‘Shut it down,’ protesters chant about Mississippi prison
Associated Press— Protesters outside the Mississippi Capitol on Friday condemned conditions in state prisons where inmates have died violently in the past month. “Parchman is a prison farm plantation,” said Jaribu Hill, a longtime Mississippi human-rights attorney. During the rally Friday, Sharon Brown with the Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition said that without the inmates’ cellphones, the world might not know about conditions in Parchman. “We are here to uplift the cries of our brothers.” The state’s new Republican governor, Tate Reeves, traveled to Parchman this week and described conditions there as “terrible.” At a news conference Thursday, Reeves said the state is taking immediate steps to try to make Parchman safer. Team Roc provided T-shirts and signs with the slogan, “Close Parchman.” Speaking from the stage Friday, Arica Jackson said her husband is in Parchman’s Unit 29, where some of the violence has occurred.