Ellington

JACKSON — A "diverse group of elected officials, business owners and attorneys" make up Donald Trump's Mississippi Campaign Committee to help elect him president, a press release from his campaign said today. They include Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler, Chris McDaniel's attorney Mitch Tyner, Jackson attorney John Reeves and Charles Evers, the the 93-year-old brother of slain civil-rights activist Medgar Evers, and a complicated, iconoclastic figure in the pantheon of civil-rights legends known for roiling more liberal civil-rights activists with his political beliefs.

Evers, the former mayor of Fayette and a controversial civil-rights activist in the 1960s, has long identified as a Republican, famously endorsing Ronald Reagan for president, but broke ranks with the George W. Bush administration in 2003, criticizing the Iraq war in a column in the Jackson Free Press in March 2003. Trump, too, criticizes the Iraq war today, as well as blames the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Bush administration.

The release said that the committee is helping strategize the Trump campaign in the state, which holds presidential primaries Tuesday, March 8.

"Trump has the strongest grassroots campaign of any presidential candidate in Mississippi," the press release stated. "The hard-working volunteers have made calls to virtually all the primary states to date using our call centers located in Hinds, Lincoln, Adams and Desoto Counties."

The full committee is:

Mitch Tyner, Jackson attorney, formerly with Chris McDaniel campaign for Senate

Bernard Reed, Brookhaven, owner of Reed's Metals

Jon Reynolds, Pascagoula, president of Charter Financial Services

Don Halle, Gulfport, certified professional builder

Mary Hawkins Butler, Madison, mayor

John Reeves, Jackson, attorney

Kendal Prewett, Southaven, owner of B&P Enterprises Inc.

Charles Porter, Brandon, partner in GuidePoint

Charles Evers, Jackson, former mayor of Fayette and civil rights activist

Trump is holding a campaign rally at Madison Central on Monday at 7 p.m.

To read about Charles Evers meeting Bob Dylan in downtown Jackson, see Mr. Dylan, Mr. Evers.