississippi Legislature is considering a bill that would expand the patrol territory for the state-run police department within the majority-Black city of Jackson. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Black Mississippi capital distrusts plans by white officials

By Associated Press AP

PUBLISHED 11:06 AM ET Feb. 26, 2023 PUBLISHED February 26, 2023 @11:06 AM

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Random gunfire, repeated break-ins and a decaying city water system are constant challenges at Mom's Dream Kitchen, the soul food restaurant Timothy Norris' mother opened 35 years ago in Mississippi's capital.

“I have some cousins that live in Ohio,” said Norris, who has spent most of his 54 years in Jackson and now owns the restaurant. “They came last year. They hadn’t been here in 22 years. They were completely shocked at Jackson."

Citing rising crime, Mississippi's Republican-controlled House recently passed a bill that would expand areas of Jackson patrolled by a state-run Capitol Police force and create a new court system with appointed rather than elected judges. Both would give white state government officials more power over Jackson, which has the highest percentage of Black residents of any major U.S. city.

The state Senate has also passed a bill to establish a regional governing board for Jackson's long-troubled water system, with most members appointed by state officials. The system nearly collapsed last year and is now under control of a federally-appointed manager.

The proposals for state control have angered Jackson residents who don’t want their voices diminished in local government, and are the latest example of the long-running tensions between the Republican-run state government and the Democratic-run capital city.

“It’s really a stripping of power, and it’s happening in a predominantly Black city that has predominantly Black leadership,” said Sonya Williams-Barnes, a Democratic former state lawmaker who is now Mississippi policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. “You don’t see this going on in other areas of the state where they’re run by majority white people.”

Norris notes state government officials have long been unwilling to help Jackson with the water system and other problems.

“We had to go through all this by ourselves. Solo," he said. "Now, all of the sudden you want to come and take it and say, ‘OK, well, we’re going to take over.’ You know, treating us like kids. We’re not kids.”

Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the proposal for courts with appointed judges reeks of apartheid and “plantation politics.”

“If we allow this type of legislation to stand in Jackson, Mississippi, it’s a matter of time before it will hit New Orleans, it’s a matter of time before it hits Detroit, or wherever we find our people,” Lumumba said.

The sponsor of the expanded police and court bill, Republican Rep. Trey Lamar, from a rural town more than 170 miles (275 kilometers) north of Jackson, said it’s aimed at making Mississippi’s capital safer and at reducing a backlog in the judicial system.

"I can assure you that the bill has zero racial intent whatsoever,” said Lamar, who is white, in response to arguments that courts with appointed judges would disenfranchise Jackson voters. “There is nothing racial about the bill on its face, and there is no intent for the effect to be racial.”

Still, Black lawmakers say creating courts with appointed judges would strip away voting rights in a state where older generations of Black people still remember the struggle for equal access to the ballot.

Judges for the proposed new courts would not be required to live in Jackson or even the county where it’s located. They would be appointed by the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court — a position currently held by a white conservative man from outside Jackson.

About 83% of Jackson’s nearly 154,000 residents are Black, and some 25% live in poverty. The pace of white flight accelerated in the 1980s, about a decade after public schools integrated. Many middle-class and wealthy Black families have also left the city. The potholes marring its streets are a jarring reminder of the struggle to maintain aging infrastructure.

Mississippi's current Republican governor, Tate Reeves, campaigned on withholding state financial support the city requested. During last year's water crisis, Reeves, speaking elsewhere, said, it was “as always, a great day to not be in Jackson.”

Jackson residents have a longstanding distrust of the water system because of frequent warnings that the water must be boiled to kill contaminants before it’s safe to drink. During crises in August and September and again in December, people waited in long lines for bottled water.

Still, opponents of a regional water board note that state officials sought a role only after the federal government approved hundreds of millions of dollars for the troubled system.

The Capitol Police are intended to supplement rather than replace the short-staffed Jackson Police Department. The state-run force has in the past year been involved in several violent incidents, including the shooting death of a Black man during a traffic stop and a crash that killed another Black man during a police chase.

At Mt. Helm Baptist Church, near the Mississippi Capitol building, the Rev. CJ Rhodes said many people in his predominantly Black congregation strongly object to expanding Capitol Police territory and creating courts with appointed judges.

"They feel — viscerally feel — like this is taking us back to the 1950s and 1960s,” said Rhodes, who is the son of a civil rights attorney.

People pushing the legislation failed to consult with most Jackson lawmakers or Jackson residents, the pastor said.

“It feels like this sort of white paternalism: ‘We’re going to come in and do what we need to do, citizens of Jackson be damned,’” Rhodes said.

Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music & Bookstore in a once-thriving and now struggling Black business district in downtown Jackson, said she’s not surprised by the majority-white Legislature’s attempts to control Jackson.

“It’s a land grab. It’s a resource grab. It’s a way to disempower Jackson and its citizens, for its citizens not to have a say,” said Primm, whose storefront window displays a handwritten sign: “Jim Crow Must Go” — a phrase on T-shirts that Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers had in his car the night a white supremacist assassinated him in Jackson in 1963.

Primm said legislators’ proposals — especially for appointed judges — are problematic.

"You know, it should reek of unconstitutionality, but here in Mississippi, it’s just the same old song,” she said.

The Capitol Police currently patrol state government buildings in and near downtown. The House bill would expand the territory to cover the city's more affluent shopping and residential areas, and several neighborhoods that are predominantly white.

Critics say it's an effort to create a city within the city, diluting Black voices and providing extra police coverage for areas that already have lower crime rates than other parts of Jackson.

The House and Senate have exchanged the bills for more debate. On Thursday, a Senate committee suggested having Capitol Police patrol the entire city.

Jackson is not the first case of a majority-Black city having local authority stripped away by state government. That happened in Flint, Michigan, when an emergency manager appointed by then-Republican Gov. Rick Snyder made the cost-cutting decision to switch the city's water supply to the Flint River in 2014. The water wasn’t treated to reduce corrosion from old pipes, causing lead contamination. The disaster was greatly compounded by indifference by state environmental regulators, despite widespread complaints about water quality.

In Jackson, some white residents also object to a wider territory for the Capitol Police and new courts with appointed judges.

“It’s ridiculous. I think judges should be elected officials,” said Dan Piersol, a retired art museum curator who lives in a neighborhood that would be patrolled by Capitol Police and in the new court district.

Kelly Crim said she was unaware of the new courts proposal but supports expanding Capitol Police patrols into northeast Jackson where she lives with her husband and 15-month-old son.

She said she was pleased the Capitol Police had a more visible presence at the Mississippi State Fair last fall, after fights occurred there in the past.

“I know people that ... because they knew the Capitol Police were there, felt more comfortable going with kids or at night," she said.

Mom's Kitchen, located in the once-safe neighborhood where Norris grew up, is a casual place serving baked chicken, turnip greens and candied sweet potatoes. The dining room has a broken window with cardboard taped over it, a vestige of earlier vandalism.

Norris said he often feels unsafe working in the area. A few months ago, he said, he and some employees were looking outside when “a guy just rolled by ... shooting in the air.”

“It scared me,” said Norris, who is also a licensed therapist specializing in helping young Black men, including those traumatized by violence.

He said some of his patients have had violent encounters with law enforcement officers. Norris said he would like to see a more effective police presence in Jackson, but he is concerned the Capitol Police are not the answer.

“Policemen should be building a relationship with the community,” Norris said.

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Associated Press writers Gary Fields in Washington and Ed White in Detroit contributed.

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Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.