One of my former history professors, Dennis Mitchell, recently released a history book entitled, A New History of Mississippi. "Mississippi," he says, "is a place and a state of mind. The name evokes strong reactions from those who live here and from those who do not, but who think they know something about its people and their past." Because of its past, as described by Anthony Walton in his book, Mississippi: An American Journey, Mississippi "can be considered one of the most prominent scars on the map" of these United States. Walton goes on to explain that "there is something different about Mississippi; something almost unspeakably primal and vicious; something savage unleashed there that has yet to come to rest. In the summer of 1964, nearly 1,000 college students from across the country traveled to Mississippi to carry out a dangerous mission. For 10 harrowing weeks over what came to be known as Mississippi Freedom Summer, they worked to help African American citizens exercise their Constitutional right to vote. The mission was a direct challenge to centuries of white supremacist rule, and the response was predictably hostile. The young activists were subjected to verbal and physical assaults by enraged racists, and imprisonment by complicit law enforcement authorities. Three young men -- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner -- were kidnapped and murdered. Sources have confirmed that attorney Mark Mayfield has died of an apparent suicide. Mayfield, vice chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party, and is one of the three men charged with conspiring with Clayton Kelly to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran. Mark Mayfield, a Mississippi tea party leader and lawyer facing charges in connection with taking photos of Sen. Thad Cochran’s wife at her nursing home apparently committed suicide Friday morning. Police said that Mayfield’s wife, Robin, called 911 just after 9 a.m. to say her husband had shot himself. Veteran U.S. Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi narrowly defeated challenger Chris McDaniel on Tuesday in a high-profile runoff election that pitted the Republican party's old guard against its anti-establishment Tea Party movement. A Mississippi sheriff's department is investigating why three people, including a tea party officer and two others representing the challenger in a Senate primary, were found locked in the Hinds County Courthouse in Jackson, Miss., hours after election officials had closed the building and gone home from counting votes early Wednesday morning. The top staffer for state Sen. Chris McDaniel's (R-MS) campaign who was part of the trio of McDaniel supporters that went to the Hinds County courthouse on election night wrote earlier in the night that the election would come down to Hinds County. A Mississippi tea party official with close ties to U.S. Senate candidate Chris McDaniel apparently ended up inside a locked and empty county courthouse late Tuesday night after primary election results had come in. Hinds County Republican executive chairman Pete Perry told TPM that he received a phone call around 2:00 a.m. CT on Wednesday from Janis Lane, president of the Central Mississippi Tea Party, who said she was locked inside the Hinds County courthouse. That would be where the circuit clerk and election commission offices, and the primary election ballots, are located.
Videos on Mississippi |  | Mon Jun 02, 2014
CNN's Dana Bash recaps what could be this year's nastiest primary race before voters head... |
|  | Tue May 27, 2014
New political ads in Mississippi turn up the heat in an already fiery Republican Senate p... |
|  | Wed May 21, 2014
The man accused of taking pictures of Senator Thad Cochran's wife is facing new-charges t... |
|  | Mon May 19, 2014
"A Mississippi political blogger has been arrested for allegedly sneaking into the nursin... |
|  | Sat Nov 16, 2013
AJ McCarron passed for 187 yards and two touchdowns to lead Alabama to a 20-7 road win ov... |
|  | Fri May 03, 2013
The go-to YouTube version cuts off right at the end - here is the "entire" recording, whi... |
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