Chokwe Lumumba | |
---|---|
53rd Mayor of Jackson | |
Assumed office July 3, 2017 | |
Preceded by | Tony Yarber |
Personal details | |
Born | March 29,1983 |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Ebony Lumumba |
Children | 2 |
Relatives | Chokwe Lumumba (father) |
Education | Tuskegee University (BA) Texas Southern University (JD) |
Chokwe Antar Lumumba (born March 29,1983) is an American attorney,activist,and politician serving as the 53rd mayor [1] of Jackson,Mississippi, [2] the 7th consecutive African-American to hold the position. In 2024,Lumumba and other officials in the state were indicted on corruption charges. [3]
He was first elected in 2017. In the primary election,Lumumba soundly [4] won the Democratic nomination,defeating both incumbent mayor Tony Yarber and State Senator John Horhn. [5] Lumumba went on to win the general election in a landslide. He is a self-described progressive and socialist. [6] [7] Lumumba has also referred to himself as a political revolutionary. [8]
He is the son of former mayor and Black nationalist activist Chokwe Lumumba,who served briefly as mayor of Jackson before his death in 2014. [9]
Lumumba was elected mayor in June 2017 with 93% of the vote. The Nation commented that "Lumumba lit up the left press with his promise—delivered later that month in a speech at the People's Summit in Chicago—to make Jackson 'the most radical city on the planet.'"[ citation needed ]
In summer 2018,Lumumba attended Michael Bloomberg's "Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative." [10] [11] The City of Jackson noted that the Initiative was created by Bloomberg to train leaders to "manage the complexities of running a city,and to have opportunities to learn from one another." Four months later,in November 2018,Bloomberg gave the City of Jackson $1 million to create art spotlighting food insecurity. [12] Lumumba won reelection in 2021 with almost seventy percent of the vote.
In April 2018,when the Jackson Zoo announced plans to consider moving from its current West Jackson location,Lumumba joined Working Together Jackson,the Zoo Area Progressive Partnership,Rosemont Missionary Baptist Church and other community groups,in an effort to prevent the zoo from moving. He described the proposed plan as disingenuous and disrespectful. [13] A city investigation discovered that the Jackson Zoological Society had mismanaged funds and failed to pay $6 million in water bills. [14]
Lumumba took direct control of the zoo and approved $200,000 to renovate it. [15] The zoo reopened in August 2020 under city control. [16]
In 2019,over 3 billion U.S. gallons (11 gigaliters) of raw sewage was released into the Pearl River,leading to the local government telling residents to avoid contact with the water by swimming or fishing.
In 2020,following a record-breaking amount of rain during the early months of the year,the city's sewage system once again overflowed and led to 1⁄2 billion U.S. gallons (1.9 gigaliters) of raw sewage, as well as 5.7 billion U.S. gallons (22 gigaliters) of treated sewage, being dumped into the Pearl River. [17]
In March 2021, Lumumba wrote to Mississippi state governor Tate Reeves requesting $47M in aid [17] needed to make the urgently needed repairs and updates to the water infrastructure system in Jackson.
In August 2022, Lumumba declared a water system emergency following the failure of the largest water treatment plant in Jackson. The crisis was caused by decades of mishandled and out-of-date water and waste infrastructure that led to at least 2,300 U.S. gallons (8,700 liters) of sewage overflowing into the Pearl River. Overflowing water from the Ross Barnett Reservoir and the Pearl River caused the water treatment plant in Jackson to completely fail. With the system down, many of the 153,000 residents of Jackson were left without clean drinking water, or with poor water pressure. [17]
On January 6, 2023, Lumumba announced that they had secured the funding needed to begin repairing and reconstructing the water systems in Jackson. [18] Nearly $800 million in funding was pulled from the $1.7 trillion federal omnibus bill that was passed back in late 2022. The EPA would work closely with the mayor and officials of Jackson to handle the funding and project.
In February 2020, Lumumba endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. [19] Bernie Sanders likewise endorsed Lumumba for reelection in 2021. [20] July 29, 2021, it was announced via Nina Turner's social media that Mayor Lumumba had endorsed her in Ohio's 11th Congressional District 2021 Special Election, the seat which was left empty when representative Marcia Fudge was selected by President Joe Biden for HUD Secretary. The race garnered nationwide attention as it split the Democratic Party between its progressive and moderate wings. [21] Turner was defeated by Shontel Brown in the election.
On November 5, 2024, Mayor Lumumba announced in a video statement shared with reporters that he had been indicted by a federal grand jury "on bribery and related charges" but denied all wrongdoing. [22]
Lumumba has two children with his wife, Ebony. [23] His wife is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Speech Communication at Jackson State University, a position she has held since 2020, only two years after receiving her doctoral degree. [24]
On the 7th of November 2024 Lumumba was indicted for bribery by the U.S Department of Justice. [25]
Lumumba are accused of accepting bribes in exchange for favors benefiting alleged real estate developers, according to the Justice Department. The department stated that such corruption undermines public trust, and it is committed to prosecuting these abuses. [26]
Jackson is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Along with Raymond, Jackson is one of two county seats for Hinds County. The city had a population of 153,701 at the 2020 census, a significant decline from 173,514, or 11.42%, since the 2010 census, representing the largest decline in population during the decade of any major U.S. city. Jackson is the anchor for the Jackson metropolitan statistical area, the largest metropolitan area located entirely in the state and the tenth-largest urban area in the Deep South. With a 2020 population of nearly 600,000, metropolitan Jackson is home to over one-fifth of Mississippi's population. The city sits on the Pearl River and is located in the greater Jackson Prairie region of Mississippi. Jackson is the only city in Mississippi with a population exceeding 100,000 people.
The Jackson State killings occurred on May 15, 1970, at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi. On May 14, 1970, city and state police confronted a group of students outside a campus dormitory. Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve. The event happened 11 days after the Kent State shootings, in which National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio during a protest against the Vietnam War. The Kent State event had first captured national attention.
Harvey Johnson Jr., is an American politician from Mississippi. He was elected in 1997 as the first African American Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, serving two terms. He was known for his achievements in gaining reinvestment in the city to revitalize downtown.
The Jackson Police Department (JPD) provides law enforcement to approximately 175,000 residents within the 120-square-mile (310 km2) Hinds County portion of Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It was reported that JPD had 335 sworn offices in 2019, and 225 in 2023.
Chokwe Lumumba Sr. was an American attorney, activist, and politician, who was affiliated with the black separatist organization Republic of New Afrika and served as its second vice president. He served as a human rights lawyer in Michigan and Mississippi. In 2013, after serving on the City Council, he was elected as Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.
Tony Yarber is an American pastor, educator and politician in Jackson, Mississippi. He was elected as Mayor of Jackson in April 2014 from special election following the death in office of Chokwe Lumumba. A native of Jackson and experienced city councilor, Yarber is noted for his passion for youth causes, and has been described as "a consensus builder". He was succeeded as Mayor of Jackson by his predecessor's son Chokwe Antar Lumumba on July 3, 2017.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) is a free-market, conservative think tank located in Jackson, Mississippi. The organization's stated mission is "To advance the constitutional ideals of liberty and justice for all Mississippians by employing an evidenced-based approach to public policy whereby we advocate for and advance real conservative ideas with policy makers, members of the media, business leaders, the academic community, and private citizens."
The 2017 mayoral election in Jackson, Mississippi took place on June 6, 2017, alongside other Jackson municipal races. Chokwe Antar Lumumba, son of late former mayor Chokwe Lumumba, was elected mayor in a landslide in the general election after defeating eight other candidates, including incumbent mayor Tony Yarber, in the primary.
The People's Summit was an annual conference in Chicago held by a group of progressive political organizations in the United States.
The 2014 mayoral election in Jackson, Mississippi took place on April 22, 2014. It was necessitated after the death of incumbent mayor Chokwe Lumumba. Councilman Tony Yarber defeated the late Lumumba's son Chokwe Antar Lumumba in a runoff. Other candidates in the race included former mayor Harvey Johnson, Jr., city council members Melvin Priester and Margaret Barrett-Simon, and state senator John Horhn.
The 2018 Louisville mayoral election was the fifth quadrennial Louisville Metro mayoral election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. The Democratic ticket of incumbent mayor and businessman Greg Fischer was elected to his third and final term. He defeated the Republican ticket of engineer and former Louisville Metro Councilwoman Angela Leet.
This is a list of protests related to the murder of George Floyd in Mississippi, United States.
On January 13, 2019, George Robinson, a 62-year-old Black man, died two days after a violent arrest by three Black police officers in Jackson, Mississippi. According to a grand jury indictment, the officers pulled Robinson out of a car, threw him headfirst into the pavement, and struck and kicked him multiple times in the head and chest. Robinson was treated at the scene but within hours lost consciousness and later died at a hospital. The state coroner ruled the death a homicide.
The 2021 mayoral election in Jackson, Mississippi took place on June 8, 2021, alongside other Jackson municipal races. Primary elections took place on April 6, and the primary runoff was scheduled on April 27. Incumbent mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba was re-elected to a second term in office with 69.1% of the vote.
Jackson/Hinds Library System (JHLS) is the public library system of Jackson and Hinds County in Mississippi.
Charles Tillman is an American politician who served on the Jackson, Mississippi City council for twelve years and as acting mayor after the death of Chokwe Lumumba, becoming the 5th consecutive African-American mayor of the city.
A public health crisis in and around the city of Jackson, Mississippi, began in late August 2022 after the Pearl River flooded due to severe storms in the state. The flooding caused the O. B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, the city's largest water treatment facility, which was already running on backup pumps due to failures the month prior, to stop the treatment of drinking water indefinitely. This resulted in approximately 150,000 residents of the city being left without access to safe drinking water. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves issued a state of emergency and United States President Joe Biden declared a federal disaster to trigger federal aid. Reeves withdrew the state of emergency on November 22. The crisis triggered a political debate regarding racial discrimination, infrastructure neglect, and shifting local demographics.
The 2025 mayoral election in Jackson, Mississippi will take place on June 3, 2025, alongside other Jackson municipal races. Primary elections will take place on May 6. Incumbent Democratic mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba is eligible to run for re-election to a third term in office.